Palin Derangement Syndrome great for McCain

By Rick Morris

As somebody who was reluctantly for John McCain before I got fully on board when Sarah Palin joined the ticket, I stated in this very space that the McCain people were blowing it earlier this summer with the "kitchen sink" approach to fighting Barack Obama. It was reminiscent of the desperate approach to fighting Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. While I sympathize on an emotional level with the frustration in not being able to get people who are hynotized by a candidate to open up their eyes, elections are not won and lost on emotion and petulence. Much to my delight, this is a lesson now being learned the hard way by the Obama campaign and their advocates in the online moonbat community.

Slurs, disproved rumors and all means of slime are being cast in Palin's direction, and they have been since her appointment to the ticket on August 29. They have picked up a new intensity, however, since her bravura acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention the next week. Leftists have been loudly soiling their drawers ever since and chucking the contents in Palin's direction.

What they do not realize right now is that the American people have made up their minds on Sarah Palin the person. Barring something completely unforseen coming out, like her being exposed as a secret mass murderer of Eskimos over the last two decades, the personal perception of her isn't changing. When I advised the Republicans that their only negative advertising aimed at Obama that would work would involve hitting him on issues, I meant it. And even though I'm not for Obama, I'm giving the same advice here as an analyst: winning a compare-and-contrast on the issues is the only thing that will work in the super-high stakes climate of 2008. I'm under no illusion, however, that the Obamunists will stop peddling their stories about how Palin is an adulterer, a sex offender, someone who faked the birth of her own child or whatever the talking points of this week are that emanate from Chicago. But they pursue this line of attack at their own peril.

Hitting Palin personally will probably have even less effect than what the Republicans were able to do to Obama (and I admit, they were slightly more successful in roughing him up than I thought they would be). Michael Reagan wrote an extraordinary column in which he said that he was always dubious when people told him that "another Ronald Reagan" would come along -- but that he changed his mind after hearing Palin's speech in St. Paul. The explosion of support that her candidacy is generating for the ticket proves this. I saw a very insightful cartoon the other day that showed her pulling an elephant out of a grave. She is certainly the greatest natural leader that the Republicans have had on a national ticket since the Gipper's re-election campaign of 1984 and she helps the party appeal to non-traditional constituencies (i.e. women not already of a conservative leaning). The more Obama's dirt-mongers now perched in Alaska try to churn out scummy personal attacks on her, the more the American people will reply, "There you go again!"

So as a Palin partisan -- keep it up. Please!