Remember John McCain and his advisors, however how many pundits want to criticize them for the supposed inadequacies of the campaign or the selection of Sarah Palin, are professional backroom boys and girls. They live, eat and breath politics 24/7. I have been involved in a political campaign-they know what they’re doing. One of the main reasons that they know what they’re doing is that they have been around a long time and have participated in former camapaigns and essentially know what works and does not work. They also know what has to be done logistically to win elections-the work the public seldom sees but is vital to the GOTV effort. They know the kinds of people who will vote for McCain and conversely those who McCain has no hope in hell of landing their vote. I believe that this group sat down prior to the selection of Sarah Palin and came to the conclusion that they were not going to be able to muster the necessary enthusiasm to generate enough votes to win and just as importantly the base was not nearly as fired up as it was needed to be to spawn volunteers in tens of thousands and do the leg work and make the millions of phone calls necessary to be competitive. John McCain, of course, also realized this: Barack Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime charismatic phenomenon; adopting the playbook of Bob Dole and Jack Kemp (2 boring white guys) was not going to cut it this election cycle. By the choice of Joe Biden as VP over Hillary Clinton,Obama gave the McCain campaign an opportunity to inject the missing ingredient. They had to find a qualified political female to prove to the PUMA’s that McCain was sympathetic to their cause; and they had to find a woman who could match up to the charisma of Obama; and they had to find a female that could solidify and excite the base as well as attract Reagan Democrats and independents. Now tell me what are the odds that there would be a Republican female that could fit that bill and be the complete package in 2008, let alone the last 50 years. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky don’t come around very often. It is one thing to recognize such a talent but to bank everything and to perhaps jepardize two years of campaigning on the performance of a political novice without any experience on the national stage is truly incredible and if McCain wins tomorrow will go down in American history as one of the best political decisions ever made.

technopeasant on November 3, 2008 at 10:16 PM