Replies

“Her electability is her Achilles heel...and yes electability is important.”

Give me some concrete proof that she is unelectable.

Is it because David Frum, George Will, David Brooks and the rest of the Lamestream Media don’t like her and trash her?

That is eight votes if you count their readers. (BTW, they loved McCain. How did he do?)

Is it because her poll numbers now show her a few points behind Obama?

The NYT and Gallup took a poll in December, 1978 that showed ahead of Reagan 57-36, a 21 point lead. In May of 1980, Carter still led 48-40. Polls this far out are unreliable, and you have to look at who is being polled (likely voters, registered voters or adults).

Is it because she is not a good candidate?

What evidence is there of this? Bad candidates don’t draw 60,000 fans when they are running for VP. Unsuccessful VP aspirants, who are bad candidates, retire and are forgotten. Theey don’t draw crowd of 10,000, 20,000 or more and they don’t have hundreds and hundreds people camping out overnight in freezing weather to get the “unelectable” candidate’s autobiography signed.

Bad candidates don’t take on entrenched incumbents at the City Council level, at the Mayoral level and at the Gubernatorial level and beat them all, culminating in the 31 point shellacking of an incumbent GOP governor who had been elected statewide FOUR times and a solid eight point beating of a popular two term Democrat governor in 2006, the biggest Democrat year since 1974 (which saw rivals Huckabee and Romney, in the face of certain defeat, retire).

I have given you three reasons, including empirical evidence, why Palin is electable. Suppose you come up with one reason (other than David Frum and E.J. Dionne told me so)why she is not.

I can't give you proof, just as you can't prove that she is electable. What I can do, like you have, is offer my opinion on the matter based on what I have observed from anecdotal. For many people fist impressions matter, and no matter how you spin it (McCain's handlers, biased media, etc.) Palin did herself no favors with her Couric interview. Was she treated unfairly, probably, but life ain't fair and perceptions do matter. Additionally, she did resign before her term was up no matter how justifiable (to us) her reasons. The more I see and hear from Palin the more I like her, but again I'm inclined to like her because I generally agree with her...it's hard to get people to take a second look, especially when her subsequent action of resigning reinforces the first impression that she is unserious.

I'm not saying she isn;t popular, because she obviously is. I have no doubt that here support is deep among conservatives...but I suspect her support as a candidate isn't wide outside of that group.

Alaska electoral politics isn;t evidence that she is electable on a national level. 2006 was a good year no doubt for Palin even as a Republican, just as it was generally a bad year for incumbents. Susan Collins won reelection to a third term in 2008 by over 10%, defeating a dem congressman in a state that went for Obama by a wide margin. Despite all that, I wouldn't use Collins victory in Maine as an indication of anything just as I wouldn't use Palin’s victory in Alaska as anything.

Would I love it if Palin was to prove me wrong...absolutely. Am I ready to say that she is our only or best hope of actually winning...absolutely not.