Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair

Read the Vanity Fair Article on the disaster that is Sarah Palin. Here’s an excerpt:

As Palin has piled misstep on top of misstep, the senior members of McCain’s campaign team have undergone a painful odyssey of their own. In recent rounds of long conversations, most made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. They quietly ponder the nightmare they lived through. Do they ever ask, What were we thinking? “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” one longtime McCain friend told me with a rueful chuckle. “You nailed it.” Another key McCain aide summed up his attitude this way: “I guess it’s sort of shifted,” he said. “I always wanted to tell myself the best-case story about her.” Even now, he said, “I don’t want to get too negative.” Then he added, “I think, as I’ve evaluated it, I think some of my worst fears … the after-election events have confirmed that her more negative aspects may have been there … ” His voice trailed off. “I saw her as a raw talent. Raw, but a talent. I hoped she could become better.”

I predicted she would be a disaster from day one. People should listen to me.

Comments

[Duke Of Earl.]

The camps are attacking each other over this dingbat. McCain's judgement straight up sucks and Palin was proof.

Too bad we didn't have more choices. Palin is a sign of a dying party.

Funny, in 2002 Rove was strutting around babbling about the new Republican majority. Hows that working out?

[DaveinHackensack]

McCain would probably have lost by a margin twice as wide without Palin on the ticket, despite her seeming lack of readiness for the VP spot (not that we are in much better hands with Biden). McCain aides shouldn't throw stones from their glass houses: McCain didn't look like he was ready for prime time either. When the financial crisis went into its acute phase last fall, it was the freshman Senator Obama who appeared cool, collected, and articulate; McCain evinced none of the leadership and courage under fire his campaign promised. He was his usual impulsive, judgmental self, made worse by him being completely out of his element on the economy. That's the point where Obama went ahead in the polls for good.

[Dan]

No, the bigger disaster was John McCain who, when it was all said in done, gave a greater critique of his own party then he ever did of the man he was running against. How exactly does one win in politics when one shows such little interest in highlighting the flaws of his opponent? It is a shame team McCain wasn't as interested in defeating Obama as they have been in smearing the Palins. What a$$ho!es.

[Rob]

But she wasn't a "disaster". She brought conservatives back as Republican voters.

[HS: The traditional Republican voter, the rich, voted for Obama in 2008, so how can you she brought back voters. She turned away the most important voters, those with money.]

[Rob]

I can say she brought back voters because she did. Many, many, conservatives were so disgusted with McCain that they weren't going to vote or were going to vote 3rd party. Palin changed their minds.

I don't know that the rich are Republican, anymore (long before Palin). And no amount of money will sway informed, ideologically committed voters.

[Peter A]

informed, ideologically committed voters

That's a contradiction. Ideologically committed voters are rarely well informed - they usually just seek out information to confirm their ideological bias.

[Steve]

God I hate Palin and the religious right. Her nomination marked the day I decided not to vote for McCain. The religious right would have voted for Mccain anyways, despite what they say. They would've just framed it as a vote against Obama. McCain needed a Romney type to go after the middle ground voters.

IMO, McCain was done the day the market collapsed. A repub party following Bush in that economy couldn't have gotten Abe Lincoln elected with Regan as his running mate.

[Linda]

Even I'll give Palin some credit. She was the only reason McCain ever had a snow ball's chance in hell against Obama. The fact that she couldn't take him all the way should not detract from the fact that she was the only person to breathe life into what was destined to be a dead campaign. As far back as 2006, anyone with half a brain knew a Democrat would be elected president in 2008. They just thought it would be Hillary, and it would have been had Oprah not thrown all her enormous influence behind Obama way back when he needed her most.

I think Sarah Palin was chosen in part to get a slice of the Oprah soccer mom audience away from Obama; that's why as soon as she was picked there was a huge movement to try to pressure Oprah to have Palin on her show, but Oprah smartly resisted. Oprah knew that Palin was EXACTLY the type of downhome hockey mom that would have been enormously popular with her audience.

[Peter A]

Oprah knew that Palin was EXACTLY the type of downhome hockey mom that would have been enormously popular with her audience.

Except she wasn't at all popular with that audience. I'd like to see the polling data, because my impression is that no one hates Palin as much as educated mothers. That's why choosing Palin was such a royal fuck-up by the McCain crew.

[dbp]

I put all the blame on McCain:

He should have had a stable of vetted vp picks lined up well in advance.

To the extent Palin seemed unprepared, I would put this down to three reasons: 1. She only knew a couple of days before the announcement that she was the pick--that isn't much time to bone-up on national affairs. 2. The media recognized her as a populist social conservative and put her under the microscope in a mad-dash attempt to smear her. 3. While smart (she is no Condi or Mitt) she isn't smart enough to compensate for the first two hits.

I don't know anybody who switched from McCain to Obama because of Palin, but I know lots of people who were not going to bother to vote but did (and voted for McCain) because of Palin.

[Linda]

"While smart (she is no Condi or Mitt) she isn't smart enough to compensate for the first two hits."

Sarah's probably about as smart as Condi, though that's not a high hill to climb in my opinion.

"Except she wasn't at all popular with that audience. I'd like to see the polling data, because my impression is that no one hates Palin as much as educated mothers."

I don't think she polled well with educated people, but she probably did well with married women. I heard McCain beat Obama among white women and that was probably because of Palin.

"I put all the blame on McCain:

He should have had a stable of vetted vp picks lined up well in advance."

No vp could have saved McCain's campaign. He was a republican following Bush, considered the worst president in American history, and on top of that the economy Bush had been running just imploded; meanwhile the Democrats had just nominated a charasmatic fresh young historical candidate. Under those circumstances McCain had no good options so why not role the dice on Palin? He had nothing to lose, and Palin did give him some momentum and won the white female vote.

