by Evie Stone

Happy Wednesday morning, Vox Politicians.

The McCain campaign's lady bounce is still a hot topic among the chattering classes today, with a new NBC/WSJ poll appearing to confirm yesterday's ABC/WP findings that McCain has gained female support — and general enthusiasm for his candidacy — since selecting Sarah Palin as his running-mate. The NBC/WSJ numbers also had some good news for Obama, showing increased voter confidence in his ability to be commander-in-chief, and growth among voters' ability to identify with him.

The WP's Anne Kornblut provides this explanation for the uptick in female support for the GOP ticket:

Several senior officials in both parties said they think Palin's attraction is the result, in part, of a generally negative mood among some female voters this year, first, as Clinton faced a "boys' club" mentality in the Democratic primaries and then as Palin faced intense questioning, much of it highly personal, after McCain named her as his running mate.

 

Meanwhile, the LA Times says some Dems hope that maybe if Obama ignores Palin, her popularity will go away:

Some Democrats are now worried about the perils of Obama's strategy, saying that his campaign, instead of engaging the Alaska governor, should avoid any move that draws more attention to her and could enhance her appeal among the white, blue-collar voters who remain cool to Obama's candidacy.

So far, that strategy does not appear to be under way. Case in point: the widely-publicized umbrage over a remark Barack Obama made yesterday at a campaign event in Lebanon, Virginia. Referring to opponent John McCain's policy similarities with President George W. Bush, Obama said:

That's not change. That's just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig — it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it's still going to stink after eight years.

The expression is a common political cliche; Obama used it in a 2007 in reference to the Iraq war, and during the primaries John McCain himself called Hillary Clinton's health care proposal lipstick on the pig of her failed plan from the 90s.

Was Barack Obama calling Sarah Palin a pig? (Or, for that matter, was he calling McCain a stinky old fish?) No. But...given the amount of airtime lipstick has gotten in the past week, suffice it to say it was not a great choice of words. The McCain campaign — seeing an opportunity to keep up the hard sell to those white women voters it's recently attracted — wasted no time releasing a web video accusing Obama of sexism. At a stop this morning in Norfolk, Obama fired back, accusing McCain's camp of "lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics" for its response to the remark.

(Regardless of the intent of the comment, we should point out that it was a string of similarly over-interpreted gaffes that caused the Clintons' longtime support within the African-American community to evaporate during the primaries.)

And finally, netroots favorite Ron Paul (former Republican presidential candidate; currently running for re-election to Congress as a Republican) will appear at the National Press Club in Washington today. According to the NYT, "Mr. Paul plans to urge voters to support one of the third-party candidates for president" rather than voting for either the Democratic or GOP nominee. A spokesman tells the Times that Rep. Paul will tell reporters McCain and Obama "have no substantive differences on important issues." (Sound familiar?) NPR's Ari Shapiro tells us the McCain campaign called Paul last night to request an endorsement, but Dr. No declined. He'll be joined today by Libertarian candidate Bob Barr(UPDATE: Barr ended up bailing on the event); Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney; Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin; and of course independent candidate Ralph Nader.