Palin is not an asset to McCain but 'Troopergate' has little to do with it

Troopergate in all likelyhood will not play a decisive role in this campaign. When Palin was announced as the Republican VP-candidate and the issue first came up many people thought that would be something that would be a major achilles heel for Palin and for the whole McCain campaign. The truth is that it will not be a major event just because McCain is in such a deep trouble right now. Even Palin will not overtly suffer from this revelation (read about Troopergate here) because her favourability ratings are already quite bad and her ability to sway swing voters to McCain is questionable to say the least.

CNN's article states that "Sarah Palin may be the best thing that ever happened to John McCain's campaign for the presidency. She is the cover-girl of the campaign. But she may be heading back to the front page for a very different reason". I have to disagree vehemently. Palin's favourability rating is in an all-time low in R2K's tracking poll (-20) and while other polls show better results for Palin than this Democratic-leaning pollster the trend is clear. She has suffered immensely from her infamous interviews and even before those her star was on the decline because of all the "half-truths" concerning her actions in Alaska (earmarks etc.).

The conventional wisdom in the mainstream media still seems to be that Palin is somehow an asset to McCain. She solidified the base but the cost was huge - independents are not liking her one bit. It's easy to overvalue the "bringing home the base" factor - yes, McCain is not loved by the diehard conservatives but they would've never voted for Obama anyway. Palin just brings a bigger number of them to the polls and while that is important the independents are a much more decisive factor in who wins this election and Palin is not helping there.

I wrote on September 16th how the positive Palin effect is coming to a close.

"McCain's campaign is now in a watershed moment. Can they salvage Palin's image and stop the slow bleeding?"

Well, the answer is that they couldn't and Palin has most likely become a drag on the ticket. VP candidates rarely if never decide elections and most of McCain's troubles are not related to Palin (the economy, anyone?) but the storyline surrounding Palin has not benefited McCain at all. It has been a distraction and a source of much discomfort to McCain for sure. The conservative base is riled up but if the majority of the people think lightly of her regarding policy issues it's got to hurt.

Palin came, saw and conquered but also stumbled, fell and crawled back up again. But the fall wasn't pretty and her image after that is forever changed (translation: until mid-December). Troopergate is just another storyline concerning Palin and in the current athmosphere people will not really care that "she abused her powers". The firing was legal so it's all more or less semantics to the great masses. Besides, Obama's links to Ayers and Rezko make the voters easily lump all the scandals together and consider them as politics as usual. Sure, Troopergate casts another doubt over Palin but she was already damaged goods.

McCain will lose. Picking Palin didn't ultimately pay off at all. When McCain looks back at the campaign he'll surely regrets bringing Palin along. It was a risky move but McCain needed to do something drastic - this time his judgement was wrong.