[tvoh]

Vanity Fair, HS, the McCain Camp et al don't get it. McCain was the disaster. Unfortunately, the Archangel Michael was not available to save him, so he had to go with another politician.

Sarah ain't my cup of presidential tea, but she more than held her own amongst Biden, McCain and Obama. I doubt any of the others would have done as well under the same scrutiny.

A pity Mark Sanford wasn't......

[HS: McCain was a respected national politician for a long time, and certainly electable--were it not for the bad economy and Palin, he would probably have won. Palin was the one who couldn't respond to a question of "what newspapers do you read?"]

[asdf]

I find it hard to believe that Palin is leading in approval ratings among potential Republican nominees. Did everyone already forget what happened in the campaign? Or maybe approval won't translate to votes, and Romney who is the supposed second-runner will have the advantage.

HS had a post a while back supposedly correlating Palin's nomination with a drop in support. True, it was mostly the economy falling apart but how long does it take for the average voter to be turned off by their parading around their family's issues in an attempt to win the religious voters?

[Capital R. Rob]

Every time I see a commenter talk about Palin in 2012 I cringe. I'm not sure exactly what her claim to presidential competence is. She's governor of a one of the smallest states, and that's about it as far as her experience goes. She doesn't speak particularly well. Her family's kind of hick-ish. She's the dream Republican candidate for anyone on the Left.

[J.L.]

A lot of people are going to disagree with me, but here goes:

1. I think ANY Republican was going to have a hard time of it in 2008, because we've already had 8 years of the GOP in the White House, and because the presidency of George W. Bush was filled with some particularly divisuve issues and situations. (Note: I actually supported Bush through a lot of it. I'm just saying that, like him or not, the 8 years during which we became involved in two wars overseas, amid a larger conflict with radical Islamism, was going to create some pushback and negative reaction... moreso had such things not happened.

2. John McCain probably had among the best chances for winning from the GOP column. I say this because he managed, better than most, to satifsy the paradoxical desires from different constituencies for, on the one hand, change from George W. Bush's policies, and on the other hand, constinued conservative rule. Although he was (and is) being criticized from both sides, for being "not truly conservative" (despite a strongly conservative voting record), and being too much of the same (despite his much vauted Maverick stance), it was just as possible for McCain (as a generally conservative candidate with a Maverick image) to have "squared the circle" and brought together these two sets of voters. Add to that his impressive personal background as a war hero, and he could well have pulled it off.

3. Notwithstanding #2, above, McCain needed to confront the uphill road to getting elected by throwing a "hail mary pass"... that he did by picking Palin. Palin was a serously flawed cadidate, and scary to think of as president, but as a vice-president candidate she was, at worst, no worse than Dan Qayle, and at best, a surprising choice that comined political conservatism with a female candidate... thus bringing the possibility that she could draw to McCain those two constituencies. (It was especially breathtaking in lieu of Obama not pucking Hillary as a running mate.)

4. The combination of Maverick-conservative McCain with "hail mary throw" Palin was a combustible combination... but it almost worked!!! McCain-Palin were ahead until the economic crisis hit. Had there not been the economic crisis, I beleive that, as shaky as this ticket was, it would have pulled the hat-trick of winning the election. (Of course, we may then have spent 4 more years witnessing the spectacle of McCain's administration figuring out where to hide Palin where she could do the least harm.)

5. The economic crisis doomed the Mccain-Palin ticket... but I think it would have doomed ANY Republican ticket. Those who think that a more solidly conservative ticket would have won are deluding themselves. (Moreover, those who think that Romney was actually more conservative than McCain are also deluding themselves... he was pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-govt. healthcare as governor. Don't get me wrong, I like Romney, but facts are facts!!)

[HS: The Hail Mary pass only worked for Doug Flutie. McCain didn't need a Hail Mary pass, there was enough time on the clock to run the ball and score a touchdown. In August, he didn't know about the coming financial crisis. Palin backfired.]

[McCainiac]

We're in this financial mess because the Community Reinvestment Act encouraged massive lending to unqualified borrowers. McCain should've made an issue of how the support of Obama, liberals, ACORN, and RINOs in this horrendously conceived law precipitated one of the largest financial collapses in decades. McCain was all in favor of limiting the damage of this loose lending policy by clamping down on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but liberal Democrats and our RINO president didn't want to take the punch bowl away. If this country had as much respect for free market as it claims, we wouldn't be in this trouble.

Making an issue of Rev Jeremiah Wright and contrasting that with McCain's time in the POW camp would've been a good idea too. Unfortunately for us, we live in an era where anybody that criticizes Comrade Obama and his Obamunism is equated with fringe extremists and that seems to have spooked McCain. Personally though I think doing a Bush-Dukakis 88 campaign type of attack on Obama's liberalism would've been effective.

I don't think Palin has what it takes to lead the opposition. Romney-Jindal seems like a good ticket to me.

[Liberals Are Fascists]

Palin "not ready for the job"?

The budget deficit this year is going to be around $2 trillion.

Tell me again who isn't ready for the job?

[D Paul]

As a Navy veteran, I still would vote for Johnny Mac. I was disappointed with his judgement in the appointment of Sarah P. Exit polls among independents in Pennsylvania showed that they voted overwhelmingly against J. Mac just because of Sarah. I continue to be a Charlie Crist fan and continue to believe that the election was in the "court" of McCain for the taking. He "double dribbled" and Obama threw the ball into "Kobie" for a dunk.