Is Sarah Palin Going, Going, Gone?

If John McCain's Trainwreck Express can make it through the next few days without going off the rails, then running mate Sarah Palin probably will survive.

But if the revelations continue to roll in -- from Palin's thuggery as a small-town mayor and big-state governor, that she couldn't even operate a car wash without running afoul of the law, her problematic religious affiliations, to the lack of vetting until after the fact to probably the most important determinant, Barack Obama's widening lead in the polls -- then she will join Thomas Eagleton as half of the answer to a political trivia question that will stump future generations: Who are the two vice presidential nominees who were forced to withdraw?

One thing is for certain: Palin will not withdraw voluntarily and the extreme right wing of the Republican Party will fight tooth and nail to keep her in the game.

Party elders not in the thrall of Phyllis Schlafly and James Dobson understand that McCain's candidacy already is crippled by his own lackadaisical performance on the stump and twin albatrosses glowering on his shoulders by the names of George Bush and Dick Cheney. They further understand that his White House bid probably has been dealt a fatal blow if the polarizing Palin isn't bounced quickly because the notion that she will attact disaffected Democratic women in droves is silly and McCain cannot come close to winning on the backs of religious extremists and people turned off to Obama because of his percdeived inexperience and skin color.

(An aside: Isn't just extraordinary that Bush, the titular head of the party and, by the way, president of the United States, is considered to be so toxic that he was relegated to phoning in to the convention a brief homily to McCain that concluded before the networks went to prime-time coverage?)

These elders will tell McCain of Palin's own toxicity in no uncertain terms.

If McCain doesn't acquiesce and tell Palin that she is to withdraw, almost certainly by using the cover story that she has concluded that her family, especially her special-needs son and pregnant 17-year-old daughter, have to come first, then the damage will be even worse. This is because it will take nanoseconds for McCain's refusal to do what will be widely viewed as best for party and country to leak out, and for most people "maverick" is not synonymous with "willfully stupid."

The bottom line is that as some pundits (myself included) who have been around the block a few times knew, it was pretty much inevitable that Obama would begin to pull away from McCain as the summer doldrums ended if he didn't make any big mistakes or picked a loser as a running mate.

McCain, of course, has been running in place in the polls since forever. He hasn't made any big mistakes, but he hasn't been able to make any inroads. And now he has chosen a running mate so awful that she is hiding from the press, the sycophants at Fox News are left to bloviate about "distracting questions about her qualifications," and not even a Gulf Coast hurricane and his own party convention can blow her off of the front page.

In the end, Palin's fate may well come down to the polls. A commanding Obama lead will further panic those party elders and swing-state incumbents whose asses already are in a sling, and it's a good bet that Palin will be sent packing.

Photograph by Robyn Beck/AFP-Getty Images