The Palin Affair?

By William Rabbe on 09/27/2008

By William Rabbe

Conservative columnist, Kathleen Parker, of the National Review has called for Sarah Palin to withdraw from the Republican ticket.

Nearly a month after the Sarah Palin's triumphant speech at the RNC, several rather embarrassing moments have called her qualifications into question -- big time. Most of this buzz can be attributed to her interview with Katie Couric of on September 25th, described in TIME as "downright looney" and, "pathetic" by CNN's Jack Cafferty. If you search "Palin Couric" and total the number views on Youtube of various excerpts of the interview it is over 3 million so far.

Maybe Palin is "out of her league," as Parker states, but does this really mean that she should withdraw or that McCain should dump her? Speaking in terms of presidential politics: absolutely not. 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern might have set the gold standard of bad political moves by doing just that in his race against Richard Nixon and it cost him dearly.

The late ex-vice presidential Candidate, Tom Eagleton, was dropped from the ticket after it was discovered that he has received electro-shock treatment for "fatigue" twice. Quite controversial at the time (although Geraldine Ferraro said in our interview that, "there have probably been a couple of Vice Presidents who have mental health problems and we just haven't found out about it..." -- who was she referring to?).

McGovern did not extensively vet his selection and the resulting "Eagleton Affair" was a disaster -- the move was seen by the public as overtly political, especially after he had publicly declared that he was behind Eagleton "1,000 percent."

For better or worse, McCain and Palin are stuck with eachother -- but if it's as bad as Kathleen Parker asserts, the campaign can take comfort that the Democrats probably won't attack Palin directly, just look at Michael Dukakis' 1988 campaign for President -- he ran ads against George H. W. Bush's "careless" choice of Dan Qualye, opening with narration stating that "the most powerful man in the world is mortal" (really?!?):

A lot of good that did him, Dukakis lost in a landslide. That ad was decidedly not a game changer, it was a distraction.

The truth is that people vote for the person on the top of the ticket. This conventional wisdom will probably hold true in 2008.

Nevertheless, what would it take for a "Palin Affair" to still happen? She would have to make a statement to exceed all bounds of absurdity, revealing herself to be an undeniable liability in the eyes of the American public. Like maybe if she said the moon was made of cheese...

This week will prove to be the ultimate test of Palin's cred -- the third and final part of the Katie Couric interview is set to air (perhaps they saved the best for last?) and the most anticipated vice presidential debate of all time will take place on Thursday. That means a lot of opportunity for gaffes. If Palin survives this week, Kathleen Parker can be assured that she's on the ticket for good.