Is Palin McCain's Waterloo?

While the original announcement, after Obama's historic acceptance speech Thursday (which somehow already feels as though it occurred weeks ago), certainly had it's intended effect of throwing the news immediately off of the wholly successful Democratic convention, it's difficult to see how McCain's campaign is going to survive the choice of Sarah Palin for the VP nominee in the long term. 

Even beyond the fact that she now seems to be the gift that keeps on giving to the Obama campaign in terms of eye-opening revelations from the political to the personal, the fact that the move from the start was perceived as a desperate gambit - a "Hail Mary pass" as I think everyone liberal to conservative has described it - creates a perception both that, first off, McCain's position is more desperate than I think was generally perceived, and, secondly and more importantly, that he is more than willing to make rash, unexamined moves with very little forethought - a quality I think even the American electorate can process after the last eight years as one that we would be much better avoiding in our next President.

But, of course, after the last eight years, trying to process the inner mental workings of the American electorate is clearly an impenetrable task.  Still, from poll results and the results of focus groups run gauging the reaction to McCain's choice of Palin, it does seem as though the Hail Mary pass is eventually going to be looked at as more of a punt.