"When John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate, his supporters declared the move a masterstroke. But Republican poll ratings have been falling day by day - and now the 'Troopergate' scandal has turned the Hockey Mom from Alaska into a liability for a campaign that has lost its way. Paul Harris reports" from The Observer (UK). So sad!
Palin electrified voters, taking McCain ahead of Barack Obama in the polls and bringing in legions of undecided women. The Obama campaign floundered as it tried to come to terms with a phenomenon so novel that the old game-plans had to be torn up. In teaming up with a political ingenue with grassroots appeal, McCain had taken a terrific risk. And it appeared to have paid off.
Then came Katie Couric. The network TV anchor did not so much grill Palin as give the Alaska governor enough rope to hang herself. Palin floundered against even the most harmless questions, such as what newspapers she read, and became the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live. Satirists competed to offer the best impression of her bumbling incoherence. But then Palin surprised everyone again with a strong performance in her debate against Senator Joe Biden, resurrecting her supporters' belief that she could change the campaign.
That hope has probably died with the Troopergate report. The enormous microscope of a presidential campaign has magnified an obscure staffing dispute in Alaska - over whether Palin pursued a family vendetta against state trooper Mike Wooten - into a major political story. With the release of a damaging report this weekend that concluded Palin did abuse the powers of her office, her political trajectory has once again changed course. Gone are the dreams of Palin bringing in the desperately needed independent voters, former Hillary Clinton supporters and soft Democrats the McCain campaign need so much. Instead she has now been firmly assigned to the traditional role of the vice-presidential candidate: attack dog.
It is a role she does well and it plays to the Republican base. There is still no doubting that Palin can powerfully move a Republican crowd. Her angry attacks on Obama stir supporters far more effectively than does McCain's more measured style. But she is now largely reduced to stumping in the rural Republican heartlands of America. She is a powerful tool in working up the party base, ensuring that they turn out on election day, but her crossover appeal has gone. Indeed, even Republican critics of Palin have been stamped on for questioning her. Several high-profile conservative writers - such as David Brooks in the New York Times and Kathleen Parker in the National Review - have poured scorn on her. Brooks even called her 'a fatal cancer on the Republican party'.
But the response among the base was instant and brutal. Parker received no fewer than 12,000 outraged emails, including some wishing she had been aborted, after writing that Palin should step down. There seems little doubt that Palin is still the darling of a huge section of red state America. But what works for the Republican base no longer works for the country as a whole. . . .
Troopergate has come as a body-blow to a campaign that was already on a losing streak. All last week, as the polls showed Obama pulling away, the atmosphere at McCain rallies had become angrier and angrier. . . .
Mention of Obama's name prompts cries of 'traitor', 'treason' and 'kill him'. Members of the press, universally suspected of Democratic sympathies, are targeted and insulted. At one rally in the South a black network TV cameraman was racially abused by a McCain supporter and told: 'Sit down, boy.'
Inside the Obama camp, and increasingly among Republican insiders, there is a growing feeling: this is what losing campaigns look like. . . . After months of holding on against what seemed impossible odds, McCain's chances of keeping the White House in Republican hands are sinking fast.
The wheels are coming off his campaign as the key states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania all swing firmly towards Obama. . . .
But it is possible that the attacks using Ayers are but the prelude to a more ominous main event. Despite urging from some quarters within his campaign, McCain has not yet himself raised the issue of Obama's former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright. McCain is believed to have termed the issue off-limits so far, even though news of Wright's incendiary sermons, condemning America as a racist society and blaming Aids on government, almost derailed Obama's candidacy when they first emerged.
But, as the November election gets closer and closer, and if the polls do not shift, McCain may be tempted to let the Wright issue loose. He is already facing pressure from Palin to do just that. In an interview with conservative columnist Bill Kristol, Palin urged her running mate to bring the Wright issue out of the box. 'I don't know why that association isn't discussed more ... but, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up,' she said.
That interview of course, took place before the Branchflower report. Now Palin may find that the attack dogs are chasing her.
The column doesn't even mention the Palins' association with the treasonous Alaskan Independence Party.
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