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It appears as though the 'new kid in school' crush on Sarah Palin has worn off.
Just a few short days after her disastrous and telling interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin and her running mate, John McCain, have seen their significant national polling leads evaporate. They have also seen their standing in several battleground states decline dramatically.
According to today's Diageo/Hotline national poll of registered voters nationwide, Barack Obama and Joe Biden hold a 45%-43% lead over the McCain-Palin ticket - with Newsweek showing the race in a statistical dead-heat. Only Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen has the race showing McCain-Palin with any significant lead over Obama-Biden, with Rasmussen's polls using the less-reliable 'likely voter' samples as opposed to actually sampling registered voters. This is the same Scott Rasmussen who, on the day of the pivotal Wisconsin Democratic Party primary earlier in the year and in concert with Strategic Vision (another Republican polling firm), had Obama polling a mere 4 points ahead of Hillary Clinton before he trounced her by more than 17 points.
In addition to the surge in national polls, Obama-Biden hold significant leads in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Oregon, and Washington. The aforementioned states of Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado were states that President George W. Bush carried in 2004. Previous Republican states of Indiana, Virginia, Nevada, and Ohio are all statistically tied as of this evening.
What do these startling poll results tell us as political analysts? The first thing they tell us is the 'Palin effect' was little more than a fad - the same type of fad that represents Gary Hart-like popularity in the short-term. As we remember from 1987, Gary Hart was the next big thing in politics - easily claiming the status of Democratic Party front-runner to challenge then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. However, as the American public learned more and more about Hart's suspect character and quality of judgment, Hart's popularity waned to the point where he was forced to withdraw from the Democratic Party primaries subsequent to Super Tuesday in 1988.
Now, we all know that Sarah Palin could be the star actor in an adult movie feature - and still be loved by the conservative fringe in this country. They hate Barack Obama that much. However, what is clear by these poll results is that outright disapproval that America's registered voters are beginning to show the McCain-Palin ticket - and for good reason:
- The sheer politics of her presence and those she excites have caused many conservative Democrats and Independents to pause and take notice with disapproval. Her hard-line stance regarding a woman's right to choose (ironic, don't you think?) makes most Independents in this country cringe. In fact, her policy position that a woman who is facing death over her pregnancy (regardless of how far along she is), a woman who has been raped, or a child who is the victim of incest should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term is beyond hard-line. It is downright medieval - and it borders on a sort of Chinese type of restriction on personal rights that even the most ardent Christian would find unacceptable. Women of America, take note: Sarah Palin believes abortion should be 100% illegal - as in no exceptions. It will be difficult for McCain to distance himself from this reactionary position on the individual freedom of a woman to make this type of decision for herself, as McCain is also an anti-choice proponent.
- McCain-Palin have put forth tax, health care, foreign policy, and energy positions that are eerily similar to another conservative Republican: George W. Bush. When Palin was rolled out at the RNC, she made next to no references to her positions on the issues facing working Americans. As she continued to make appearances with John McCain, she continued to dodge policy questions in lieu of the fluff-style 'preach to the choir' stump speeches she was so happy making (Funny how conservatives now find those sort of speeches acceptable, right Hannity?). Then there is her interview with Charlie Gibson, where Palin actually had to show us what she knows about foreign policy. She proceeded to show us precisely what she knows: nothing. Palin was ignorant on her own party leader's foreign policy i.e. the much-maligned Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes that have become so unpopular since the Iraq invasion in 2003. She spoke about 'keeping an eye on Russia' and her willingness to invade Russia if it attacked Georgia. She parroted the idea that 'legitimate and enough intelligence that an attack is imminent' is cause for invading another country we dislike.
The policies that Palin spoke of are precisely why the American people booted Republicans out of power in the United States Congress in 2006 - and why President Bush has a disapproval rating locked somewhere between 65-70% each and every day. It was logical to deduce that the more the American public placed justifiable congruence upon Palin and Bush's public policy solutions, the more they would start to reject her ideals as a member of the Republican Party presidential ticket. This is the first step to exposing the fraud that has been the McCain-Palin mantra of being 'original mavericks' ever since the ticket was formed. By definition, a 'maverick' is a politician who takes an independent stand apart from his or her colleagues. McCain-Palin embrace Bush's tax cuts, Bush's energy policy (a policy that says 'drill here, drill now'...but neglects to mention that the newfound oil will likely land in the hands of the Iranians, OPEC, Russia, or Venezuela), Bush's foreign policies, Bush's regressive social policies, and Bush's deficit-spending. Do those realities sound like those of 'original mavericks'?
To the educated mind, those policies sound more like 'original failure' - and evidently, the American voting public is beginning to take notice. These poll reversals from the post-RNC results will likely be the beginning of a severe downhill turn for the McCain-Palin ticket with the presidential and vice presidential debates set to take place from 9/26-10/15. Once in front of the grandest political stages just weeks before the election, both McCain and Palin will have no choice but to tell the American people how they plan to continue the same failed policies of George W. Bush. Those debates and exposure of McCain-Palin as simple Bush clones will seal their fate and Obama's election as the 44th President of the United States.