You can’t have it both ways.
Either Sarah Palin had supporters who came out to vote for her, or she was as irrelevant as Joe Biden.
Which is it?
There is no rule that says you can’t cast a vote in support of a VP candidate.
Usually people pay more attention to the candidates at the top of the ticket, but that wasn’t the case for the Republican ticket in 2008. Sarah generated enough support to win at first, and that is why the McCain-Palin ticket pulled ahead. But then the public soured on her once they got to know her better and decided they were unimpressed with her as a candidate.
If Sarah Palin had more people like yourself ready to come out and vote for her than 0bama had on election day, then the McCain-Palin ticket would have won. Lots of people who were excited at first by Sarah Palin changed their minds after seeing her in action, and most of the excitement had evaporated by election day. That lack of enthusiasm for the McCain-Palin ticket is why fewer people voted Republican than had 4 years earlier, and by the smallest margin since Bob Dole.
People who still think Sarah Palin is some kind of juggernaut are stuck in September of last year. The rest of America moved on long ago.
While having dinner with a couple of friends after the election, one started to tear into Sarah. (He’s honest enough with me to admit he thinks Sarah should be a school teacher. That’s his attitude toward women candidates.)
My other friend said Sarah was the only reason he voted for McCain. I concurred.
+2
Since you don’t have any comprehensive statistics nationally to prove otherwise, all I can do is look at my experience, speak for myself and recount this true story. I doubt I was alone.
That’s not a prediction for the future. I’m not choosing a candidate in 2012. I’m fighting right now against Obama and his socialist friends.
As for my friend, I advised him to keep quiet about his feelings. His new wife is a schoolteacher. And of course follows the Obama/NEA line.