Palin becomes irrelevant; McCain prepares his endgame

[ProSense]

Friday, October 03, 2008

Palin becomes irrelevant; McCain prepares his endgame

JB

At last night's vice-presidential debate Sarah Palin gave a mediocre but adequate performance. True, she dodged every difficult question and stuck mindlessly to her talking points. She appears to know very little about the key issues of the day. But she did not embarrass herself and she did not implode. Given the baseline of expectations established by the Couric interview, she did just fine.

But ironically, the effect of her performance is that she is now largely irrelevant to McCain's chances of winning the Presidency.

Palin began as a star, a charismatic celebrity that could contrast with Obama's charisma. McCain made fun of Obama this summer for being just a celebrity, then he went out and got his own. For a while, it worked. Audiences swooned, large crowds came out to see her while conservative pundits dutifully made nonsensical arguments about her obviously superior qualifications.

Then came the public assessment of Palin and her credentials. This took the luster off of her candidacy. The McCain camp shielded her from press inquiries, and then, when she did give interviews, she seemed uninformed if not incoherent.

The Vice-Presidential debate gave her a chance to show that she was not an empty airhead trading on newly found celebrity; that is, precisely what McCain claimed Obama was this summer. She came through the debate without disastrously failing, thus alleviating people's greatest concerns about her. But that's about all she has done. She will not return to her former degree of charisma and attraction, at least outside of her devoted followers in the Republican base. Now that she is more of a known quantity-- charming but mediocre-- she no longer holds any special attraction for independent voters, the voters that McCain so desperately needs. As a result, in a period of about a month, she has gone from being McCain's secret weapon to being a potential disaster to being essentially an irrelevancy. She will neither hurt him nor help him much at this point.

link

Even better still is that Palin doesn't believe she's irrelevant. She'll continue being a drag on the McCain campaign.

[ProSense]

1. Palin still talking about Michigan!

This is from Politico's blog focusing on the GOP:

Palin still talking about Michigan!

For the second day in a row, Sarah Palin expressed her dismay at the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan. This time, though, she brought up the move unprompted (!)

Palin may be only expressing her honest views on the situation, but by continuining to talk about the state she continues to give legs to a negative storyline and ensure additional days of coverage on the worst kind of process-oriented matter at this stage of the race:

CBS's Scott Conroy:

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo -- In Colorado for a morning fundraiser, Sarah Palin dropped by a diner and said she wanted to head back on the stump in Michigan, even though the McCain campaign has essentially given up on the state, pulling its advertising and staffers.

“Well as I said the other day, I would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows that we haven’t given up there,” Palin said in response to a pool reporter’s question about falling poll numbers in key battleground state. “We care much about Michigan and every other state.”

LOL!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. "Your jobs are gone and they're not coming back!" - McGaffe

:rofl:

[ProSense]

4. They're both becoming

fuel for Obama's campaign.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Blinky and Winky are circling the bowl

McCain needed Palin so that she would take the focus off of his negatives: he's a Washington insider, he's sided with Bush, he's not Fundie enough, he's old, he's erratic and irascible. But Palin needs McCain so that we don't focus on her negatives: she has no experience, she has no knowledge of the issues, she too much of a fundie nut. But when the two are combined, instead of complementing each other, they recall each other's negatives and reinforce them to form an entirely undesirable picture. In other words, when Palin is next to McCain, she makes him look even worse and vice versa.

[Window]

5. K/R. Yes, girlfriend still thinks she is the cats meow.

:kick:

[Cha]

6. I do not agree that she was "adequate"

..I think the bar is set high for a VP nominee and she had to go that much higher because of her Couric interviews and her sequestered policy of the mccain campaign.

There are rules of a debate whether she followed them or not..this was not a "see how well programed sarah palin is" show.

Biden did splendidly as the lone debator who followed the rules.

palin may think it's cute that she can't function in a debate forum but all she did was give Americans a taste of her lust for abusive power.

[Olney Blue]

7. North to Alaska, Sarah. Now.

[4lbs]

8. This is starting to remind me of Fredo's line in "Godfather II".

"It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect! "