Palin's Dominance Dooms McCain
Monday, 15 September 2008, 1:26 pm
Column: Michael Collins
Palin's Dominance Dooms McCain
(Wash. DC) Senator John McCain can't live without Sarah Palin but he can't live with her either, at least not much longer.
McCain is much like Professor Rath in "The Blue Angel." He's infatuated with someone much younger and he has joined the carnival just to be near her. The Palin act travels from one town to the next attracting crowds of Bush-Cheney dead enders. She steps forward, with the confidence of a high school cheerleader while the full professor of perverse politics looks on with admiration and affection.
At the start of his campaign, he was unable to draw a crowd or deliver a speech that just about anyone found the least bit engaging. In early side by side coverage of a same day event, CNN showed Obama hitting one out of the park and McCain struggling to engage 200 onlookers.
The net effect of the Palin addition is in dispute. If you're part of the Republican media shill brigade, it's been terrific, a brilliant choice. Looking at it objectively, there's been little impact on the ticket, unless you buy into the Gallup Poll that showed what looked like a McCain convention bounce. To "stand up" the bounce, Gallup simply added more Republicans to their sample, driving up McCain's numbers. But if you're candidate John McCain, you're locked and loaded, exhilarated, and infused vicariously by your vision of Palin's draw.
More at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0809/S00189.htm