Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post
- Conservative columnists such as Kathleen Parker have called for Vice Presidential contender Sarah Palin to stand down. Their reasoning is that she is so stunted on foreign policy questions that she’ll drag McCain down to flaming defeat. Their call is just plain dumb. If McCain loses it won’t be because of anything Palin says or does. This would be true even if he ran with Howdy Dowdy. The issue is still public fury over Bush’s colossal domestic and foreign policy bumbles topped by the economic pain and misery his sleep at the wheel policies have exacerbated. If voters buy Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama’s mantra pitch that McCain is a warmed over facsimile of Bush he loses.
A VP is more than just window dressing on the presidential ticket. He/she must be able to actually help the top man win. If Obama or McCain had been able to widen the poll gap comfortably over each other the vice presidency would still be important, but not as crucial. That hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to happen anytime before or maybe even up until the eleventh hour on November 4th.
