Too little too late

Sarah Palin put in a surprisingly competent debate performance last night and likely saved her political career. Just not her career as John McCain's VP.

As I have detailed before, John McCain has been desperately searching for a game changing event the past 5 weeks. The announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate and the suspension of his campaign over the economic crisis were two huge gambles taken in vain effort to change the momentum of the election.

As of Thursday morning, both were failing miserably. Palin was looking so bad, even her original supporters were pronouncing her dead. She had fallen from the graces of everyone (except the true wackos...more on them later), and the VP debate was billed as the nail in the coffin.

Then at the debate, Sarah Palin did something she was unable to do with Katie Couric....she spoke in complete sentences. As the debate went on, she even went as far as finding a rhythm and theme. Joe Biden looked overly scripted and couldn't find a balance between Joey the Shark and Joe six-pack, while Sarah Palin embraced her colloquial and annoying Peggy-Hill-goes-to-Alaska personality and mannerisms.

With that 90 minute performance, she erased all of the doubts and jokes, and returned this race to where it belongs: More of the Same with John McCain or the Change that We Need with Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin can now go on to be a successful Alaskan governor and is well positioned to take Ted Steven's seat in the US Senate after he is either thrown in jail or pushed down a hill.

The problem for John McCain is that in all of Sarah Palin's success last night, the story never even approached Barack Obama. John McCain has tried to make this election about Barack Obama's judgement and Barack Obama's qualifications. As long as the election is about the economy, the war, healthcare, or John McCain, Obama will continue to dominate the polls and will win the election. And if you look at last night's debate, it was a no win situation for Sarah Palin. Her competency had become such a huge distraction that any traction she made on bringing the message back to Barack Obama was utterly ignored. In today's newspapers, everyone is talking about the fact that Sarah Palin got a reversed frontal lobotomy Thursday morning as opposed to talking about the points made in the debate.

To be fair, this is where Joe Biden won the debate. Biden was very articulate and avoided making any gaffes, but more importantly, Joe Biden kept the focus on John McCain, the economy, and healthcare. Because of Joe Biden, a lot of blue collar workers are going to be asking about John McCain's plan for taxing healthcare costs. Because of Joe Biden, the focus is still on that conversation at the kitchen table.

In some ways, it feels as though Barack Obama might as well be running against a blank slate. Election day might as well be a yes/no vote on Barack Obama alone. One could argue that John McCain cannot win this election, only Barack Obama can lose it. But given Obama's rise over the past couple of weeks and given Biden's debate performance last night, they will not lose it. John McCain was hoping Sarah Palin would be a game changer, and she almost was, but ultimately it will all be too little too late for McCain and the GOP.