The World

For the past week or so, I’ve enjoyed depressing all my Obamamaniac friends by arguing that Obama’s lead could still be pegged back. But even I have to admit that the latest batch of polls do look very promising for him.

So if and when McCain loses, who or what will be labelled as the main culprit for his defeat? Plenty of candidates, obviously – George W. Bush, the economy, McCain’s age, the liberal media (if you happen to be a conservative.) But I’m increasingly of the opinion that it was the choice of Sarah Palin that was the real turning point.

On the day of her nomination as McCain’s running mate, I wrote that choosing her was “bold, exciting, but also stupid” since it under-cut McCain’s argument that Obama was too inexperienced for the presidency. Then I spent the next couple of weeks worrying that I had got it badly wrong – and revealed myself as yet another liberal European pundit, out-of-tune with Middle America. She certainly gave a bravura performance at the Republican convention. And there was a definite Palin bounce in the polls.

But then it all started to go wrong. And – satisfyingly, given that Palin was being promoted as a feminist icon – it was two women who undid her. First. Katie Couric with her quietly devestating interviews on CBS; then Tina Fey, with her noisily devastating impersonations on Saturday Night Live. Sarah Palin turned into a bit of a joke – and that is usually fatal for a politician.

Worse, her selection then began to reflect back on McCain. A recent poll is suggestive. It shows that 52% of voters are less confident in McCain’s judgment because of the selection of Palin; just 38% are more confident. This latest stuff on her spending $150,000 on clothes since her nomination looks very damaging to me. It makes her sound more like Imelda Marcos than a hockey mum.