Obama camp in panic as ‘Xena’ Sarah Palin scythes through support

From The Sunday Times

September 14, 2008

Palinmania has washed away the Democrat’s lead in key states

Sarah Baxter, Washington

THE high-heeled, moose-hunting governor of Alaska has sent Barack Obama’s campaign into a state of panic as support for the Democratic presidential candidate haemorrhages in the battleground states he must win to reach the White House.
Sarah Palin, 44, continued to scythe through Obama’s support among women by taunting the first potential black president for declining to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate and by declaring that questions about juggling work and family were “kind of irrelevant” in the modern age.

The mother of five, who has been called Xena, the warrior princess, said in a television interview: “I think he’s regretting not picking [Clinton] now, I do. What determination and grit and even grace through some tough shots that were fired her way - she handled those well,” Palin said.

She presented herself as a champion of no-fuss, no-non-sense working mothers. “Of course you can be the vice-presi-dent and you can raise a family,” she said brightly. “I’m the governor and I’m raising a family.”

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In the face of Palin's onslaught, Obama has continued to base his campaign on the outdated claim that John McCain and his running mate represent four more years of a failed Bush administration.

A senior Obama adviser said candidly that claim did not work. “I don’t think it’s sticking. The McCain campaign has stolen our message of ‘change’ - the very thing we’ve been campaigning on for 20 months. Well, who’s the change? It’s McCain.” Palin’s astounding rise has left the Obama camp floundering for a new narrative that will capture the imagination of voters in the run-up to the November 4 election. “There is overreaction and panic,” the official admitted. “The hard part for Barack is she’s stolen his thunder a bit. It has knocked us off our game.”

Continued