Yes, I will credit him with forever tying her to a losing campaign and subjecting her to the unbelievable media examination. Of course, I saw her as a good conservative with a fighting chance of working her way up to a national run without any help from the McCain campaign. Therefore, I was never in favor of her hitching her wagon to McCain, whom I can not stand. Same goes for Jindal ... I told him straight up that I would lose a great deal of respect for him if he joined a ticket with McCain.
One reason that the media scrutiny was as intense as turned out, I believe, is that anyone opposing Obama had to be vanquished at all costs. Same would have probably been true of any opponent of Hillary. Had the dem nominee been Edwards or Biden (for example), I don't think that Palin would have received the same extremely shabby treatment. History had to be served this election cycle and the media wasn't going to have it any other way. Unfortunately, much of the electorate agreed.
Decent people knew the truth and didn't buy the media garbage. And I think some people (maybe Democrats or independents) had their eyes opened by the blatant bias, got mad, and came to Palin’s side. Her future was not in any way diminished by the election. It was good prep for her and she now has millions of us ready to get behind her that would not have seen who she was without this exposure. My respect for her grew steadily during the campaign.
“History had to be served this election cycle and the media wasn't going to have it any other way. Unfortunately, much of the electorate agreed. “
I very much agree with this one. There was always a sense that Obama was going to be the one, short of a videotaped, concrete scandal. I noticed during the Iowa caucuses, the excitement for him before the caucus. I thought, excitement is great, but will the 20 year olds actually get out and vote. They did. At that point, I knew he would be tough to beat this year.
But would the world have ever heard about Sarah without Mccain choosing her? I think not. You can blame McCain for many things but not for the choice of Sarah to be his running mate.