What is a running mate's job?
Jazz the base.
Win a region or state.
Attract swing voters.
Don't do harm.
Attract women this cycle.
Palin did none of these.
Core Republican turnout declined 1.3 percent compared to four years ago, the Republican share of the electorate dropped five points from 2004 — and the depression of conservative voters was amplified in key states such as Ohio, where Obama won despite earning almost the same number of votes as John F. Kerry. The difference is that 300,000 people who showed up for Bush/Cheney decided to stay home for McCain/Palin.
Read the entire article here.
2 comments:
Not to quibble with those numbers, but ...
You can find evidence that Palin *did* excite the base; it is debatable whether JM would've drawn even the numbers he did with a different running mate. The truth is, we'll never know, but, this was never going to be 04 all over again.
McCain's campaign was never as focused on the ground game, for one. And there just wasn't as much enthusiasm amongst the evangelicals--again, I think Palin helped slightly there, over what McCain would've done w/o her.
Also, there was talk amongst some partisans that Obama would have been competitive in Alaska, until Palin was named. So one could argue that she did deliver a state, meaningless as it turned out to be.
I think Palin was a huge mistake that backfired big time on McCain. It's clear she drove away independents and even some conservatives. So, did she do her job? Not really. But she did excite at least a large portion of the Republican base. The problem, for Republicans, is that that base is shrinking.
She jazzed my base!
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