NYT: The Ultimate Oct Surprise: Will the GOP flip the ticket? Palin/McCain?

[BigBearJohn]

After the debate, Republicans who had been bailing on Palin rushed back to the fold. They know her relentless ambition is the only hope for saving a ticket headed by a warrior who is out of juice and out of ideas. So what if she is preposterously unprepared to run the country in the midst of its greatest economic crisis in 70 years? She looks and sounds like a winner.

You can understand why they believe that. She has more testosterone than anyone else at the top of her party. McCain and his surrogates are forever blaming their travails on others, wailing about supposed sexist and journalistic biases around the clock. McCain even canceled an interview with Larry King, for heaven’s sake, in a fit of pique at a CNN anchor, Campbell Brown.

Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image that Frank nailed. Alaska’s self-styled embodiment of Joe Sixpack is not a sulker, but a pistol-packing fighter. That’s why she draws the crowds and (as she puts it) “energy” that otherwise elude the angry McCain. But she is still the candidate for vice president, not president. Americans do not vote for vice president.

So how can a desperate G.O.P. save itself? As McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance, the last hope is that he’ll come up with some new game-changing stunt to match his initial pick of Palin or his ill-fated campaign “suspension.” Until Thursday night, more than a few Republicans were fantasizing that his final Hail Mary pass would be to ditch Palin so she can “spend more time” with her ever-growing family. But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory.

You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05rich.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[jj_mccain]

1. John McCain for more of the same - or Palin, what's the difference?

REally, Palin and McCain are both just the same person, they are a hive mind controlled by the Illuminati (am I joking? how would anybody know if this was true?). Either way, it's gonna be 4 more years of the same corporate socialism, big-taxing, big-borrowing, big-government Republican bull if either of them get elected, and The People know it, mostly. The stupid ones don't seem to, but they never get it anyway, they're lost to the red spin.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Maybe their ticket will become

Jay and Silent Bob in an effort to capture the young voters. At least Silent Bob talks more sense than that woman.

[moriah]

3. Please, yes, do flip the ticket.

And let Obama debate her head-on.

Obama was able to avoid major gaffes debating Hillary, and at least the format that Bob Schafer (sp?) is advocating for the last debate would really prove Sarah's ignorance. I know not all politicians want to answer the moderator's questions directly, but I think it showed a big difference between Biden and Palin when Joe answered the questions, and she just talked about whatever she wanted to talk about.

Obama will win against either one.

[Beartracks]

4. Yeah - Stickin' it to the liberal media elites!

No, seriously, there are those who would find her refusal to stick to the questions to be a kind of "maverick-ness." :eyes:

Wouldn't it be great if we could all do that in job interviews? "Gee, Mr. Dumas, I appreciate your wanting to know more about my project management experience, but I'm not going to necessarily answer the questions you ask since I prefer to talk about other stuff." <wink>

[moriah]

5. And so many people forget that campaigning is one big job interview....

... and the debates are the interview done by the Big Big Boss.

And if I ever winked at my employer during a job interview, I'm not exactly sure what job I'd get.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Hmm - "Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image"

As Marge Gunderson almost said (hey, that accent is contagious) - "I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Frank". Palin has been whining considerably about how the questions she was asked were 'gotcha' ones, and that she wants to talk to people without the 'media filter', and that she wasn't asked the right questions in the debate, or in interviews. It's the same old crap that right wingers have come out with for ages - "these damn elitist journalists with their fixation on facts and knowledge - we're going to create out own reality". It's why Colbert's 'truthiness' idea resonates so much - they've been doing it for years.

[theothersnippywshrub]

7. It would be mavericky. n/t

[LiberadorHugo]

8. Good idea...

What happens to people who have already voted for McSame?

[tanyev]

9. Of course, then McCain's head would explode and Palin would have to pick a new VP.

I'm sure Todd would be available.

[WinkyDink]

10. The NYT must have had printer's ink to spare, to offer this asininity.

[BigBearJohn]

14. True 'nuf, but wasn't electing Bush the height of asininity, no?

Nothing the Republicans do surprises me anymore.

[TexasObserver]

11. John McCain's head would explode if anyone suggested that.

I hope it's a pay per view event, if they do tell him.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. If that happened, the majority of their party would sit home. Obama landslide. n/t

[CK_John]

13. I still believe it will be Palin/Cheney ticket. How they will pull it off is a puzzle. n/t