Fundamentally McCain can continue to try to defend the indefensible or take his medicine and move on. Sarah Palin has evolved from the moose mama taking arrows from the snobbish elites to a nearly defenseless Bambi taking shots not so much from the left who merely mock her now but also from the right. Palin is apparently off the campaign trail this weekend. My assumption is that the McCain folks are trying to work with her in order to ascertain whether she can appear legitimate in the upcoming debate next Thursday. I am forecasting their answer will be no. The move must be made this week prior to the debate in order to cauterize the wound and shift narratives before it is too late.
The pros and cons are:
Cons
- McCain would endure a brutal 48 hour cycle during which he would rightly be castigated for the foolishness of the "Dave" Palin experiment. McCain's judgment would rightly be called into question for having been so reckless. During this 48 hour period his poll numbers will suffer an additional 3-5 point drop leaving him 10-13 points behind Obama
- The social conservatives originally energized by Palin will be perplexed and demotivated
Pros
- McCain will re-capture the narrative of the campaign. After the initial brutal period the narrative would shift immediately to vetting the new nominee and to process stories about how the new nominee can actually speak to the press, answer questions above the high school level, be a viable POTUS etc.
- The new nominee would be someone oriented to address the economic crisis. Mitt Romney is one possibility, I think Rob Portman (OH) former budget director and congressman is the more likely candidate. McCain would make argument that he is decisive. He would argue that he made a mistake but is putting the ecountry first by inserting a candidate prepared to work primarily on America's economic problems. In one stroke he excises an increasingly indefensible nominee and re-takes the initiative.
- Currently the relative inexperience of Obama, his weakest attribute, is more or less off the table due to Palin. With a new nominee, experience regains its place in the campaign.
- McCain will start to re-cover in the polls at which point the narrative will quickly turn to "McCain's comeback" as the media almost always focuses on relative change in the polls rather than the absolute poll numbers.
- As for the social conservatives, McCain will keep their money taken in over the past month. Heck some of them have probably already voted due to the early voting trend. At the end of the day, the base may lose some enthusiasm but that enthusiasm is bound to fade as Palin loses any remaining grip on viability.
- This ultimately is a "better late than never move", the conservative pundits would applaud the boldness and say the real John McCain is back.
To be clear, I do not believe John McCain wins this election merely by blowing out Palin and replacing her with Portman. Obama is a very strong candidate with what might then be a double digit lead with a month left to the election. To win, other material events would have to emerge- a serious Obama gaffe, an international event playing to McCain's benefit etc. However, with Palin on the ticket McCain might not be able to take advantage of such events and no amount of Rev Wright ads would do the trick. A change while risky might position him to be ready in the event of an Obama slip. Most importantly it would help mitigate what could turn into another Democratic wave election which would sweep in dozens more Congressional Democrats.
Update: Nate Silver at 538.com for whom I have great respect has posted on this topic arguing that McCain is stuck with Palin mostly because of risk of really pissing off the Republican social conservatives and appearing reckless in dropping his nominee. I addressed both in my post but here is his story. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/mccain-is-stuck-with-palin.html
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