If you think about it, she's really George Bush with lipstick.  She represents the same no-nothing swaggering position on international affairs, the same conservative leanings on social issues that Bush pandered to (in fact, she represents the base that Bush was pandering to), the shoddy governing practices, disdain for ethics, promotion of loyalty over competence, hypocrisy in spending, and on and on.

When the electorate recoils from her, it's not her individually they're recoiling from, but the her in role of effigy for the Republican Party.

It isn't how much experience you have that voters really care about, it's how well you convey knowledge of the issues.

If you convey knowledge of the issues, then voters are willing to look past a lack of experience and grant you a stamp of approval.

The problem with Sarah Palin is that regardless of her little experience, she was rolled out so badly, that no one thought she knew anything about what she was talking about.

Her backers were willing to say she had enough experience, but she couldn't display any sort of competence on national issues and so most voters just rejected her offhand.

When he chose Palin the focus changed and she's become reason number one. If McCain had chosen Romney then the religious wing of the base would, at least in part, stayed home and some people would say that Ronmey hurt the ticket.

The Vice-Presidential candidate usually doesn't help all that much.  I remember that in '68 people were very impressed by Ed Muskie but voted for Nixon anyway because of the general climate of the times. In McCain's case Sarah Palin has just hurt him all the more especially given his age.

If she decides to run in 2012 and I hope she does, the primaries will be quite telling.  Does anyone think that the other candidates and media will say "she deserves deference?"

She is inspiring to evangelicals and very little else and when it comes to winning next time around the right will be harder on her than anything she has experienced in this election.  

I would argue that she will be as crappily versed in policy in 2.5 years as she is now and the "reform warshington" schtick will last about a month before the crash and burn.

I would also venture to argue that there are many female pols on the right who believe that they deserve party support before her and that angst will create a big divide in the party.  In 3 years the economy will be rebounding and we will be out of Iraq and people will be feeling "good" about the country, 2012 barring any disasters in the left party will be a shoo-in.

I think we might be seeing a bit of a revolt against the anti-intellectualism that has so permeated American political culture, particularly (and paradoxically) on the right.  People may be tired of being embarrassed by their leaders, by the lack of competence, the inability to cogently articulate.  

This might be new ground for Palin.  The recent New Yorker article was illuminating...she charmed the Republican power brokers.  She did not bowl them over with her grasp of issues or her expertise, but with her looks and her clear ambition for the national stage.  

Obama was criticized excessively as being an "empty suit".  Is a suit full of intellect really empty?  

mccain and bush were relative failures in school for their entire lives, not just "at some point". that consistent, yawning intellectual chasm has manifested itself throughout their entire adult lives. neither of them has, as far as i can tell, ever expressed a clearly articulated, original thought, that ever made any actual sense.

kerry got into and out of an accredited law school, and managed to pass the bar exam. he had to have had reasonably decent grades to do so.

The problem with Sarah Palin is that regardless of her little experience, she was rolled out so badly, that no one thought she knew anything about what she was talking about.

possibly, she doesn't know anything about what she's talking about, which is why people tend to think that. this is the gov. of a state, who doesn't appear to have the slightest clue about what the actual responsibilities of the vp are. it just gets worse from there.

Palin was not the or an "unsolvable problem".  Rather, she was and is the ultimate expression and distillation of the Republican philosophy which has governed, in the Oval Office and throughout government and in the world of ideas, for the last 25 or 30 years.  

Her religious fundamentalism, itself taken beyond the "normal" of fundamentalism to a talking-in-tongues, witch-hunting extreme*, is bad enough.  Two of the core errors of fundamentalists and fundamentalism - that (1) the adherent believes they are the (favored) recipient of Revealed Truth and (2) that this adherent thereby has the divinely given right to impose their interpretation of that Truth upon others regardless of anything - she expresses in spades.  The most recent episode of this is evinced in her inability to criticize abortion-clining bombers and abortionist-murderers during the Williams/NBC interview.  In this regard, she is no different from Bush the Younger and his attitude toward law - in the words of the hot dog commercial, he "answers to a higher authority".

Moreover, she has - from first impression on - seemed to me the aggressive purveyor of a plastic, phony morality which my experience as a lawyer teaches me is more often than not the camouflage of a person utterly lacking in moral and ethical fiber.  The old saw "what you are screams so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying" applies to her.  The disclosures subsequent to the initial Troopergate - the wardrobe first among them and her rampant cronyism second - showed her as venal and cheap.

