Do you think Obama, having won the nomination, would allow himself to be a coat-tail to anybody?
I hope she can resign in disgust if McCain returns to the Democrat side of the isle.
As President of the Senate, she could have a pretty strong bully pulpit if she wanted to attack McCain. The media would probably eat it up, too. McCain doesn't strike me as a stupid man, and Palin doesn't strike me as a doormat.
I am reminded of a scene from Homer's "Odyssey", where Odysseus tells his men to tie him to the mast as they sail between Scylla and Charybdis. He knows that he will fall into temptation if he is not restrained, and he knows the consequences of such failure. I'm probably reading too much into things, but if Palin and McCain can talk candidly to each other I would expect they could both benefit greatly.
Conservatives don't really care about their own illumination.
The conservative politicians must care about it some if they want to be elected. The point is that conservatives recognize that their own illumination is not threatened by others' light.
Does anyone believe McCain's speech would have drawn anything near the viewership of Obama's if he hadn't nominated Gov. Palin? True, Palin's viewership numbers seem to have been higher than McCain's (margin-of-error caveats), but it's pretty clear to me that millions of people who would tuned into Palin out of curiosity, without any real interest in McCain, suddenly found themselves very interested in the McCain-Palin ticket. McCain has to notice that.
On this point ... I agree. (darn typos, the reason for the second post)