I'm hesitant to believe most of the stuff that is coming out from the McCain campaign regarding Palin's ignorance. I really dislike the woman, and she showed some true ignorance during the Couric interview, but I have a hard time believing that she's as dumb as some folks are making her out to be. Seems more like folks trying to paint her as the main source of failure for the campaign to save their own skins.
Okay, in victory, compassion and fairness is a mark of honor and integrity.
Gov. Palin was a poor choice by the McCain team for Vice President. She was chosen to appeal to the far right morality wing of the Republican party, who was never comfortable in their support for Sen. McCain, and she was chosen to try to win the votes of disaffected supporters of Sen. Clinton.
Initially, Gov. Palin seemed an inspired choice. If a voter was a one issue voter, and the one issue was seeing a woman near the White House, then Sen. Palin might win the support of some of Sen. Clinton's supporters. Unfortunately for the GOP, the PUMA (Party Unity My Asteroid) movement was more a fantasy construct of the GOP, much like the late primary support of Sen. Clinton was a result of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos.
The majority of women, and the vast majority of women who voted for Sen. Clinton, voted for Sen. Obama and repudiated the anti-woman positions held by Gov. Palin.
The far right morality wing of the GOP base's love of Gov. Palin was undiminished throughout the campaign, and grew to include every lunatic bigot and whack job white power adherent. Her campaign rallies became bigger and bigger, and crazier and scarier.
Joe Sixpack, Hockey Mom, Joe the Plumber, Nick the Electrician, Associations, Terrorists, Wealth Spreaders, Socialists, Gotcha Main Stream Media, Liberal Elites...not a campaign of ideas, but a direct appeal to the mediocre.
Gov. Palin wasn't good in her interviews with Katie Couric, she should have been able to name one newspaper or magazine, one Supreme Court Case besides Roe v. Wade, one significant policy difference between McCain and Bush. I think Gov. Palin reacted poorly under pressure, and I don't think the Couric interviews or questions were unreasonably difficult. I don't think Gov. Palin is as ignorant as she seemed. No one can actually be as stupid and uninformed as Gov. Palin appeared and be elected Mayor and subsequently Governor.
I think Gov. Palin should not have been hidden from the media. I think this was a critical campaign mistake by team McCain. Gov. Palin, having set the bar so low, could not underperform in more interviews and in press conferences. Gov. Palin should have been pushed in front of every camera and microphone possible; she could only improve with practice, and her portrayal as a nearly retarded candidate owing to limited but sub par performances might have been turned around.
The reasons that team McCain staff are anonymously engaged in active character assassination of Gov. Palin is that some members of team McCain are not from the far right morality wing of the GOP, who still unreservedly love Gov. Palin, but are instead from the fiscal conservative wing of the GOP, as represented by Mitt Romney.
I believe that some of the supporters and staff of Mitt Romney, who joined the McCain campaign after Romney was vanquished, are behind the internal attacks on Gov. Palin.
I think Romney and his loyalists fear a more seasoned Gov. Palin in 2012.
I expect that the civil war within the GOP between the far right moralist Palin win and the fiscal conservative Romney wing will continue.
To be honest, I hope the party continues to fight and fragment for a very long time. Gov. Palin is not as stupid as she may be painted, just as Romney is not as smart as he may be painted.
