Was she running for president against Mr. Obama? Conventional wisdom says that the top of the ticket is what decides the winner, not the running mate. Given that, she still has much more executive experience than Obama does. Senator McCain’s suspending his campaign to fly back to Washington and then doing nothing substantial didn’t exactly inspire confidence, or have you already forgotten that fiasco? Being the standard-bearer is different than the VP nomination. BTW, who do you suggest for the nominee three years hence?
Conventional wisdom says that the top of the ticket is what decides the winner, not the running mate.
Yes, that is conventional wisdom, but it was not a conventional ticket or a conventional campaign.
Sarah Palin was elevated to a higher visibility than any other VP candidate in modern times.
Her visibility exceeded that of John McCain's.
All fall, the talk was how it had become a race between 0bama and Palin. Both McCain and Biden were sidelined.
And regardless, Palin vs. 0bama would be viewed by all as a rematch. Dewey vs. Truman was a rematch, too, even though Truman had been the VP candidate. Reagan vs. Mondale was also similar.
You can't expect people to pretend like they didn't already run against each other.
People aren't that stupid.
And you also can't say that Palin was the one everyone was voting for on the ticket, and then turn around and say the fact that no one voted for them says nothing about her ability to attract votes.
If we want to actually defeat 0bama in 30 years, we're going to have to get a bit more serious.