Sarah Palin hurt John McCain with independent and moderate voters, but she is correct that the campaign’s bigger problems were the economic downturn and leadership failures by the GOP and President Bush. “I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo,” she said, “too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing.” As for her future plans, Palin said: “If there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”
So much for Joe the Plumber’s loyalty to his chosen presidential nominee: “You know, it doesn’t matter if McCain or Obama won this election; either way, politicians in general don’t give a rip about us,” Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher said on a weekend visit to New York City. His love for Sarah Palin endures, though: “I don’t want to sound like a hippie, but she’s got this energy coming from her. It’s amazing.”
He added: “All she wants to do is do right by America and secure our values. Barack Obama wants to fundamentally change our democracy, and that is worrisome.”
One bit of buzz about Barack Obama’s Cabinet possibilities makes particular sense: keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has proved a thoughtful, steady leader in that post at a time of two wars. The Wichita native’s answer to the “what if” question has softened a bit – from April’s “the circumstances under which I would do that are inconceivable to me” to last summer’s “I’ve learned never to say never.” Now, CNN reports, no one who works closely with Gates is dismissing the idea completely.
Sarah Palin hurt John McCain with independent and moderate voters, but she is correct that the campaign’s bigger problems were the economic downturn and leadership failures by the GOP and President Bush. “I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo,” she said, “too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing.” As for her future plans, Palin said: “If there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”
