It could be that both McCain and Palin are at base fiercely ordinary

[saltpoint]

people who find themselves in way over their head.

I want to assume that McCain has some sense of honor and dignity as a man and as a citizen and as a war veteran, yet I hear him calling his wife a 'trollop' and a 'cunt' in public. Talk about blurring the message.

I want to assume that Gov. Palin would know that accepting the VP nom with McCain would place the world's cameras and microphones on every member of her family, yet she grabbed the golden ring despite this.

McCain has had enough inside-the-Beltway exposure to know that he needs to keep updating the technologies of running political campaigns. Howard Dean revolutionized the internet as a political technology. How McCain and his staff could have missed all recent developments for 8 years is astonishing. And embarrassing.

Is he of such poor judgment as to underestimate their impact, or too stubborn to adapt to them? Either way, he comes off as a clueless chump of a by-gone age.

Palin may survive the ticket, but from the hard-bitten pragmatist's viewpoint, her remaining on the ticket brings McCain no benefit and may drag him down, even among those in his own party.

He was said to have wanted Ridge or especially, Lieberman. It was his call.

IMO he made it badly.