Did Palin Cost McCain the Election? Another MSM/Establishment Falsehood
June 4, 2011
pollinsider There are few coherent arguments that anti-Palin establishment Republicans/MSM can pull together about why they dislike Sarah Palin so. Rarely are the arguments on policy, accept to falsely claim that Palin never talks policy. (And if you want a challenge, I can find more coherent, non-convoluted policy positions from Sarah Palin than I can from most of the other candidates who are too afraid to take a stand and stand by it). Or, they say “she quit the governorship!” Oh okay. These are typically the same people who are practically begging NJ governor Chris Christie to quit the Governorship even earlier than Palin did to run for President. And at least Palin accomplished something (oh, and had a reason to quit).
But what they really love to claim is that Palin can’t win, and she actually cost McCain the election in 2008. Once again, reality (and polling data) tell a different story.
According to Gallup Daily tracking done in 2008, John McCain clearly lost the election for himself, and never really had a shot anyway. Palin was his one desperate hail Mary, that hung in the air for awhile, but ultimately came down unable to pull McCain from a loss. Starting on June 5th, McCain trailed Obama on every single daily tracking poll posted, day after day, by as much as 9 points, but usually by between 3-7 points. In fact, for the entire 3 months before Palin was selected as his VP choice, McCain had a whopping total of 1 day where he was ahead of Obama, a lead of 46-44% on 8-25-08.
On August 29th, 2008, Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate. For each of the days before Palin was announced, McCain trailed Obama by 8 points, 49%-41%. (Obama would actually win by 7%). After Palin’s announcement, plus her strong (and very well-received speech at the RNC convention), the McCain Palin team led Obama-Biden for much of the first half of September. After the typical Convention speech “bump” had dissipated, McCain led by 2%.
But on September 24th, things changed. The anti-Palin types would like us all to believe that Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric cost McCain the election. But what happened after September 24th was voters who claimed the economy was their #1 issue had completely turned against McCain and now favored Obama by a 2-1 margin. (Yes, believe it or not, Palin’s newspaper reading list – and how condescending a question is that? – was not on the voters’ minds. But what was on voters’ minds was McCain’s September 24th campaign suspension to focus on the “financial crisis.” Obama laughed, claiming he could do more than one thing at once (now proven he can’t do even one thing at once). President Bush gathered with Senators Obama and McCain, and Obama took control. Though it was reported as amateur hour for Obama, McCain was seemingly uninvolved. In fact, McCain wound up agreeing with Obama on everything anyway in the end. On top of that, Obama was promising tax cuts that McCain wasn’t.
Nearly immediately, McCain plummeted in the polls as voters viewed Obama as the one to get the economy fixed. He quickly fell behind in the polls and never recovered. The reality is, McCain trailed almost the entire time. In over 150 days of daily tracking, McCain led for just 11 days. Yes, 11 days. And he led for no days in the 2 months prior to his selection of Sarah Palin as VP, and never after announcing he was “suspending his campaign.”
http://pollinsider.com/2011/06/04/did-palin-cost-mccain-the-election-another-msmestablishment-falsehood
