Open Thread -- Rogue Elephant Edition

^{Image courtesy of MJOffen.}

How bad are things getting for the GOP and the McCain campaign in particular? According to E.J. Dionne, pretty bad:

A Pew Research Center survey this week found that among political independents, Palin's unfavorable rating has almost doubled since mid-September, from 27 to 50 percent. Whatever enthusiasm Palin inspired among conservative ideologues is more than offset by middle-of-the-road defections.

[...snip...]

Then there are those conservatives who see Palin as a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party" (David Brooks), as someone who "doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin" (Kathleen Parker), as "a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics" (Peggy Noonan).

These conservatives deserve credit for acknowledging how ill-suited Palin is for high office. But what we see here is a deep split between parts of the conservative elite and much of the rank and file.

An article by David Usborne that appeared in The Independent on Saturday echoes some of this:

The complaints from within the Republican Party about the McCain campaign are piling up fast. Why, for instance, did he not stick with his earlier strategy of contrasting his experience with the relative inexperience of Mr Obama? Why did he go negative in attacking Mr Obama? Why didn't he go negative enough? Then there is Mrs Palin...

[...snip...]

Mr McCain's defenders argue that it was clear by the summer that only by taking risks did he have any hoping of winning and picking the Alaska governor was the most gutsy of all. This week's revelations denting Mrs Palin's hockey-mom image have not helped though.

[...snip...]

Some of the conservative movement's most esteemed flag-bearers have turned against her. David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, termed her "a fatal cancer" on the party. Peggy Noonon in the Wall Street Journal called her selection "symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation in American politics".

Indeed, a "new vulgarism" has appeared and taken us even further into a dark, forbidding place. The nation is confronted with not one crisis but multiple, yet there's a fundamental disconnect between the campaign's intent to "win" and any understanding of what "winning" would entail. From CNN,

But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

Emphasis mine.

A heartbeat away, and only a few months of coaching -- "teaching to the test" so to speak -- to get her up to speed enough so that she could look near-competent? That's the level of training and expertise that the GOP, and the McCain Campaign, are planning to bring to the table in order to win the Presidency and turn our nation off the most disastrous course it's ever been on?

There are still some groups of citizens who just don't get it, and are some are even talking a Palin run for the Presidency in 2012 now that she has the national exposure and name recognition.

Our long national nightmare is not yet over, and there's already another reason to fear for the future.

This is an Open Thread.