Sarah Palin did not blow it. John McCain did. In every appearance and in every debate. To be sure, Sarah Palin has had an uneven performance (and clearly hurts McCain in Florida.) But so did Joe Biden.

To suggest that there is any kind of equivalence in the effect Biden and Palin are having on their tickets is absurd on its face.  Biden currently has the best numbers on the "prepared to be President" question (with Obama and McCain close behind) and Palin has the absolute worst.

Yes, McCain blew it -- but part of the way in which he blew it was his choice of Palin.  She's the disasta from Alaska.  He also blew it by not leaving the Republican Party in 2000.  And by his statements on the economy.  But Palin counts.

If this election is treated as a referendum on McCain's choice of Palin, then it is not going to be perceived as what it really was - a referendum on Republicanism. Sarah Palin is not why Democrats will win 8 Senate seats and 30 House seats.

Well, we're talking a bit at cross purposes here.  I'm trying to figure out what public opinion actually is.  And you're trying to shape public opinion to give the Obama Administration a leg up (and possibly to help move them in the "right" direction).

I tend to believe that this election is a rejection of the Bush Administration rather than a deeper rejection of the Republicans.  It remains for Obama to convert it, through solid governance and a deliberate campaign into a four year rejection of the basic tenets of Republicanism.

However, even if you see this election as a considered rejection of Republican dogma there's no discrepancy between that and Palin's failings.  Palin represents the ascendant know-nothing branch of the Republican Party.  She says she's a pit bull with lipstick?  No -- she's an elephant with lipstick.  Her flaws are the flaws of Republicanism.  Her defeat is the defeat of Republicanism.

It isn't JUST about Palin, but Palin is indeed part of it, for a lot of Americans.  McCain's selection of Palin was another brick in the wall.  Or another straw on the camel's back.

And that pick was about kowtowing to the base, those who LOVE Bush and think he did a fine job.

Repudiate her and you ARE repudiating the Republicanism of the last 8-12 years.

Somerby will have his work cut out as the "village" blathers on about which McCain error was the worst part of his train wreck, more accurately, his plane crash.

I'm in a long-ago agreement with Gen. Wes Clark.  It seems to me that John McCain may be somewhat capable of flying his own attack aircraft, but absolutely incapable of leading a flight or commanding a squadron or controlling a long, strategic political campaign.  It appears as if his candidacy did crash & burn on several key factors &, like the GOP brand of "w" Bu$h, Sen. McCain got everything wrong  Not one factor turned out "right," except the move toward the nutzy fringe of his political party.

With the pundits already beginning to attempt to minimize a Democratic mandate, to give them an easy out by blaming a Republican landslide loss on Palin is not prudent for Democrats and/or progressives. Let's make this a mandate election. Let's not let the pundits scapegoat this landslide loss for Republicanism on Sarah Palin.

That paragraph tells the whole story.

What may seem a harmless debate about factors in the outcome of the election is yet another distraction from the real issues.

Don't let the Palin choice become the biggest issue in this election.  First, it's simply not the biggest issue and second; promoting that narrative lets Republicans off the hook.

Republicans and the public at large need to know that the GOP lost this election because of Republican ideology.  Don't give them an out. Don't let them replace Borked with Palined.

Republicans still promote the myth that Ross Perot cost GHW Bush the '92 election in spite of every bit of research demonstrating that Perot took evenly from Clinton and Bush.

Both parties have a scapegoat lined up and waiting for the election returns -- Clinton will avoid being scapegoated because circumstances have ensured that such scapegoating won't be necessary.

Two vastly different women, of different stature and experience and history, and yet they both play the same role when it comes to predictive analysis. Is it just coincidence that they're both women? Or is this the "mommy effect" in practice?

I think BTD is right -- it's the economy that decided this election, and the referendum is on the parties. And yet, somehow, common knowledge would have it that a loss for either party is the fault of one particular women.  

But for the cratering of the economy and the financial system, this race would be much closer.  Krugman wrote either in his column or blog several weeks ago that Paulson, in not bailing out Lehman Bros, probably handed the election to the Democrats.  I think that he is right.  

Even on this site, to what purpose has Sarah Palin's hideous picture graced the home page for the past several weeks? To inform?..... Right.
While a McCain victory would be a tragedy, the alternative leaves me with an extremely uncomfortable, Pyrrhic victory feeling.

 In high school, everyone takes tests for college admission consideration. They consist of "aptitude," and "achievement." Hanging our hopes on the fact that Obama has run a strategically "brilliant" campaign, while ignoring that his "achievements" have totaled exactly zero should give any cognitive person pause.

Four years ago, the most memorable quote I remember was the British newspaper's headline, "How could 54,000,000 Americans be so Dumb?"

Rejecting the most qualified candidate, by far, Hillary Clinton, for an obsessively ambitious, vellum thin resume, "rock star" may supplant the British quote as the "dumbest" decision America has made.

She's the disasta from Alaska

while gov. palin (should obama win) won't be solely responsible for republican defeat, she's played no small part.

the primary reason she had such a positive response, in the first two weeks after the convention, is because the campaign kept her out of sight and microphone range. once let loose, her star nova'd, and turned into a black hole. add her state ethics problems, and absolutely no light escapes.

she's the public epitome' of the old saying: "people may think you a fool. once you open your mouth, you remove all doubt."

the general public, with the exception of the hard-cores, know she's a fool, and not qualified to step into the oval office. mccain's poor judgment in selecting her was equally on display.

OTOH, Republican types on the ground are to this day still pretty glowing about how Palin's nomination brought out floods of campaign volunteers that significantly jacked up their local ground operations.  It may be that, in the end, she helped McCain more than hurt him because of that effect.

And it's a mistake to not notice that there's a limit to how cynical a politician can get without paying a political price for it. It's a mistake not to notice that her divisive rhetoric killed the likeability that otherwise might have 'covered up' her unsuitability for the office.

I think it's a mistake to try to read mandates from election results.  There's are a million different reasons someone would vote for a candidate in a two-party system.  Obama's getting support from Independents and soft Republicans who are disgusted with the way the country is going and who were put off from McCain by the combination of the Palin pick and his catastrophically inept reaction to the crisis (mutually reinforcing events which combined to scream that the man has no judgment and that he places politics ahead of country).  Those voters are NOT signing on for a radical leftward shift.

If Obama is as smart as he seems, he's going to avoid partisan social issues like the plague, and focus on the big planks he ran on: health care reform; big energy plan; getting the economy back on track.  Those were the things he sold to "red America and blue America".

Arguably he would have been a more serious candidate, and perhaps less erratic in his response to the economy, without being distracted and having to defend the ditzy Palin and talking on and on about clothes and plumbers.

A Romney or a Lieberman could well have steered McCain on a steadier track.

Even so that point up the fact that McCain perhaps isn't really his own man.

To be sure, Sarah Palin has had an uneven performance (and clearly hurts McCain in Florida.)

She was a positive for the base but I think those folks still come home if he selected Romney. During a crisis like we are experiencing..she gave no comfort to the undecided voters.