Hindsight

In the last few days, I have come across a couple of articles and respected blogs arguing that given the recent pronounced dip in the popularity of Sarah Palin, John McCain would have been better served picking another running mate. The thinking goes that, among other things, because Palin is so inexperienced, she has completely undercut McCain's ability to attack Obama's lack of experience and highlight McCain's own long record of service in government.

This is a fair argument. I simply disagree, and not just because I called on McCain to tap Palin during the summer. The fact is that sure, Palin's personal numbers are dropping, and in turn, McCain's favorables, as well as the lead he held less than a week ago, are both evaporting, the latter having completely disappeared. It is completely reasonable to argue that McCain's drop can be traced at least a little bit to Palin's fall.

Still, this line of reasoning is cherry-picking at its finest. McCain is at his lowest point since before the political conventions. Numbers come and go at the drop of the hat. In a week, if McCain is back up or tied, does that mean Palin is now a good choice again? Maybe. Maybe not.

Few have been as critical of Sarah Palin as me. But those criticisms have been based on Palin's professional credentials, or as the case may be, her lack of credentials. Politically, I believed and continue to believe that tapping Palin was a savvy, gutsy, and brilliant move by McCain, no matter my feelings of Palin's merits. They are two separate issues.

While this is pure conjecture, had McCain tapped Joe Lieberman, Tim Pawlenty, or Mitt Romney, it is unlikely that McCain would have done as well in completely uniting an up-to-then moribund Republican base while at the same time giving himself a huge bounce in the polls to the point that he held a sizable lead coming out of the RNCC.

It is hard to envision the other usual suspects giving McCain nearly the same boast; though Bobby Jindal would have come very close (but Jindal's main problem would have been that while he is clearly brilliant and more qualified than Palin by a mile, as a man, he would have been much more vulerable to base political attacks for his extremist positions, but that's another post for another day). Palin excited Republicans for a host of reasons, but one of the biggest was that she gave Republicans their own (conservative) Barack Obama: a political rock star on their ticket. No one else really could have matched that and providing the raw energy and seemingly endless frenzy of immediate media attention.

Again, this is all speculation we can't really prove or disprove. Right now, the salient issue is that Palin gave McCain a lead, and as the result of several different factors, he was unable to hold on to it very long. Whether or not he can completely regain his political footing is unclear (I bet he can and will, at least to some extent), but regardless, it is silly to question the Palin pick right now given the alternatives available to Team McCain at the time.

Should McCain go on to lose on November 4, we can revisit this question and draw a better, and more educated conclusion.