There has been a significant swing in favor of Obama in the last few days.  As I listened to Obama and McCain each give their speeches advocating passage of the $700 billion 'rescue,' this occurred to be: Obama presented it as a very pragmatic matter, that no matter what the bad reasons for the situation, the pragmatic thing to do was to support the bail out. 

McCain also advocated supporting the proposal.  He, too, acknowledged the obvious distasteful aspect nature of the situation and of having to pass such a bill, but he cast it in heroic terms, that we must put country first.

If you're getting screwed -- and we're all getting screwed -- and there is a proposed remedy that is noxious, would you be more inclined to support that remedy because it is needed and will work, or because your country needs it?  I think McCain's dive in the polls is accelerated by this hollow 'country first' theme which he's worked to death (to the point of parody).

[
Afterthought: 'Country First' is most compelling when the goal and strategy are indisputably noble and good.  Cleaning up someone else when they crap their pants doesn't exactly fall into the 'noble and good,' regardless of the sacrifice.]

As everyone knows, Florida has a large elderly population, and the tendency to identify with McCain, an elderly man, is strong.

Health (not just health care) and mortality are very, very big issues for the elderly: if you're 65, chances are you personally know someone who has died of a disease, and you know it can claim you in short order.  Death and heirs are not the relatively abstract things they are for much younger people, but are rather imminent.

If Palin comes off looking plausible, elderly McCain supporters and undecideds may continue to feel comfortable supporting him.  But if Palin ends up looking like someone who one couldn't imagine being president, then, especially given McCain well-known bouts with cancer, one should look for a greater-than-national-average shift away from McCain toward Obama as the elderly contemplate much more seriously than most others the meaning of a Palin presidency.

In an age driven by identity politics, who does Palin appeal to beyond two obvious groups, namely, social conservatives and that small group of Hillary supporters who cares more about a woman being in office than what she thinks?

What about undecided voters?  Undecided voters are euphemistically referred to as 'low-information' voters, voter's that Pollster.com speculates are also low-education voters.  These people could well look at Sarah Palin and find in her someone like them who even gives them some compelling 'lottery hope,' that 'You never know' (the motto of the New York State Lottery), things can turn out fabulous.