I'll say it again: the McCain nomination was a strategic move by the GOP. If he had been capable of getting the nomination entirely on his own, without their blessing, he would have done so in 2000 when his "maverick" credentials were much less sullied by eight years of kowtowing to Bush and his appeal to the middle much stronger. In 2000, the party elite buried him, and they were more than capable of doing it again this year. But they looked at the polling, saw that McCain was the only hope for swaying the centrist 20% and went with him, with the full understanding that McCain was also, essentially, disposable. If he lost, he didn't hurt the chances of anyone else (like Romney) to take a shot at making the Dem winner a lame duck in 2012.
The Palin nomination was a cynical play for the evangelical vote, while also making a stab at the PUMAs in the Democratic Party who swore not to vote for Obama. She energized the base, which was otherwise looking like it might not show up at all for McCain (or, for that matter, GOP Congressional candidates, which is where the base is also badly needed for the GOP). Plus, she was a shock selection, generating much more conversation than Romney. I can't count the number of conversations that revolved around the notion that history would be made in the US no matter who won, and that's the kind of attention the GOP can't buy.
But seriously, who do you think makes up the party elite if not Bush, Cheney, and Rove? Who stands atop the party and pulls the strings, if not them? Where on Earth do you get your information, if not from the media whose bias you detest so much? Conservative online echo chambers?
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The Palin nomination was a cynical play for the evangelical vote, while also making a stab at the PUMAs in the Democratic Party who swore not to vote for Obama. She energized the base, which was otherwise looking like it might not show up at all for McCain (or, for that matter, GOP Congressional candidates, which is where the base is also badly needed for the GOP). Plus, she was a shock selection, generating much more conversation than Romney. I can't count the number of conversations that revolved around the notion that history would be made in the US no matter who won, and that's the kind of attention the GOP can't buy.
But seriously, who do you think makes up the party elite if not Bush, Cheney, and Rove? Who stands atop the party and pulls the strings, if not them? Where on Earth do you get your information, if not from the media whose bias you detest so much? Conservative online echo chambers?