Posted on 12/13/2013 7:09:40 AM PST by Academiadotorg
, Malcolm A. Kline Share/Save
Talk about going against the grain: A pair of political scientists from Bradley University actually found that Sarah Palin helped John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
“We find that using marginal effects, as is appropriate for cross-sectional data, shows that Palin had a positive effect on McCain vote choice, and based on our model specification, may have had a positive, conditional relationship for independent voters,” Edward M. Burmilla and Josh M. Ryan wrote in an article which appeared in the Political Research Quarterly.
They go on to conclude that, “when confidence intervals are included, Palin’s effect was not necessarily the largest among the nominees [for vice-president] since 1972.”
Their work runs counter to not only the collective wisdom of Democratic as well as Republican talking heads whose domes have dominated the airwaves over the past five years but also that of a quartet of other political science profs and researchers whose analyses have been more widely publicized including:
University of Central Florida professor Jonathan Knuckey Roy Ellis of Stanford D. Sunshine Hillygus and Norman H. Nie, both of Duke.
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia. If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
It may be late to read this, but it's nice to see some validation of the fact she actually helped the ticket.
A choice, not an echo.
McCain was too weak, too cowardly or too dishonest to demand his staff stop sabotaging Sarah and stop backstabbing Sarah to the media.
I wasn’t going to vote for McCain until she was picked.
I wasn’t voting for his opponent, but I wasn’t voting for him.
The blame game … The economy was weak and the financial markets were crashing. McCain-Palin moved ahead in the polls and then Obama-Biden rebounded. Yes, maybe some of the zig-zap was due to the conventions. But, you should be able to see Obama first moving ahead of McCain due to the weakening economy and then moving further ahead with the crash of the financial markets.
The Alaska senate seat is still up in the air. Time for her to settle it.
Duh, I voter FOR her, not McLame
We know this for sure: mclame couldn’t raise a dime from ordinary citizens until he named Palin as running mate. Then the bucks started flowing in.
I don't know what them thar boys said but thet certainly sounds smart. [/sarc]
Yet, he was the "best" the GOP-e could field against the "Won"; very telling.
McCain was down 30 points prior to the convention. After Palin's speech, Obama's lead was wiped out completely, and Palin kept the ticket ahead by a few points through the whole month of September.
The bottom fell out when McQueeg suspended his campaign to go to DC to surrender to Obama, using the economic meltdown as an excuse.
The Alaska senate seat is still up in the air. Time for her to settle it.
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You don’t think that Sarah doing the new TV show has settled the question of her running for the Senate in Alaska?
When I attended a Rally for McCain/Palin in Albuquerque, the difference in enthusiasm level from when Palin took the stage to when McCain took the stage was palpable. The level of excitement for Palin was 3 times what it was for McCain himself. You’d have thought it was a Palin/McCain ticket, not the other way round. Anyone who suggests that Palin didn’t help McCain never attended one of their rallies!
She was the only reason I voted for the old moron.
I will vote for her again, no matter who the GOPe decides to run in the next election, provided we even have one.
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