Five years of Palin. On this day in 2008 John McCain went all "mavericky" and ...

[Jim Lane]

10. It was closer than you acknowledge.

You say that McCain's choice moved his chances from "WAY less than zero" to "STILL less than zero". The fact is that, coming out of the Republican convention, McCain -- that is to say, the ticket of McCain-PALIN -- was ahead in the polls.

I do agree with you that McCain's choice was good for us. The Republicans had been looking forward to attacking Obama as too inexperienced (the same general idea as Clinton's ad about the 3:00 a.m. phone call). The Palin pick devastated that argument. Her proving herself to be stupid, or at the very least not ready for prime time, was then an additional gift.

What I keep wondering is what would have happened if McCain had had the guts to pick Lieberman. The base would have gone ballistic, but many of them would have grudgingly come around to voting for McCain anyway, as the lesser evil. Being willing to walk the walk of bipartisanship, and signaling a clear break from the unpopular Bush administration by picking someone from the other party, would have given McCain a powerful appeal to the swing voters.