KEY POINTS:
Nothing typifies the plight of Senator John McCain's campaign more than the rollercoaster ride of his surprise vice-presidential pick, Governor Sarah Palin. In six weeks, she has gone from disaster to triumph and back again several times.
Originally greeted with disbelief after her candidacy was announced on the eve of the Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota, Palin wowed the party with her stunning debut speech.
Palin electrified voters, taking McCain ahead of Senator Barack Obama in the polls and bringing in legions of undecided women. In teaming up with a political ingenue with grassroots appeal, McCain had taken a terrific risk. And it appeared to have paid off.
Then came Katie Couric. The network TV anchor did not so much grill Palin as give the Alaska Governor enough rope to hang herself with. Palin floundered against even the most harmless questions, such as what newspapers she read, and became the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live.
But then Palin surprised everyone again with a strong performance in her debate against Senator Joe Biden, resurrecting her supporters' belief that she could change the campaign.
That hope has probably died with the Troopergate report. The enormous microscope of a presidential campaign has magnified an obscure staffing dispute in Alaska - over whether Palin pursued a family vendetta against a state trooper - into a major political story. With the release of a damaging report this weekend that concluded Palin did indeed abuse the powers of her office, her political trajectory has once again changed course.
Gone are the dreams of Palin bringing in the desperately needed independent voters, former supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton and soft Democrats the McCain campaign need so much. Instead she has now been firmly assigned to the traditional role of the vice-presidential candidate: attack dog.
It is a role she does well and it plays to the Republican base. There is still no doubting that Palin can powerfully move a Republican crowd. Her angry attacks on Obama stir supporters far more effectively than does McCain's more measured style. But she is now largely reduced to stumping in the rural Republican heartlands of America. She is a powerful tool in working up the party base, ensuring that they turn out on election day, but her crossover appeal has gone.
Indeed, even Republican critics of Palin have been stamped on for questioning her.
There seems little doubt that Palin is still the darling of a huge section of red state America. But what works for the Republican base no longer works for the country as a whole.
Attack dogs do not win the middle ground, especially ones beset by scandal and smarting from the damning judgment of Alaska state investigator Steve Branchflower, who discovered that Todd, Palin's husband, enjoyed extraordinary access to his wife's closest advisers, despite being unelected and having no salaried state post. He then used that access to try to get Wooten fired, the report found. Palin was criticised for taking no action to rein in her husband and Branchflower concluded there was evidence that she participated in a campaign against Wooten.
Summing up, the report said Palin breached a code of conduct for state officials that "each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust".
Not an ideal verdict for a vice-presidential candidate three weeks from the election.
Troopergate has come as a body-blow to a campaign that was already on a losing streak. All last week, as the polls showed Obama pulling away, the atmosphere at McCain rallies had become angrier and angrier.
Fury has become the dominant theme. As the poll numbers have worsened, Republican supporters seem to have reacted with a mixture of disbelief and anger. At rally after rally, from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin, supporters have urged their campaign to fight harder.
Mention of Obama's name prompts cries of "traitor", "treason" and "kill him". Members of the press, universally suspected of Democratic sympathies, are targeted and insulted.
Inside the Obama camp, and increasingly among Republican insiders, there is a growing feeling: this is what losing campaigns look like.
The deep-seated reasons why McCain's campaign has been swept aside can be found in the gravity of the economic crisis and the legacy of President George W. Bush, who is leaving after eight years in office with a popularity rate so disastrous that it compares only to Richard Nixon's.
But the Palin fall-out promises to be damaging because Troopergate is an embarrassment that is entirely self-inflicted. The stunning, quixotic choice of Palin had seemed to give McCain a remarkable chance of success. But after the dreadful rollout to the national media and now Troopergate, Palin has gone from saviour to liability.
- OBSERVER
