Can McCain Still Win if he Dumps Sarah Palin Now?

For John McCain, Sarah Palin has proven to be a bridge to nowhere. She helped him bridge the gap for the support of religious advocates and the conservative right, but it was ultimately a meaningless victory. She won him the battle but may have cost him the election.

It ain't over til it's over, but for the McCain presidential campaign, things are looking quite grim. Will he have a better chance if he removed Sarah Palin from his ticket immediately and replaced her with a better-qualified candidate? It's a stunning move. It's unprecedented. It's a Hail Mary pass. Comedians will have a field day. Yet, many disillusioned voters who have been turned off to his ticket by Palin's strident, divisive tone and cheeky personality might just possibly forgive him and welcome him back with open arms.

It's not a pipe dream. A recent Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll showed that voters' perception of McCain hasn't changed much all these months, despite their becoming disillusioned by the increasingly negative tone of the campaign. The numbers are diminishing, but he still rates higher than Obama on what should be game-winners: national security, working with both political parties, being decisive, experience, and competency. According to the poll, people still find him more qualified than Obama.

But Palin is the game-changer. The same poll showed Sarah Palin's approval ratings sinking like a stone. Even members of his own party are beginning to openly voice their dissent. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell directly cited her as his reason for endorsing Obama. The Salt Lake Tribune, like many other newspapers that have endorsed Obama, cited McCain's "impetuous" selection of Palin as a factor for rejecting him.

Behind these endorsement is a sense that the decision to back Obama is being done reluctantly. The truth is that many independent and undecided voters want any reason whatsoever not to vote for Obama. However, they can't in good conscious vote for a woman who is clearly unqualified for the office and who displays no humility about her lack of qualification; a woman who instead incites others toward violence against her opponents. That's a display of bad sportsmanship that is obnoxious to the American spirit.

McCain can get away with the last-minute switch. Two weeks is plenty of time. Events happen rapidly on the world stage today. People have grown accustomed to instant gratification. In the old days, no one thought anything unusual about a 100-year-old war, for example. Today, wars get tiring after several months - even weeks - and people on both sides demand a quick resolution. The main criticism of the Iraq war isn't that we invaded the country, for example, but that we've stayed there too long!

In fact, in the current presidential race, two weeks is an eternity. It's been more the rule than the exception that the candidates' standings in the polls have often shifted dramatically - even overnight. One more dramatic shift will just be business as usual. And what's the worse that could happen? McCain loses the campaign and destroys his reputation? If he continues the current course, he's going to lose the campaign anyway and his reputation will take a hit. If he wins, it will be one of the biggest political comebacks in history. Americans love a winner and will forgive his momentary lapse in judgment.

Even analysts agree that two weeks to Election Day is a long, long time in this race. Long enough for McCain to bring in the second-string quarterback and win the game.

Dumping Palin, as Tina Fey would say, would be the "mavericky" thing to do. And it just might pay off, doncha know?

Comments

[AnalyzeIT]

Nope!!!

[OddManOut]

Love the article and espeically the title.

It's like asking, "What if Fox and Friends suddenly went off the air?" For both, it would be like Christmas, every day of the year!

[nswfm]

Dumping her now is too little, too late. Even if he got to pick the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, it's too late because he is running a disaster of a campaign. No amount of walking on water is going to help McCain. He just agreed that people in Pennsylvania are racist, etc. He's not going to win.

[hortonhearsawho]

I'll toss in a few bucks, fare back to wherever.

[DogTown]

NO

[Snoop2]

For McCain to pull this election out he should dump Palin

and go withTina Fey who has a much higher favorabe rateing!

[Fabini]

Condoleezza Rice. She could possibly make this a real race. No one else.

[arthur2008]

Too late. Sarah Palin has already dropped John McCain and moved on to 2012.

[MariosResponse]

haha...very funny...but eerily possible...

[AnalyzeIT]

H*ll let's hope she'll be in prison.

However, running against Obama, in 2012 - she will not make it.

OBAMA-BIDEN

[Kiku]

No, this would not do him any good. It will be one more example of McCain's bad judgement. He will be in charge of our military, Commander in Chief. The President has to make a good judgement the first time around. He has to put his country first, not his party, not the extreme right wing. Change Palin out just emphasizes that he acknowledges that he made a bad judgement, and it looses him the right wing.

[northstar11]

his lapse in judgement is not momentary.

[Lee323]

There's no way that McCain will drop Palin from his ticket. It's not because he thinks she's so qualified or because he's gallantly defending her....what he's defending is his pride and judgment. In fact, McCain and Palin should change their slogan from "Country First" .....to "Pride and Predjudice" (with apologies to Jane Austen).

[vendredi]

Not sure it's up to McCain.

Especially after reading Mayer's New Yorker piece, I can't help feeling Palin was pretty much chosen "for" him. I think the same people who got her in there would take her out in a minute if they thought she was really a liability.

It's apparent to many of us that she's become his albatross, but I expect that the reason she's lasted even this long (after those disastrous Couric interviews) is that those same people continue to be see nothing wrong with her.

My guess is she's in for the duration. Which is fine - it's not like he's going to win anyway and frankly, the more he and that group lose by, the happier I'll be. I'd especially like to see Palin (and her backers) so squashed that she never comes back and we never have to hear from her again. She represents a style of politics that horrifies me.

I'd kinda like to know what's going on with the Palin behind-the-scenes "backers" of the party, and what becomes of them AFTER the election....

[jmpfjoy]

It's poetic justice. The man who wouldn't vote yes on equal pay for women is now watching his hopes for the presidency destroyed by a woman. Gotta luv it.

[Phate]

IRONY - It's what's for breakfast!

[jlarue]

No way for him to put the genii back in bottle...which to me is a good thing. He has shown what a petty, divisive, ambitious, deceitful, dishonorable man he is in the past few weeks. If he keeps her he looks like a fool...if he dumps her he looks even more erratic.....They guy is lurching around like Frankensteins monster....Making a good decision will not take away the bad decision and add that to his campaign suspension, the fundamentals of the economy are sound, dont bail out AIG, bail out AIG...he is all over the place. He will have to catch bin laden live on fox news at this point.....maybe a Geraldo special!

[alteregoess]

Frankly, if he "knows how to do it, my friends" (catch Bin Laden) and hasn't informed our government of it, he's practically a traitor.

[geedafotus]

Could someone please explain why Gov. Palin has less experience than Obama. I sure can't find it in the stats. Oh and he's running for President not VP.

[GoCheneyYourself]

It's more her near absence of knowledge of federal issues and if you want examples just watch any of her interviews.

[bdaved]

I would not say experience is unimportant. But temperament, ability, and intellect can trump a whole lot of experience. Senator McCain himself listed Governor Palin's experience as a PTA member as a qualification for her to be vice-president. How much credibility is in that argument?
If you want to know who has had more executive experience that both of them just run down the roster of totalitarian rulers of the last century. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney brought a lot of experience with them when they came to serve in the current administration and both have failed the American people miserably.
I wonder how Governor Palin would've fared if she had had to go through the primary process for the Presidential nomination. I realize she is not directly seeking that office, but her proximity to it has to be seriously considered. The experience argument is unlikely to sway anybody.

[2dark]

Excellent response bdavid. Respectful of both the questioner, the question and to Governor Palin. Thank you.