Sarah Palin resigns Governorship to gear up for 2012

[Cerr]

His own advisors thought the race was over in September.  McCain got a bump from the convention but they all knew it wasn't going to last.  McCain struggled the whole time due to lack of coherent strategy.  When he was stupified by the economic crash it only sealed the deal.

Which continues my point: if the GOP nominee and situation sucked so bad, why did Obama not win in a landslide?

Didn't he win by a large number of electoral college votes?

[Phillip V]

Didn't he win by a large number of electoral college votes?

Clinton won by more electoral votes than Obama in 1992 (200+), but only beat Bush, Sr. in the popular vote by less than 3 percentage points. EVs do not reflect popularity. Reagan swooped into the White House with an almost 10-point popular margin.

[Fate]

His own advisors thought the race was over in September.  McCain got a bump from the convention but they all knew it wasn't going to last.  McCain struggled the whole time due to lack of coherent strategy.  When he was stupified by the economic crash it only sealed the deal.

Which continues my point: if the GOP nominee and situation sucked so bad, why did Obama not win in a landslide?

The majority of rural and suburban white voters are racists. If Obama weren't some half-breed mongrel, he'd have attracted far more Southern crossovers (or hell, even Southern Democrats!), as Reagan did in the North.

[Phillip V]

The majority of rural and suburban white voters are racists. If Obama weren't some half-breed mongrel, he'd have attracted far more Southern crossovers (or hell, even Southern Democrats!), as Reagan did in the North.

So there were plenty of people dead-set against the guy. Thus, if McCain just did a little better campaigning, or the economy had not crashed, he could have very well gained those three percentage points that would have won him the election. Obama was a lucky bastard.

[Cerr]

Didn't he win by a large number of electoral college votes?

Clinton won by more electoral votes than Obama in 1992, but only beat Bush, Sr. in the popular vote by less than 3 percentage points. Reagan swooped into the White House with an almost 10-point popular margin.

Reagan was up against the incumbent Carter who was deeply disliked by many people by 1980. If Obama was against Bush in 2008 there might have been a similar margin.

[Neil]

The majority of rural and suburban white voters are racists. If Obama weren't some half-breed mongrel, he'd have attracted far more Southern crossovers (or hell, even Southern Democrats!), as Reagan did in the North.

So there were plenty of people dead-set against the guy. Thus, if McCain just did a little better campaigning, or the economy had not crashed, he could have very well gained those three percentage points that would have won him the election. Obama was a lucky bastard.

You shouldn't respond to Fate.  Nothing he says is ever worthwhile or true.  He's a teenager, a Southerner, and poor.

[Fate]

Didn't he win by a large number of electoral college votes?

Clinton won by more electoral votes than Obama in 1992, but only beat Bush, Sr. in the popular vote by less than 3 percentage points. Reagan swooped into the White House with an almost 10-point popular margin.

Reagan was up against the incumbent Carter who was deeply disliked by many people by 1980. If Obama was against Bush in 2008 there might have been a similar margin.

There were too many whites in 2008, particularly of the Southern subspecies. Perhaps in 2050 such a margin would be demographically feasible.

[crazy canuck]

You shouldn't respond to Fate.  Nothing he says is ever worthwhile or true.  He's a teenager, a Southerner, and poor.

Normally Cal gives that warning but since he is apparently asleep at the switch it was good of you to step in.

[garbon]

You shouldn't respond to Fate.  Nothing he says is ever worthwhile or true.  He's a teenager, a Southerner, and poor.

[Ed Anger]

You shouldn't respond to Fate.  Nothing he says is ever worthwhile or true.  He's a teenager, a Southerner, and poor.

Normally Cal gives that warning but since he is apparently asleep at the switch it was good of you to step in.

Cal is passed out at BP right now, face down on the hot dog machine.

[FunkMonk]

You shouldn't respond to Fate.  Nothing he says is ever worthwhile or true.  He's a teenager, a Southerner, and poor.

Normally Cal gives that warning but since he is apparently asleep at the switch it was good of you to step in.

Cal is passed out at BP right now, face down on the hot dog machine.

[garbon]

Cal is passed out at BP right now, face down on the hot dog machine.

[Razgovory]

His own advisors thought the race was over in September.  McCain got a bump from the convention but they all knew it wasn't going to last.  McCain struggled the whole time due to lack of coherent strategy.  When he was stupified by the economic crash it only sealed the deal.

Which continues my point: if the GOP nominee and situation sucked so bad, why did Obama not win in a landslide?

He won by the most signicant percentage of any canidate in over 20 years.  That's not bad.  I'm not sure what you are arguing at this point though.  Please clarify.

[Sheilbh]

Please, nobody in all of the nation acts dumber than Joe Biden.

The difference is everyone knew Biden before he was picked for VP.  I said shortly after the Palin pick that she had to be very, very careful because her public persona still wasn't defined.  So if her and Biden made identical stupid comments the response to Biden would be 'that's Biden' while it would be damaging to Sarah Palin because she had no other reputation.  I don't think her first month or so helped her and I don't think her behaviour since has, either.

She wasn't thrown to the wolves in terms of interviews.  I believe she had 2-3 weeks before her first interview and when you're running for one of the highest offices in the country then you should be able to face the media well before then.  She, to my knowledge, never held a press conference of any type.  McCain's fault wasn't that he mishandled her but that he picked her at all.

I'm not entirely anti-Palin (though of Evangelical friendly pols I prefer Huck), I think that if she'd had a couple more years in Alaska and spent some time working out her opinions on foreign policy she would've been a very persuasive Republican VP nom.  I thought, until last week, that if she buckled down, racked up some real achievements in her state, if she worked out her foreign policy ideas and if she, every couple of months, turned up on a Sunday news show to remind everyone that she exists, that she'd be a very persuasive Republican Presidential candidate in 2016, if not 2012 (I don't know if it's possible to do what you need to in the lower 48 if you're in Alaska).  I think she's thrown that out of the window and it's not enough to attack the media and Democrats for this.

Edit:  And I don't know about the 'stress getting to her family' idea.  I mean this very month she was posing in a magazine with Trig and doing interviews.  That that was going on and the sheer amateurish lack of preparation on her speech suggests that this was far more impulsive than a long-growing concern for her family.  Though that may well have been a large part of her decision.

Answering a question of tastes in literature, musics, movies, etc. is no simple task. Judgments of identity are quickly gleaned from such answers.

It wasn't about literature or that sort of thing.  The question was about which newspapers and magazines she reads.  I think she said all of them, whatever her staff put in front of her and that though Americans think Alaska's so far away they do indeed have magazines.

[Jos Theelen]

maybe she has political cancer?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Sarah Palin says she's not a quitter, she's a fighter, but adds that, politically speaking, "if I die, I die. So be it."

The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.

She told CNN that "all options are on the table" for her future.

But told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP presidential run.

"I said before ... 'You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,'" she said.