Sarah Palin: The Final Verdict

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A compilation of video clips about Sarah Palin and her lack of experience.

You'd think that news stories about Sarah Palin would subside now the election is over. However, the failed VP candidate has embarked on a media campaign to point the finger at what and whom she sees as the cause and/or contributing factors for thier electorial defeat. These include the Republican Party, The Bush Administration, Bush himself, and some not so subtle claims of unfairness and a lack of objectivity in the media.

I don't think that it's fair or even correct to suggest that Sarah Palin caused McCain to lose the election. John McCain set his defeat in motion the second that he picked Palin as his running mate. If that bad decision was the equilivant of pouring gasoline all over his campaign, then you already know who lit the match the second that she opened her mouth. The latest bizarre tirade from Sarah Palin is directed at the media, who Palin sort of blames for her election loss. According to Palin, the media isn’t fair and balanced, and that she’s interested in teaching them how to be.

When Barack Obama passed over Hillery Clinton and tapped Joe Biden for the VP spot, he did so at great risk knowing that his decision would not be popular among many of the women who'd supported Hillery in the primary. However, to pick Clinton over Biden would have made it obvious that he'd be pandering to women voters in lieu of just picking the most qualified person among prospective candidates. For some reason, John McCain did exactly that and instead of picking the most qualified person on his short list, he pandered to women and particularly those former Hillery supporters who were in a full stage revolt by then. There was certainly speculation that Obama needed to choose a woman - or one women in particular, Hillary Clinton. But the get-out-the-vote effort among those under 30 and women was so well organized that almost all of the most disgruntled Clinton supporters were swayed by election day.

For the last 30 years, women and younger voters have been the elusive "get" of an election. Women, generally, are the more reliable voting population of the two. Since 1980 women have consistently voted in greater numbers than men - according to Susan Carroll at Rutger's University's Centre for American Women and Politics the election of 1980 actually reversed a 60-year trend of suppressed female voting - and in recent years there has been an effort to harness that vote and direct it, as well as pick up the women (primarily unmarried, younger women) who aren't exercising the right to vote. Two trends emerged from the 2008 US election results: Barack Obama swept voters under 65 at 66% nationally and he appealed to a 55% majority of women voters and led by 12 percentage points over McCain's 43%. That's not a small number: 22 million women didn't vote in 2000, a block that made strategists desperate to find ways to bring them to the voting booth. Women, when they vote, generally trend Democratic. Republicans, using Sarah Palin, tried their best to close the traditional gender gap and pick up some of those women who hadn't voted in the past. Both aspects of that effort failed.

Why did Palin fail to close the gender gap? Partly because her candidacy was seen too much as a sop to women, one that didn't honor their actual achievements but merely acknowledged, condescendingly, their gender. Sure there were moments that sparked interest in the governor, especially when men dismissively wondered aloud whether a mother of five could handle the job - Particularly when Palin's actual record, and lack thereof, failed to impress nearly 65% of Americans. If anything she became a drag on the ticket, with her aggressive anti-abortion stance and religious positioning, her clothing budget and her general lack of media savvy, her on-going abuse of power and Trooper-Gate investigation, and her questionable income tax returns just to name a few.

Every four years we hear of a politician who is firing up college students and first-time voters. But no one has been this successful. No one has reached out person-to-person as effectively. Even in solidly Republican states, Obama rocked the youth vote and it was the youth that marked this election as something different. The GOP is trying to rebuild itself when it should be trying to reinvent itself as well. Even a GOP at it's former best will no longer be effective in a post President Barack Obama world. If they have any intention of reparing the damage that 43 has done to their party and our nation, they will have to learn how to do it on the new playing field that 44 has carved out during this historic campaign.