While John McCain got a boost in North Dakota polls among women voters following the GOP convention and Sarah Palin's vice presidential nomination earlier this month, Barack Obama supporter and former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp said it won't last long.

At a Tuesday press conference near the state Capitol, Heitkamp, flanked by 15 women, including former North Dakota first lady Grace Link and former agriculture commissioner Sarah Vogel, said the Democratic nominee for president would do more for women's issues than his Republican opponent, adding that the hype surrounding Palin's nod will soon fade.

In a Sept. 8 Rasmussen poll, the most recent polling of North Dakota voters, women voters favor McCain over Obama by nine points. In July, North Dakota women voters favored Obama by 11 points.

"Why shouldn't there be a lot of excitement about seeing someone on a national ticket that you can identify with?" Heitkamp said, describing Palin as a working mom. "But I think once we get over the initial excitement, and we start looking at what the real issues are in this campaign � I think women are going to start reexamining."

Heitkamp said the recent Wall Street woes will move voters into the Obama camp, especially after John McCain was quoted Monday as saying the economy is "fundamentally strong" despite the stock market's worst day since Sept. 11, 2001.

Heitkamp added women voters should consider another hot button issue before heading to the polls this November: Lilly Ledbetter.

After learning her Alabama employer was paying her male colleagues more money than her, Ledbetter sued the company and a jury awarded her $3 million in damages. The case went to the Supreme Court last year, which voted against Ledbetter 5 to 4, saying she had waited too long before suing.

Congressional Democrats in response drafted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would give employees fighting equal pay issues more time to file suit. The measure passed the House but was killed in the Senate.

Obama supported the bill. McCain did not.

"The single position on this issue illustrates there is a huge difference for women in this country on the issue of pay equity between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama," Heitkamp said.

Michael Bommarito, the executive director for the North Dakota Republican Party, said just because McCain opposed that bill does not mean he's against equal pay for women.

"You can't necessarily jump from that, that he opposes equal pay for women," Bommarito said. "I think case in point is his vice presidential nomination."

Other women pledged their support for Obama, noting issues such as childcare, health care and Social Security at the top of their priority lists.

Vogel said childcare is a central issue for her, noting her experience as a single, working parent trying to raise children.

"Many times I took my son with me to the office," Vogel said, noting that North Dakota leads the nation in women holding two jobs to make ends meet.

Former First Lady Grace Link said she supports Obama because he would not privatize Social Security.

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@bismarcktribune.com.)