McCain's Plainly In Palin Pain

Even before the debate between Biden and Palin, there have been a growing number of people that have stated that Palin should either drop off or be kicked off the McCain ticket. There is growing concern that Palin's cluelessness, ineptitude and baggage (think Troopergate) will be a detriment to McCain's campaign, and will be the cause of the GOP to lose and lose big.

First some news for these people, she can't do much more damage to the ticket than McCain is causing himself. But that's nothing new.

But even if they are correct in their belief that Palin is more of a detriment than a help, it presents McCain with a sticky situation.

If he keeps her on the ticket, she will help him lose, as well as probably cause another Democratic tsunami like the Republicans experienced in 2006.

If he cuts her, or lets her resign for whatever reason, it will show that he did not really vet her before picking her, or picked her despite knowing her glaring weaknesses, and would put his ability to judge to question. He would also run the risk of making it look like a pure political stunt, and would throw his whole "Country First" mantra look even more like the bunch of hooey it obviously is. This would put the whole Republican ticket in the untenable position of trying to do damage control, and there will be another Democratic tsunami.

But like I said, he already is putting his own campaign in peril by himself. Not only does he commit electoral interruptus in Michigan, but he fails to even notify his running mate of his decision to pull out prematurely, but instead lets her read about it in one of those mystery newspapers the next day. It is clear evidence that he either is trying to distance himself from her, or he just doesn't respect her very much. Either way, it doesn't bode well for Team Spuds.