I remember the moment when Palin's candidacy was announced, and how I thought it was a brilliant move. At the time the press was saying her choice was intended to capture the Hillary Clinton voters, but I sensed they would not shift en masse, and that the choice of Palin was based on her ability to energize the evangelical base of the Republican party. And so it turned out.
Who chose her? The conventional wisdom is that she was McCain's choice, but I have doubts. He knew little or nothing about her, having met her just twice. I'm sure John McCain's personal choice would have been a fellow Senator (if he was feeling very mavericky, perhaps Joe Liebermann). No, the Palin selection seems to me to be the work of a very crafty party wonk - I see the hand (and mind) of Karl Rove. Officially he's supposed to be retired writing a book, but I'll bet he surveyed the political landscape and plucked Sarah Palin.
And there's more. I now believe that she was NOT chosen in an effort to win the election. At the time of the party convention in September, the storm clouds of the economy were already apparent. The public may have been unaware of what was coming, but the administration certainly was not. Henry Paulson and others have their fingers on strings that we never see; they have access to data before the public knows it. The derivatives crash was obviously foreseeable. Nouriel Roubini saw it; I credit his comments on Bloomberg radio this summer with convincing me to short the Dow and NASDAQ - and that was months before the convention.
Obama had beaten Hillary Clinton to the Democratic nomination, and was running a "ground game" unparalleled in U.S. history and with a war chest bursting with funds. McCain was representing the party of a deeply disliked sitting president. Strike one. The economy was heading for a crash; whether it was the fault of the Democratic congress or the Republican administration doesn't matter - the public always blames the sitting president for such things. Strike two. With the count 0-2 and Obama pitching for the Democrats, I think Mr. Rove and other party insiders concluded that winning the election was impossible. McCain was going to go down (fighting), and that result was not altogether bad because the incumbent president was going to have to face economic turmoil and the electorate would likely be unhappy for the next several years.
So, to make the best of a bad situation, I think they chose Sarah Palin not as a path to victory, but as a way to place her in the spotlight for the future. Had they had a chance to win (with, say, a pairing of Romney ("I'll take care of the economic crisis") and Huckabee ("I'll reassure the evangelicals') against Hillary Clinton, then I think Sarah Palin would have appeared as a keynote speaker at the Republican convention, as Obama did in 2004. But facing inevitable loss, I think they put Palin up as Vice President because they were looking toward the future, just as a college football coach of a team with a losing record will bring in a freshman quarterback to give him experience for next year.
In the event, Sarah Palin energized a narrow base, but she pulled the football away from Charlie Brown/John McCain. He, the old soldier, nobly fell on his sword for the party. I feel confident that he didn't approve of the negative tone of the campaign, but went along with it because the strategists felt it was necessary to keep the base in the game. To his everlasting credit, he at various spontaeous moments (including the concession speech) tried to keep the discussion civil. He never had the oratorical skills, the breadth of knowledge, or the rapier-like thought processes necessary to face his opponent but he did his best. Now he can retire with honor and leave the battlefield to others - including Sarah Palin, who will likely be groomed extensively for her future role. If General Eisenhower knows what's going on, I'll bet he's spinning in his grave.