The Occasional Observer

The next 48 hours may well dictate who becomes the 44th President of the United States. The Democrats and their unofficial surrogates in the MSM, namely CNN, NBC, and the NY Times, have been unabashedly trying to undermine the public's perception of John McCain's judgment, by attacking his selection for V.P., Gov. Sarah Palin.

Lacking any real disqualifying factor with which to attack Gov. Palin, they have instead attempted "death by a thousand cuts." Find any possible line of attack, launch them all at once, and hope voters are too weary to try and sort through the attacks in order to separate the wheat from the chaff (or in this case, the chaff from the chaff).

So let's look at a few of the items that have been raised as disqualifying for Gov Palin.

1) Inexperience.

A quick look at the top of the Dems' ticket should make it clear that, should voters decide Palin is unprepared to be President, it virtually assures that McCain is elected.

2) Her daughter got preganant out of wedlock.

Unfortunate for Bristol and the whole Palin family. But it wasn't Sarah's doing, and she and her husband are saying and doing all the right things to support her daughter, and counsel her into taking the right path.

3) Palin was a member of a fringe Alaskan political party that advocated secession from the U.S.

Bullshit. This came up on dKos and I haven't seen any validation of the claim. Apparently, she's been a registered Republican since '82 and there's no record of her supporting this group. She supposedly addressed them via satellite at their state convention last year, but referenced them as "competitors" in the speech, with the upshot being that competition makes the U.S. political system works. This one actually could have dinged Palin if it were true, but like I said, show me the evidence beyond Olbermann wishing it were so.

4) Her husband got arrested for DUI when he was 22.

Again: not the candidate. And beside, if our ticket's vice (in the distant past) was booze, and their ticket's (in the distant past) was coke, I think we win again.

5) She actually supported the bridge to nowhere.

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this one. It has been reported that Palin wrote a memo saying that Alaska should use the seniority of their Congressional ontingent to secure federal funding for infrasturcture projects before the GOP lost control of Congress. And she also campaigned at one point saying the Bridge to Nowhere was a good idea, before later changing her mind. But I haven't seen the smoking gun at any point where she said "we should secure federal funds to pay for this bridge." If you recall, in her V.P. acceptance speech, she stated that she thought "we [Alaska] could build it ourselves", and that they didn't need earmarks to do it. One could be for the bridge but against federal largesse. I'm not sure if there's any fire behind this smoke or not.

The bottom line: there's not much there there.

The Dems are banking on people's pre-conceived notion that a pretty female, that they haven't heard that much about, couldn't possibly be ready to run the country. Even if she's had more meaningful experience, and regularly exhibits better judgment, than the Messiah that voters are seriously thinking of making President this coming January.

The key point here is that perception trumps reality. People will perceive whether or not Palin is ready based on how forcefully she makes the case for a GOP administration tomorrow night. The speeches of the ticket's surrogates will also be important in refuting the media.

What I do know is that, by one or two weeks from now, people's opinions of Palin will have hardened considerably beyond what they are now. Whether she becomes marginalized, a la Quayle, as Team Obama/CNN/MSNBC would like, or becomes a dynamic female conservative leader that changes the fabric of this election and beyond, may well be riding on the next few days.

If people conclude she's a lightweight, it undercuts McCain's candidacy in any number of ways (his judgment, his vetting process/organizational principles, his stated claim to placing country above politics, etc.), and this year is probably lost.

If she "wins the crowd," it makes the left look hypocritical (feminists?), McCain look prophetic yet again, and the blowback against Obama from female voters for attacking Palin could be huge.

Some, like Alex Knepper at Race 4 2008, are already calling for McCain to force her hand into refusing the nomination, so that McCain could pick a new veep. Doing so would be a fatal error. Everyone would conclude that McCain had done a shoddy job of vetting the candidate, didn't see these "problems" coming, and Mac would end up taking the same hit that he'll take if she stays on the ticket and is marginalized. The bounce Mac would get from a Mitt or Rudy would never compensate for the hit to McCain's own credibility.

This campaign's going to sink or swim with Sarah. If it swims, they'll survive to a later round, where Mac will still have some work to do.