REVOLT OF THE HAVES (WITH PENISES)

Another poll -- this one from SurveyUSA and a couple of media outlets in western New York State -- shows Andrew Cuomo with only a single-digit lead over id-driven racist Carl Paladino. But Paladino's numbers aren't improving evenly across all groups:

The poll shows Cuomo with 49% of the vote. Paladino has 40%. Eight percent said they would vote for another candidate and three percent were still undecided....

Lower-income voters account for all of Cuomo's lead.

The contest is effectively even among middle-income and upper-income voters....

Consistent with SurveyUSA polling in other statewide races: men in 2010 are voting Republican, women in 2010 are voting Democrat; there is a 34-point gender gap for Governor.

So the tea party movement is all about economic anxiety ... except that in this case, the actual poor aren't drinking the tea.

And I'm not the least bit surprised at this huge gender gap. There's a 23-point gender gap in the much-discussed Quinnipiac poll of this race, the one that shows Cuomo's lead shrinking to 6. And over in Jersey there's a 40-point gender gap in the approval ratings of the loutish, Paladino-esque governor, Chris Christie -- men dig him, 63%-27%, while women disapprove, 40%-44%, according to Quinnipiac.

I know I'm wildly oversimplifying if I lump middle-class men (who obviously have legitimate reasons for economic anxiety) in with rich men (who, in this society, never suffer no matter how bad things get) -- but I can't help thinking that this is similar to the "Wall Street is peeved at Obama" phenomenon, which is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon, deriving from an overwhelmingly male culture. Hey, Obama, you disrespected us!

I can't help thinking that, if Sarah Palin loses her mojo somewhat, or if she starts showing a lack of interest in political office, the "Mama Grizzly" thing might be relegated to the right's scrap heap and the GOP might start running blatantly macho, trash-talking louts all over America, blowing off female voters and not giving a crap.

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UPDATE: Or maybe the gender and personal style of the candidates don't matter -- in Delaware, I see that (according to CNN's pollsters) Democrat Chris Coons, the guy who's running against perky, girly Christine O'Donnell,

holds a nearly two to one advantage among female voters, and takes 49 percent of the male vote to O'Donnell's 46 percent.

So that's about a 30-point gender gap. I don't know if that means O'Donnell is stirring up male teabaggers on a hubba-hubba level; I think it's more that the rage-against-the-socialist-machine message is the kind of metal that men love to crank up.

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UPDATE, 9/28: Welcome, Balloon Juice readers. I just want to add that Quinnipiac is reporting another gender gap: in the Connecticut Senate race, Democrat Richard Blumenthal leads by 17 points among women, while wrestling queen Linda McMahon leads by 8 among men. That's a 25-point gap.