The Trail

PALIN'S PAY CUT

Salary Dipped but Then Rebounded

On the campaign trail, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has declared at least four times that she cut her own pay as Alaska governor.

"And, you know, as mayor and as governor, I tried to lead by example," she told a crowd at a Sept. 9 rally in Lebanon, Ohio. "So as mayor, I took a voluntary pay cut, which didn't really thrill my husband."

But just-released records from the Wasilla clerk's office show a slightly more complicated picture. Palin's pay did drop from $64,200 in October 1996 to $61,200 in January 1997. But, six months later, in June 1998, it jumped to $68,000. Palin's pay dipped once more in July 1999 to $66,000, according to the records, but it went back to $68,000 three months later and stayed at that level until Palin left office in October of 2002.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella did not have an immediate comment.

-- Juliet Eilperin

WHITE EVANGELICALS

Bloc Still Favors McCain, Poll Says

Despite a ramped-up faith outreach campaign in the last few years that many see as unprecedented for Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama has made few inroads with white evangelical Protestants, according to a poll released yesterday.

The poll was done by the University of Akron, which has been tracking the presidential preferences of voters by faith for the last five elections. The poll was conducted between June and August and included a random sample of 4,017 adults.

It found that the party preferences of white evangelical voters are almost exactly the same in 2008 as they were at the same point in 2004, said John Green, the political scientist who conducted the poll.

Green said the results were surprising, given the intense appeals that the Obama campaign and other national Democrats have been making to white evangelicals.

According to the poll, white evangelical Protestants favored McCain over Obama 57 to 20 percent, with 22 percent undecided. At the same point in the 2004 campaign, white evangelicals preferred Bush over Kerry 60 to 20 percent, with 20 percent undecided.

Even more theologically liberal white evangelicals have proved resistant to Obama's overtures. Both Obama and Kerry drew support from one-third of what Green calls "modernist" evangelicals -- those with fewer traditional beliefs and practices.

In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, conducted Sept. 5-7 after the Republican convention, white evangelical Protestants split 72 percent for McCain and Palin, 22 percent for Obama and Biden. The Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found a similar split, 71 percent for McCain to 21 percent for Obama.

-- Jacqueline L. Salmon and Michelle Boorstein