You misunderstand me, I think.
Its not what you or I think, it is what the 10% in the middle think.
The folks that do not start paying attention until the last two weeks. By that time the media would have poisoned the well so badly that she would have been blown out.
I ride a bike. I know what you mean about Mitt. He is the kind of guy that would sit on your bike without asking. [I had a real estate guy loose my business because he was trying to be chummy with me, and he hopped on my brand new bike without asking. Almost dropped it. I was ready to kill him.]
When Ronaldus Maximus swept to two national landslides (carrying New York twice!, Massachusetts twice! Connecticut twice! California twice!, etc.) his campaign people were not sitting around worrying about that 10%. They sought to engage the entire Republican base and then those voters later to be known as Reagan Democrats and then each and every group of voters who could be approached consistent with HIS and OUR principles. Finally everyone else was invited to come along for the ride and for the joy. In 1980, Reagan came within about 27,000 votes of carrying New York City! That was closer than any GOP POTUS candidate since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. He did that by carrying the hard core Chassidic Orthodox Jewish communities such as Lubavitchers (overwhelmingly registered Democrats) by margins of 9 to 1 or more. Their precincts are near or in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, Anthony Weiner's old CD.
A candidate like Romney or McCain or Dole or Bush the Elder is simply incapable of gaining the trust of such groups. Such candidates don't even try and, if they did, they would only look ridiculous.
When you are building a landslide on the votes of folks not part of the regular party base, those last two weeks of the campaign are dominated by the rising landslide. That is the feeling permeating the entire electorate including the Low Info Voters. They hear it at work and at church and in their sports bars and everywhere. Anchorfolks on the major networks, the three stooges of ABC, NBC and CBS, cannot overcome that kind of powerful buzz.
Understanding Mitt and the bike is a good start but the story rolls on. Mitt would probably break his leg or his neck trying to ride a Harley. If he did not, he would get to the Rolling Thunder rally with his Dudley DoRight persona on display. The real bikers would die laughing. Sarah Palin showed up, wearing black leather as though it was her normal uniform, worked the crowd briefly (but everyone knew she was there) and displayed a persona that was more a cool commercial fisherman's wife and a woman comfortable in her own skin than former governor of Alaska. She has a feel for the sort of qualities that gave Reagan the Reagan Democrats. You want to have a beer with her or a poker game or some barbeque and there is room for all of your friends who want to meet her too. They know that Sarah Palin is NOT Tina Fey.
In all of these ways, Sarah is the very best promoter we have seen lately (ever?) in the GOP. You want to meet her. You want to like her. She hunts moose and grills mooseburgers. In these ways, it is what I think and you think that counts and the 10% can come along for the ride. Tina Fey and the Harvard faculty and the Manhattan Left aren't voting for us anyhow and are few in numbers. I was a Reagan state chairman and I know these things to be true.