When it comes to what women think is important this election season, it appears John McCain and Barack Obama are neck-and-neck in terms of which candidate is more in tune with that question.

Before McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate going into the Republican conventions, he was 34 points behind Obama on the question of which candidate has a “better understanding of women and what is important” to them. But Politico.com reports that the two candidates are now tied, with McCain’s 44 to 42 percentage lead within the margin of error of the most recent poll conducted for Lifetime Television.

In Lifetime’s July poll, women preferred Obama on the same question by nearly three-to-one — 52 to 18 percent. But in the poll conducted September 11-15, women ages 18-34 chose the Obama/Biden ticket as more empathetic to their needs, while women aged 35-64 went for McCain/Palin. Unlike black and Hispanic women, white women saw McCain and Palin as most understanding of their concerns.

About 25 percent of the women who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, in the Democratic primaries now said McCain and Palin have a better grasp of women’s needs than Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, D-DE. Women favored the Obama/Biden ticket 57 to 32 percent on the economic question of which candidate “will help middle-class families the most.”

Weekly summaries of Gallup polling show that women overall favor the Democratic ticket, 48 to 44 percent, although McCain, R-AZ, now leads with white women 51 to 40 percent.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports further on the fight for the Wal-Mart and hockey moms – working women with children – who could become the decisive swing vote in November.

Obama’s wife, Michelle, was courting working women in battleground states last week by talking about the tough balancing acts in their lives. But the Obama campaign doesn’t have a working woman in its political camp who enjoys the high profile of Palin, the Alaska governor and running mate of John McCain, who is helping sway women the GOP way.

Some Democratic Obama supporters told the Times he may come to regret not picking Clinton — who is campaigning once or twice a week for the Chicago senator — as his running mate for this reason alone. While Palin is on the trail, making several campaign stops a day and meeting and greeting women, Michelle Obama is the Democratic campaign’s busiest and most high-profile female surrogate. But because she could be the nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama can’t get too down and dirty or throw too many sharp elbows. Some people are still trying to decide whether they even like her.

“Coworkers of mine who had supported Hillary for president are now backing Palin and McCain, and it breaks my heart,” Emily Moore, a 28-year-old occupational therapist who attended an “Economic Roundtable With Working Women” event with Michelle Obama last week, told the Times. “More people think of Michelle Obama as an elitist than Hillary, which is funny to me … I think it’d be the other way around.”