Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush in the 2004 campaign, says McCain will forever regret his pick of Palin:
"[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the
ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is
something he will have to live with... He put somebody unqualified on
that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that."
But he points out that McCain ended up with Palin because the party's conservatives wouldn't countenance his first choice: Joe Lieberman. Senator Lieberman is Democrat-turned-Independent, staunch supporter of the Iraq war, and close ally of McCain. He would have been the best choice on every count: McCain knows and trusts him, he's a national security expert, he's not in the Republican Party and so could have broadened the ticket's appeal. Every count but one that is: he's pro-abortion, and the conservatives threatened to go apeshit if he was picked.
If McCain loses, he will have been defeated by his own party as much as his opponent.
But Palin was a success in terms of ramping up the enthusiasm of the base, right?
"To me it is like Halloween," said Dowd. "You get energized by eating all that candy at night but then you feel sick the next day."
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