You are very much correct, as is Mr. Cheney. Giving a good stump speech and inspiring/exciting core supporters doesn't make you Reagan or Churchill. It makes you Werner Erhard.
Sarah still has time to reposition herself and show intellectual depth and engagement with "hard" issues. So far, she has come up short, and saying so doesn't make you "elitist" (a term historically used by the Left, btw).
Tell that to the 0bama supporters. They gave 0bama the biggest victory margin in the presidential elections since Reagan, based on empty talk of “Hope and Change” and 0bama being a “clean, well spoken negro”(and I am quoting Joe Biden here).
If being a policy wonk and an egg head is what got people the presidency, Dick Cheney would hav been president instead of Bush. How much foreign policy did Clinton, Bush or 0bama know when they wee elected president?