Source: http://www.nationnews.com/editorial/294430997073741.php
The Race to the White House – Palin 'failin'
BY WAYNE BROWN
IF OBAMA PREVAILS in November, future historians retelling the campaign of America's first African-American president will no doubt give several pages to the events of the past ten days.
Before then, the Obama campaign had been unfocused and tentative, clearly thrown off-balance by the way Sarah Palin had come out of nowhere to ignite the Republican base; and the polls were moving dramatically in McCain's favour.
Today, just ten days later, the situation has been reversed: it's McCain who's flailing and Obama who's re-energised, while the polls shift back to their pre-conventions' lineaments: Advantage Obama.
McCain had first closed the gap with Obama in late July, when – astoundingly – his campaign managed to spin Obama's ecstatic reception in Berlin into proof of his 'un-American-ness' and to dismiss him as a 'celebrity'. And the celebrity diss was reinforced days later by the Obama-Paris Hilton ad, with its transparently racist thrust.
Then in August Russia's invasion of Georgia had given McCain a chance to play himself – 'We are all Georgians!', and so on – and to indulge in the sabre-rattling that, one fears, may well be the gut response of a man who was once tortured and has waited 36 years for payback.
In August, too, the soaring price of gas gave McCain the chance to sell Americans on the need to extend offshore drilling – this, while Obama equivocated.
The timing of the Republican Convention, right after the Democrats', cut short Obama's convention bounce. And finally there was McCain's galvanic Veep pick, Sarah Palin. As September began, McCain surged ahead of Obama in the polls.
Last week's equally dramatic swing back to Obama was due to several factors:
A rash of McCain anti-Obama assertions and ads that were so blatantly and smearingly mendacious that they provoked media protests and established the narrative of McCain as having descended into the gutter. The 'L' word has long been taboo in presidential elections, but the McCain campaign went so far that – first on the popular daytime talk show, The View, and then increasingly in the print media – hosts and columnists accused McCain of 'lying'.This was particularly significant because it undercut the 'honourable maverick' image that, till then, had been McCain's chief attraction to independent voters.
The earthquakes shaking Wall Street last week. McCain is a laissez-faire Reaganite who narrowly escaped indictment in the Keating 5 scandal. He has long been a supporter of deregulation, and it was comical to watch his flipflops last week as the fearsome threat of Wall Street's meltdown grew. From his 'The fundamentals of the economy are strong!' to his shrill threats to 'fire' this one and that one, McCain changed positions almost daily as the electorate's angst, and the Bush Administration's desperate nationalising of huge, imperilled firms, came home to him.
The fact is, the Palin pick was always an act of political desperation, and an insult to the electorate. Yet, given the Republicans' bellicose bawling of 'sexism' at any journalist who inquired into Palin's Alaska record, it took the woman's own painfully undergraduate performance in her first ABC interview to dramatise her unsuitability.
Even then, it was the comedy shows which led the charge in bursting the Palin balloon.
Alongside them, the mainstream media contributed a steady drip of unsavoury revelations that quite undercut Palin's claims to be a reformer, an opponent of earmarks, and a champion of transparent government.
The spread in Palin's 'favourability' ratings went from plus 17 to minus four, a staggering 21-point drop in one week.
Palin retains her ability to excite (sic!) the Republican base; she is, after all, an anti-abortion Creationist with a fetish for big guns. But the numbers are in, and they show she's also energised Democrats – including 'Hillary Democrats' – and has had virtually no effect on swing voters. It's a fair guess that even moderate Republicans will increasingly develop immunity to her charms as they get a better look at the 'replacement president' John McCain is offering them.