How much polling did the GOP do about possible running mates? You'd think something would have leaked about it. Anyway, polling before the convention wouldn't have been very informative. It would have left out factors like how each running mate performed in the campaign (Lieberman's boring speeches, etc.).
I don't give much weight to the question of excitement from Lieberman's speeches. Millions of swing voters would never hear more than an occasional sound bite. The major factors that could have boosted the McCain-Lieberman ticket were:
* The bipartisanship thing. You can say that Lieberman was technically an independent -- I think he listed himself in the Senate as Independent Democrat -- but he caucused with the Democrats. More to the point, he was the Democratic nominee in 2000. Many voters, especially low-information voters, have this woolly-minded notion that all Washington needs is to ditch the vicious partisans in favor of statesmen who will reach across the aisle to Get Things Done. (Exactly what "things" is left unclear.) Boring speeches or no, they would have been impressed that the Republican candidate had picked a nominee for VP who, not long ago, was the Democratic nominee for VP. They would have seen McCain as going beyond the usual mere lip service to bipartisanship.
* Dealing with the Bush problem. Few people wanted a Bush third term. The Obama campaign emphasized "change" because of that factor. McCain tried to counter with his "team of mavericks" slogan, but Palin didn't really help with that. She was a "maverick" only through personal feuds with other Republicans in Alaska. On policy, she was to the right of Bush. By contrast, Lieberman would represent a real departure from Bush. DUers might not want to hear this, but Lieberman was well to the left of Bush on many issues. McCain could plausibly point to his choice of Lieberman as a concrete demonstration that he, too, was a candidate of change.
* Preserving the experience argument. A McCain-Lieberman ticket would have been well positioned to argue that Obama was too inexperienced to be made President just yet. My understanding is that, pre-Palin, the Republicans had seen this argument as one of their big guns in the general election. We DUers tend to be more ideological, and we'd give the Presidency to a first-term Democratic member of the City Council in preference to Dick Cheney, but the experience thing does resonate with many swing voters. The Palin pick took that argument away. A Lieberman pick would have strengthened it.
Of course, the base would have gone ballistic. The "lesser evil" argument would not have been enough to keep all of them in the boat. Many who had enthusiasm for McCain-Palin, and would have grudgingly voted for McCain-Huckabee or McCain-Romney, would have drawn the line at McCain-Babykiller (which is how many of them would have seen Lieberman, a supporter of reproductive rights). Those defections would have been a definite negative for the ticket.
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