How bad is it for Palin? Conservatives want her dropped from McCain's campaign

[ProSense]

The thrill is gone

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor September 26, 2008 02:35 PM

The honeymoon is over for Sarah Palin.

After a third major TV interview during which her performance was uneven at best, even fellow Republicans are having trouble enthusiastically backing their vice presidential nominee.

The first-term Alaska governor had become a political phenomenon, bringing delegates to their feet with her speech at the Republican National Convention early this month and helping John McCain draw the biggest crowds of his campaign during the post-convention boomlet.

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Now, even the arch-conservative National Review magazine is publishing skeptical or disillusioned commentaries.

Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, who had praised the selection of Palin, is calling for her to step aside from the ticket.

"As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion," Parker writes today in the magazine.

"Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it," Parker continues. "It was fun while it lasted. Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League."

“How do you solve a problem like Ms. Palin?”; Conservative Calls for Palin to Drop Out

September 26th, 2008
By JILL MILLER ZIMON

I get that it’s nice to see someone who we think is like us running for president or vice president. But the fact is that even conservative voices, including conservative female voices, are chiming in that Sarah Palin is not ready and is a dangerous choice. Please - do not take what these writers and thinkers say personally - they are clearly not happy about what they are writing but they are being responsible. And Kathleen Parker of the Dallas Morning News goes so far as to say something I tweeted yesterday: Sarah Palin should drop out.

The most important parts of what I want to share, and not all my blathering:

From conservative columnist at the Dallas Morning News, Kathleen Parker (she also posts at Townhall.com and TMV’s Jazz Shaw mentioned this column of hers here):

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Most stunning and sobering, however, Parker suggests that Palin drop out:

Only Ms. Palin can save Mr. McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Finally, from Crunchy Con (as in, conservative) Rod Dreher (who also writes for the Dallas Morning News) in Palin Debacle on CBS Evening News:

Watch the Couric interview here. Couric’s questions are straightforward and responsible. Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin’s just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero….

I remember the morning I woke up in my college dorm room and went in to take my final exam in my Formal Logic class. I knew I was unready. Massively unready. And now I was going to be put to the ultimate test. I sat down in Dr. Sarkar’s class and resolved to wing it. Of course I failed the exam and failed the class, because I had no idea what I was talking about. I wasn’t a bad kid, or even a stupid kid. I was just badly unprepared, and in way over my head. Seeing the Palin interview on CBS, I thought of myself in Dr. Sarkar’s exam. But see, I was a college undergraduate who had the chance to take the class again, which I did, and passed (barely). I wasn’t running for vice president of the United States.

UPDATE: New Palin excerpt up, in which she discusses why having Russia next to Alaska gives her relevant foreign policy experience. I am well and truly embarrassed for her. I think she’s a good woman who might well be a great governor of Alaska. But good grief, just watch this train wreck (cuts to the Couric-Palin clip)

No one should feel good about this because McCain’s choice impacts (and some may say imperils) all voters and Americans. Even conservatives (George Will earlier this week too) realize just how serious the job of president and vice president are. We must not keep putting ourselves and our politics before our country.

A strong democracy requires that nominees for our highest office possess basic threshold competencies. This is because democracy means there will always be millions of people who will be governed by someone they did not vote for. But we stay intact as a government because we trust that even if we don’t agree with the political leanings and decisions of the winner, we trust that he or she will do what’s best for all 300 million of us.

There are tens of millions of voters, now, on both sides of the aisle, who find Sarah Palin to fall below this basic threshold for competence as a vice president or president of our country. And at least two of us are asking for her to step down.

RW Istapundit: Palin Problem - She’s out of her league. (Unfortunately I agree.)