Country First: McCain pulls plug on Palin as VP

Like McGovern first supporting and then pulling plug on Thomas Eagleton in 1972. Yes, it could very well be messy.

How do you see it playing out?
 
I remember being in middle school during the 2008 election, even at that young an age Palin was an easy target. Back then everybody knew she was the dumbest politician this side of Huckabee, making Dubya look as well spoken as a Founding Father in comparison.

There's a Catch-22 in this. On one hand McCain is praised for dropping crazy off the ticket. On the other, it shows bad judgement that she was selected in the first place. McCain should've vetted his potential VPs better. Perhaps she says something so stupid or controversial that they really have no choice but to ditch her. As for a replacement, Senator Olympia Snowe would be good, especially if they still want a woman on the ticket.
 
I remember being in middle school during the 2008 election, even at that young an age Palin was an easy target. Back then everybody knew she was the dumbest politician this side of Huckabee, making Dubya look as well spoken as a Founding Father in comparison.

There's a Catch-22 in this. On one hand McCain is praised for dropping crazy off the ticket. On the other, it shows bad judgement that she was selected in the first place. McCain should've vetted his potential VPs better. Perhaps she says something so stupid or controversial that they really have no choice but to ditch her. As for a replacement, Senator Olympia Snowe would be good, especially if they still want a woman on the ticket.

Conservatives would revolt if you replaced Palin with Snowe.
 
I’m really hoping McCain would decide, for the good of the country, more important than an election.

Remember the Eagleton example you mentioned. When it became known that the Senator had been treated for depression, most voters didn't think he should be removed from the ticket. But when McGovern broke his pledge to stand by Eagleton and dropped him from the ticket despite public opinion, it made him look dishonest and weak. Further, McGovern's decision only served to highlight the issue of Eagleton's mental health and this made it look even worse than before.

Had McCain dropped Palin, you could expect a similar result: it tarnishes McCain's character and judgement, and exacerbates the Palin problem rather than eliminating it. Palin was one of the worst ever VP picks by far, but dropping her from the ticket would've been worse than keeping her on.
 
Picking Lieberman (as he reportedly wanted to do) from the get-go would have probably been less damaging.

Of course, like 1972 for McGovern, the election was probably doomed one way or another.
 
Remember the Eagleton example you mentioned. When it became known that the Senator had been treated for depression, most voters didn't think he should be removed from the ticket. But when McGovern broke his pledge to stand by Eagleton and dropped him from the ticket despite public opinion, it made him look dishonest and weak. Further, McGovern's decision only served to highlight the issue of Eagleton's mental health and this made it look even worse than before.

Had McCain dropped Palin, you could expect a similar result: it tarnishes McCain's character and judgement, and exacerbates the Palin problem rather than eliminating it. Palin was one of the worst ever VP picks by far, but dropping her from the ticket would've been worse than keeping her on.
I agree with almost all of this. And I’ll add that people who deal with depression can make contributions in all kinds of life areas.

All the same, Palin really was not qualified.
 
The only way that Palin is going to dropped from the ticket is if she makes an unabashedly racist statement and does not even try to apologize and walk back the statement.
I always thought that in the heat of the moment, Gov. Palin at a campaign rally would blurt out something like "Keep the White House white" and at first she would say that she was misheard but as it kept on getting replayed on a basically endless loop on the cable news channels, the denials do not hold up.
 
McCain loses as bad, if not worse, than OTL. Maybe he loses close GOP won states like Missouri and Montana.

Another thing to consider is that the far right Republican base, which had problems with McCain going back to 2000, would be offended and many conservatives might stay home. Decreased conservative turnout would flip at least Missouri, giving Obama 376 electoral votes to McCain's 162.
 
McCain was already pretty far down before he picked Palin, she gave him a bump for a small time but then the Market crashed, people listened when she started talking and we all know the rest. If he drops her a dysfunctional campaign just looks even more dysfunctional.
 
Yes, but his reputation is better.

Palin had gaps of knowledge which were just stunning.

Yes and no. I think with Palin, it's more the case that she was literally Governor of a state with the population of a midsized city who was extremely politically unseasoned. I think if she'd become a Senator a few years later, political handlers and the like would have gotten her up to speed. She still would say a lot of dumb stuff, but not be grossly exposed.
 
People like to bash Palin, but McCain loses in a huge landslide without her. McCain was (like Romney) a milquetoast, weak candidate for the Republican party, his record in the military, and as a maverick in the senate that accomplished sensible things like campaign finance reform are all great in an obituary or for democrats to use as a foil against contemporary republicans, but in real life the american public clearly showed up at the polls and voted against him in the most lopsided popular vote loss since 1988. While McCain's actions were inspiring, his words and beliefs were not, and in American politics words mean much more than actions.

In all likelihood, if McCain chooses Lieberman he probably gets run out of the primaries in 2010, (though that doesn't mean he doesn't keep his senate seat) and 2008 is an even bigger loss on every level for the republicans with many conservatives staying home, who were otherwise fired up because of the Palin pick.
 
. . if she'd become a Senator a few years later, political handlers and the like would have gotten her up to speed. .
I think she was like a tennis player with a really good serve, or a studio guitarist who was really good at that one specific skill.

Sarah Palin is excellent at leading fellow evangelical Christians, but she did not and has not branched out into other areas.
 
Blog:
https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/palin-takes-crony-capitalism-fight-to-south-korea/


Oct. 11, 2011

' . . . In Ms. Palin’s view of the world, “well-connected banks get bailed out”; “certain companies get special deals through governments”; and taxpayer dollars are “given to companies that are run by politicians’ campaign contributors so often.” In return, lobbyists and politicians “slip sweet deals and tax breaks into the tax code that they get to help to write.”

“I just call it crony capitalism,” she said.
This is an area where Palin is stronger.

Of course, we needed to bail out the culprits to keep the whole engine from crashing. But then we should have done the second step of using Sherman Anti-Trust or similar to, in a very orderly and lawful manner, breaking up the big boy banks. This would have been less vulnerable to rollback than Dodd-Frank.

With the economy not delivering the goods as far as a healthy number of middle-wage jobs, people thrash around like a wounded animal looking for culprits and explanations. People put things together in their own way and there's going to be some overlap between left and right (but maybe not enough for a political movement, a new first party, or anything of the sort!)
 
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