With news today that her husband was a member of the Alaska Independence
Party until she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002, even more folks are going
to start pressing John McCain hard to drop her. Josh Marshall has already
suggested reasons he needs her to stay but I don’t think those reasons are
enough to keep her in play much longer. In fact, I hope (for his sake) that
McCain is considering a change to be announced at the convention.
The problems are already so numerous as to make Palin’s
appearance on the ticket potentially damaging to McCain and there’s virtually
no way she’ll be a positive game changer for him. It seems likely to get even
worse as more information comes to light about her family and the specific
tasks she claims as accomplishments. The comparison with Joe Biden will not be
favorable.
Some politicians could survive the weekend she’s had but
Palin has no reservoir of good will and public familiarity to fall back
on. I hope Palin ‘decides’ to drop
out because she wants to consider her family first. She has a newborn with a
profound developmental disability, her high school senior daughter is newly
engaged and about to become a mother herself and still has two other young
children at home. Palin can argue, reasonably and persuasively, that she’s
discovered in the last week that she simply does not have time to be both the
VP her country deserves and the parent her children deserve. Isn’t that the kind of narrative that
would help her save face and make it easier for McCain to nominate Romney,
Pawlenty or someone else?
TP
The WhoDeannyPod 