Palin's fading star appeal now hurting McCain's presidential dreams
9 Oct 2008, 1608 Hrs

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Washington, Oct.9 Two new polls have found that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and her running mate John McCain have lost ground in recent days among independent voters, the demographic factor that the "outsider/maverick/hockey mom" was supposed to attract.

Television actress Tina Fey's uncanny impersonation of Palin, however, is generating laughs and making her quite popular.

About 33 percent of independents said the "Tina Fey effect" is hurting the McCain-Palin ticket, compared with 9 percent who said it was helpful, a Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports survey says.

The figures were nearly identical among independents in the survey.

The Emmy Award-winning Miss Fey and the NBC show, however, are on a roll.

Ratings for the 33-year-old show are up 49 percent compared with a year ago, and NBC plans to run three prime-time editions of the show's "Weekend Update" news spoof.

Fey, who also recently won an Emmy for her work on the sitcom "30 Rock," has just signed a multimillion-dollar contract for a humor book to be published by Little, Brown Book Group.

The McCain campaign has struggled to find the right tone in neutralizing the impact of the Tina Fey parodies, which at times have quoted the Alaska governor verbatim to comedic effect.

The Oct. 1-2 Rasmussen poll found that 43 percent of independents say Palin is "hurting" McCain's chances to win the presidency, compared with 35 percent who see her as "helping" and another 22 percent who saw no impact or were not sure.

Overall, the poll respondents split about evenly - 40 percent to 41 percent - on whether Palin was an asset to the ticket.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken over the weekend also found a sharp shift in sentiment among independents toward Barack Obama.

Independents in the poll favored Obama over McCain by 42 percent to 38 percent, erasing a 13-percentage point lead for the Republican in the same survey just two weeks earlier. (ANI)