KEY POINTS:
Somewhere in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney might be having a quiet chuckle to himself.
The man who was once favoured to be John McCain's vice-presidential pick - before the Republican nominee banked sharply right with surprise wing-woman Sarah Palin - has probably noticed how the lie of the land
has suddenly changed.
Last week as McCain flailed about on the economy, a running mate who was a businessman, Olympics entrepreneur, former governor of a state of 6.4 million and Washington 'outsider' might have made more political sense than a 'hockey mom' governor from Alaska.
McCain, who has admitted that economics is not his strong suit, spurned his chance to pick a number two who could have talked credibly about measures to aid the ailing economy.
McCain first claimed that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong". Then he said that the United States economy was in "crisis" and he opposed a government bailout of AIG. After the Government said it was bailing out AIG, McCain said it needed to happen.
Next McCain wanted to fire the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which a president can't actually do. On Monday he urged the creation of a bipartisan oversight board to review the Government bailout of Wall Street and ironically suggested Romney should be involved.
McCain is only slightly behind in the polls - 2.7 in arrears on the RCP average yesterday - but early last week Gallup had him leading Barack Obama by 5 points.
McCain is still having to babysit his offsider - sending her to the United Nations today to meet a few foreign leaders in the hope of boosting her international credentials which, the Republicans themselves say, mainly consist of being able to see Russia from her home state and being head of the Alaska National Guard.
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It's not that McCain's selection of Palin has blown up in his face.
The enthusiastic crowds at their joint appearances suggest, and poll data confirms it, that the choice of Palin has galvanised the Republican base, especially evangelicals. One poll last week showed that 47 per cent of McCain's supporters are keen on the ticket, almost twice what it was before the conventions. That's essential for party volunteers and turnout.
But Republicans make up about 30 per cent of the electorate: McCain needs independents and Democrats to win. Stirring the party faithful seems to have been Palin's main impact. Key shifts in voter preferences which were noticed immediately after the Republican Convention have now boomeranged back.
* Independents favoured Obama before the conventions, shifted to McCain just after the Republican gathering, but are now back with Obama. Last week's New York Times/CBS poll gave him a five-point lead with them.
* White women - who flirted with the Republicans after the convention - have returned to Obama. He has turned a temporary deficit into a two-point lead, 47-45 per cent. The Times says that at this point in the 2004 campaign, George W. Bush was leading John Kerry by 56 per cent to 37 per cent among white women.
* A number of polls, including the Times one, show that Obama has also regained the label of 'change' that McCain lunged for at his convention. Immediately afterwards, polls showed a marked erosion in Obama's lead on this issue. Now that lead is back out to 15-20 points. The Times poll shows that independents are pushing that gap - 61 per cent of them believe Obama can bring change to Washington and 58 per cent think McCain will not.
The Republican ticket's Eliot Ness-style, 'we'll clean up this town' bravado has deflated quicker than you can say 'Eliot Spitzer', dragged down in part by the inconvenient realities of Palin's federal funds-heavy governing record.
* * *
Consider the momentum McCain had before the convention season. The McCain tortoise was grimly running Obama's hare down. He then pandered to his base with the polarising Palin.
The Times poll puts Palin's favourable rating at 40 per cent - down 4 points from last week. Her unfavourable rating is at 30 per cent, up 8 points. A Quinnipac poll gives her exactly the same ratings.
Obama's running mate Joe Biden, in contrast, is far less polarising. His ratings are 38-17 per cent in the Times poll and 40-23 per cent in the Quinnipac poll.
The Times poll shows most voters believe the economy is now getting worse and those people support Obama 62-29 per cent. Yesterday's CNN poll finds that by a two-to-one margin Americans blame Republicans for the crisis and think Obama would better handle the economy by a 10-point margin.
Palinmania now seems a trivial diversion. Romney would have been a better weapon with which to battle economic fears - particularly those of independent voters.
Romney would not have stirred the interest Palin did had he been picked, although he was able to win 11 contests and 4.2 million votes in his primary run for president.
He had his own drawbacks: a stilted phoniness before the camera, a record of positional flip-flops and a willingness to bare his fangs in attack ads which created earlier animosity with McCain.
He's also no foreign policy expert and it showed in his simplistic answers during the debates. At least he went through the process of months of considering and debating international issues.
But he had enough basic governing, business and campaigning experience to be considered acceptable enough for the VP job. And like Biden, Romney would not have been subjected to the scrutiny Palin has faced. He's a known quantity. His negatives have been factored in.
Meanwhile the drip, drip of revelations about Palin continues. Time magazine reported that her transportation department has completed a US$25 million ($36.3 million), taxpayer-funded 5km "road to nowhere" leading to the "bridge to nowhere".
Yesterday CNN said that Palin's hometown of Wasilla required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor.
There's still weeks to go until the election and the hurdle of the debates to overcome.
But it appears as though McCain made a tactical blunder going for Palin instead of a competent option who could have balanced his ticket with some economic expertise.
