A lot of useful, interesting ideas have been expressed here and elsewhere regarding Sara Palin and this race. It is often times difficult to keep our biases at bay in such matters. As a lifelong Democrat and political junkie, my biases are strong. As a budding social scientist (Ph.D. candidate in International Studies), my desire to keep my biases out of it are also strong. And as a 43-year-old American, my desire (if not ability) to use the Force to avoid going over to the Dark Side, also strong, it is.
So this is my attempt to divide this campaign into the Good (optimism), the Bad (Pessimism) and the Ugly (things we don't want to admit to.)
The fundamentals remain strong. Democrats are popular; Republicans are loathed. The current administration is loathed. 80% of Americans believe we're on the wrong track. The Obama campaign is far more robust, effective, and widespread than the McCain campaign. Enthusiasm is not currently accurately measurable and likely favors Obama, despite the addition of Palin to the ticket. The MSM has recently begun to get after McCain/Palin for their Lovitzian patholigical lying. For once, they are calling a spade a spade. And nobody thinks Palin is remotely qualified -- those that are lying about it are uncharacteristically being publicly called on it on a daily basis. There is also the potential for increased Democratic turnout due to underrepresentation of cellphone-only voters in polling. Finally, tactically, the Obama campaign has begun to turn up the heat over the last few days to a week. We could start seeing some impressive results in the polls.
The Bad: There is now a floor to Republican awfulness. The choice of Palin as VP runningmate has energized the base and given McCain a pretty solid bump/bounce in the polls. An Obama rout may no longer be possible -- we may be back to the guaranteed 44% Republican vote. There are some significant number of voters -- be they White Democrats or Hillary Holdouts or just plain racists -- who will not under pretty much any circumstances vote for Obama. Palin has helped McCain in the Mountain West in states like Montana, SD, ND, and, of course Alaska and in the South. The electoral expansionary revolution, which so many of us have argued for, myself included, looks much less doable.
The Ugly: Things that could be true that folks around here don't want to admit.. First, we really could lose, for any number of reasons. Second, Americans generally might be willing to stick with McCain because they view his current pandering as just that -- if/when he wins the election, he will drop the pandering for votes and behave himself like the maverick he really is. Third, Palin may really be, in some sense of the term, a feminist icon. Not that she should be but that enough women will see her that way, for whatever reason, and decide that that's enough. And I would argue, that in some very, very limited sense of the term, she is a feminist. As Joan Walsh of Salon has put it, she knows how to throw and take a punch. She unapologetically seeks power, something which male politicians are rarely questioned about. This is certainly not my broad interpretation -- everything considered, this woman sets back most feminist causes by years or decades (if not centuries.) But if this race stays way too close for comfort over the next few weeks, this may be as good as place as any to start in our search for explanations.
