A perfect own-goal

Women less impressed with Palin -- by large margins! -- than men. No shocker, I've always believed women were smarter. (My demographic votes overwhelmingly Republican, to my shame.) Yglesias thinks this is policy driven, but I'm skeptical: in an election where some centrist women were angered by the perception that a qualified woman was being passed over for a younger, less-qualified man, what could be more offensive than picking an even younger, even less qualified woman? The fact that many of Clinton's supporters would also have had the experience of a younger, more attractive woman getting promoted ahead of them seems to have not occurred to anyone in McCain HQ.

The attempt to get Clinton voters has the potential to backfire massively on McCain, which is why it's time for me to put in print the analogy I've been working with for a while now: the GOP in 2000, and 2004, was like watching the Empire's stormtroopers at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back: merciless, unstoppable, and brutally efficient. In 2008, it's like watching the same bunch of white dudes in Jedi: they're incapable of something as trivial as beating up Ewoks.