Now some of THIS I believe

From the New York Times:

Ms. Palin. . . was the catalyst for a civil war between her campaign and Mr. McCain’s that raged from mid-September up until moments before Mr. McCain’s concession speech on Tuesday night. By then, Ms. Palin was in only infrequent contact with Mr. McCain, top advisers said.

“I think it was a difficult relationship,” said one top McCain campaign official, who, like almost all others interviewed, asked to remain anonymous. “McCain talked to her occasionally.”

But Mr. McCain’s advisers also described him as admiring of Ms. Palin’s political skills. He was aware of the infighting, they said, but it is unclear how much he was inclined or able to stop it.

The tensions and their increasingly public airing provide a revealing coda to the ill-fated McCain-Palin ticket, hinting at the mounting turmoil of a campaign that was described even by many Republicans as incoherent, negative and badly run.

Like I said. THIS I believe. In fact I would have been shocked if it had turned out any differently. John McCain is the blood enemy of conservatives and conservatism and Sarah Palin is the closest thing we have had to Ronald Reagan since his retirement in 1988.

One of the greatest fears that I had during the latter part of the campaign was that McCain, whose choice of Palin was - in his mind - nothing more than a gimmick and a bone to throw to conservatives, would come to realize that Mrs. Palin was far more popular than he was and that if he won it would only be because of her. I feared that this would ignite McCain's legendary temper and cause him to freeze her out of the campaign or even cut her down publicly in some way.

It would seem that McCain did resent her popularity but that he retained enough reason to continue to make public appearances with her. After all it was only her presence that allowed McCain to draw a crowd of any size.

It would be difficult to overstate how pleased I am to hear that Governor Palin went into this campaign with an agenda of her own. Her political instincts are surely good enough to have realized that a McCain victory was all but impossible (remember, if you give the public a choice between a democrat and a Democrat they will pick the Democrat). That she saw the campaign as a convenient vehicle to establish herself on the national stage and further her own presidential ambitions has me almost weeping with relief.

The greatest fear that I have had since last Tuesday is that Mrs. Palin would go back to Alaska and swear off national politics because of the incredibly vile treatment she received at the hands of the media, the left-wing of the Democrat party (sorry, redundant) and even her own party and her own campaign's "insiders".

That doesn't seem likely to happen and that gives me some hope for the ultimate survival of the Republic.