Yes, this is a short diary. Hopefully the content will be worth it.
People are pointing to Palin's debate in the Alaska primaries and subsequent electoral win as evidence that she will do well against Biden and thus help McCain. Some simple math will shatter that myth. The reason Sarah Palin won the governorship in Alaska is that very few people voted period.
According to Wikipedia, Sarah Palin got, in total, 48.1% of the vote in the final election. That is a total of 114,697 votes. The total turnout for the election was 238,307. The total estimated population of Alaska in 2007 683,478 with 476,472 registered voters in 2006.
This means that only 34.8% of Alaskans bothered voting at all with only 48% of those voting for Sarah Palin.
This means that 16% of Alaskans and 24% of registered voters actually voted for Sarah Palin.
The numbers are even worse at the 2006 Alaska Republican primary, where only 101,695 people voted, only 51,443, or 51.1%, voted for Palin. That is only 10% of eligible voters in Alaska. That's it. 10% of Alaskan's eligible voters actually chose Sarah Palin as the woman to run for Governor.
The 2004 presidential eligible voter turnout was 55.3%. The lowest eligible voter turnout since 1960 was in 1996 at 49.1%. The number of voters turning out this year will likely be higher than 49.1% due to the massive registration drive.
Even more importantly, the percentage of eligible Alaska, the percentage of eligible voters who voted in the 2004 presidential campaign was 70.76%!
Based on these numbers, I do not think Sarah Palin can be judged to be an effective debater or an effective candidate.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/... Alaska Gubernatorial Election, Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/... Alaska, Wikipedia
http://elections.gmu.edu/...
2004 Voting-Age and Voting-Eligible Population Estimates and Voter Turnout, United States Election Project
http://www.infoplease.com/... National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections 1960-2006, Infoplease with data from the FEC
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/... Official Election Results, State of Alaska