McCain and his campaign took a calculated gamble, expressed by someone at the poker table the other night in rough but accurate terms:  "Our guy is old and angry and our program is f*cked up, but we can get past that if we wheel out a piece of a*s everyone will want to look at."  Palin was the choice the campaign and McCain made to effect that.  She was the political analogue of the same choice managers of mediocre rock-and-roll bands have made since time immemorial - if we put a hot chick who can swing her body seductively and kinda carry a tune out in front, no one will notice how crappy our music really is because they'll all be looking at and fantasizing about her.  And we'll all make a quick killing.

I mean, Ashley duPre (or whatever her working name is now), aspiring singer and full-time hooker, made a cool million-plus off selling her really crappy singing over the internet in the first week after the Spitzer scandal broke.  A quick killing.

And that, FWIW, is likely what the American people have discerned not only about McCain but about the Republican policies and philosophy.  They are designed and intended to produce one quick killing after another, the profits every time flowing into the hands and pockets of the Republicans and their friends.  Over the last 25 plus years we've seen not only the expansion of gambling (sic, "gaming") as an "industry", every time being lobbied for by Republican pols and the executive ranks infested with former Republican officeholders, but also the conversion of most other industries into some analogue of gambling.  They have turned government and the gambling industry (the latter formerly derided as a social evil) into a new form of extractive industry, one in which they mine the money earned (by actual production) from the pockets of average Americans and refine it into their own pockets.  I've watched repeatedly as local politicians not only hailed the opening of a new off-track-betting horse parlor cum slot-machine den, but earlier when they eagerly competed for placing it in their jurisdictions.  I'm not so old that I can't remember the days when those "businesses" were the object of politicians' attention - as the targets of police raids.  Nor have I forgotten when politicians spent their "hailing" and "competitive pursuing" time on new factories, transportation projects, and public works.  All of which benefitted, rather than impoverished, their constituents.   By dergulating the stock and securities markets, the Republicans have converted useful institutions and businesses into more versions of crooked casinos.  

One of the poker players the other night was an official in local government.  The official complained that his governmental entity has a backlog of useful public works which need fixing, improvement or first-time building, and a plethora of competent contractors willing and begging to put in serious bids for the work.  The number of contractors desperate for work has increased several-fold since last year.  But, the official complained, none of the work can be bid out, let alone get done, because no one will buy the bonds that have to be floated to finance the work.  Either the very-solvent governmental entity foregoes doing the work (leaving the many people who'd actually swing the hammers out of work), or it goes begging to wealthy, famous private investors asking those investors to let them pay him several times the prime rate of interest - tax-free interest, remember - on their bonds.  All this while they and everyone know that investor is not risking his own money buying the bonds but rather is borrowing money at something approximating the prime rate to buy them.  The investor getting twelve tax-free by paying three with no underlying risk of default?  

And McCain and the Republicans are surprised when people revolt at the idea of more of this?

And people haven't seen through Palin?

Please.  

What shocks me most is the forebearance of the American people in the face of such venal, corrupt and despicable politicians.  The people of America aren't stupid, and those who deride them as such - as the Republicans have - and who condescend to them - as the Republicans have - and who sneer at their concerns and humanity - as is a cardinal trait of Republicans - have about run out the string of popular tolerance.  

They'd better get the f out of the way.  Their day is done.

-

And they haven't even done a good job of enticing female Democrats.  Now that they've seemingly lost the chance of picking up a lot of Hillary voters, they are beginning to attack the "feminist left" for attacking Sarah Palin.  

Both McCain and Palin are, in effect, running against the President and against their party.  That begs the question, Why run as a Republican, if you're so out of step with the party, or have so much disdain for the party?

Notwithstanding the fact that he voted with the President a LOT, that she not only hired lobbyists but aggressively sought pork and created debt...I mean, their whole message is fragmented.

Essentially, he's ethically flexible and she's disingenuous (except of course, that she's not even good at presenting that way).  And they're running for, and against, their own party.  

So, she's a drag, for sure.  Not just because of her (let's face it) utter lack of qualifications, but also because it's tough to identify them.  It's the charge against Obama in reverse.  What are McCain/Palin for?  Do we really know them?

But then, if you think personality-driven politics are equal to politics -- as Our Betters in the Village would have us believe -- then yes, I suppose rejecting Palin on the basis of her qualifications would count as a famous victory.

It wasn't long ago that they were talking about a permanent majority, wasn't it?  They thought they were invincible, which just goes to show that hubris will get you -- eventually.  

Imagine Greenspan thinking that wall st would self-regulate.