I think the reason so much is being made of Sarah Palin is that with her selection, the campaign suddenly became about personalities, not policies. In fact, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis admitted as much, telling the Washington Post, "This election is not about issues." In any election, especially one this close, there's always the chance your side will lose. It would be painful enough for Democrats to lose to a McCain-Pawlenty ticket that managed to convince the nation they had a better handle on what to do about Iraq and the economy. It would be insult upon injury for McCain-Palin to prevail because she's a hockey mom with a big family, and voters in couple of swing states decided to vote for the ticket because of that.
It's also a little maddening that apparently Democrats can't criticize John McCain because, rumor has it, he was a P.O.W. And they can't criticize Governor Palin because she's a woman holding a baby. I'm waiting for Saturday Night Live to do a sketch where Tina Fey (of course) plays Palin and someone with a toupee of hair plugs pays Biden in their debate…and Palin-Fey brings the Down Syndrome child to the podium with her and responds to questions with, "I'm sorry…I didn't hear that because I was busy nursing."
In fact, the McCain camp is really fighting straw men, trying to claim that the mean ol' Democrats are being sexist and hostile, beating up on this lady. As Michael Kinsley (him again) notes here, that's not the case. The latest claim — that Obama called her a "pig" — is just the McCain side using an old, dishonest political trick: You scour everything your opponent says, looking for something you can yank out of context and misrepresent to use against him. Then instead of attacking you, he has to spend his time insisting, "No, I didn't mean that."
The Rove Squadron is good at this and Democrats traditionally are not. Al Gore never said he'd invented the Internet but his foes did a good job of convincing much of America he'd said it and that it was proof he was a serial, congenital and pathological liar. Today, Sarah Palin lies blatantly about the Bridge to Nowhere and her record on earmarks and a half-dozen other assertions…and there's so little backfire that she and McCain figure they can go on saying those things, at least for a while. Eventually, they'll explain it as a simple misinterpretation of the facts spurred on by the Liberal Media…you know, the one McCain used to call "my base."
I still think Obama's going to win this. It's just going to be more painful than I thought if he doesn't.