We need to thank both McCain and Palin. John McCain will never be President, but he is a true war hero and (which is extremely rare these days) an HONEST Senator. He also deserves credit for bringing Sarah Palin to the national stage (maybe too early for her own good). McCain, at age 72, knew that 2008 was his last chance to become President, but like an athlete about to retire, he passed his torch to a brilliant understudy, who would otherwise be marginalized in Alaska.

McCain lost this campaign because he tried to be TOO noble and was not willing to attack Obama where he was weak–his radical, socialist, and sleazy ties in Chicago and his myriad changes in position over the summer–if he had, McCain could have been 10 points ahead in the polls by the convention, and could have won in the fall despite the bank failures. After the bank failures, McCain failed to explain to the voters that the roots of the economic crisis were DEMOCRATS forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lend too much money to insolvent borrowers, a practice started by Barack Obama in Chicago and spread nationwide by the Clinton Administration. John McCain is a great man, but a poor campaigner. When faced with a slick sleazemaster, you’ve got to fight hard, and sometimes dirty. John McCain essentially repeated Bob Dole’s campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996, with similar results.

Sarah Palin did inspire the Republican campaign, but she was unprepared for the media onslaught against her, and she only had nine weeks to get her message out, unlike Obama (who had been campaigning for nearly two years) and McCain and Biden, who had been known nationally for decades. But she is young and smart, fearless and incorruptible, and if Obama and the Democrat Congress lurch too far left and bring our country to a Carteresque crisis (including an energy crisis), her message will make lots of sense to the voters in 2010 or 2012.

Sarah Palin lost a bid for the Vice Presidency, and is still Governor of Alaska. Other candidates have lost elections and come back to become President, such as Richard Nixon (lost in 1960, won in 1968) and Ronald Reagan (lost the primaries in 1976, elected President in 1980).

It took a Carter disaster to bring us President Reagan. Maybe it takes a President Obama to bring us President Palin.

Steve Z on November 25, 2008 at 10:25 AM