Two political science majors have decided that the conventional wisdom which says that Sarah Palin damaged John McCain's 2008 chances is wrong. Oh and they think she has a shot at the presidency in 2016. I know, right?

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

It's been debated for five years, and the conventional wisdom has generally concluded that Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, hurt Sen. John McCain's chances to beat then-Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency with her outsized and controversial personality. 

But now a comprehensive new analysis of the so-called “Palin Effect” finds that in the final analysis, the former Alaska governor helped McCain by attracting more voters to the ticket, crushing a mainstream media view. 

What’s more, while she attracted wider press attention than most prior veep candidates, her actual impact for a No. 2 was about average. 

“Palin had a positive effect on McCain,” according to the new Palin analysis in the authoritative Political Research Quarterly. 

Digesting mountains of data, two political science professors from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., said their findings showed that the conventional wisdom that independent voters ran from the McCain-Palin ticket was wrong. They found that independent voters had the same reaction to Palin as Republicans, who largely liked her. 

Both findings could provide a basis for a 2016 run for the presidency by the Tea Party favorite. 

“Palin did not have a negative effect on McCain's voter share overall, nor did she result in eroded support for McCain among critical swing voters such as independents and moderates,” the duo wrote. 

Their analysis picked apart a recent report that Palin drove off voters and was uniquely divisive, claiming it was flawed.

Okay well let me first admit that I DO NOT have a degree in political science, however what I DO have is memory of what happened in 2008. After all I blogged about it daily. 

And what I remember was there was a HUGE amount of interest in Sarah Palin when she was announced as McCain's running mate, and that they kept her away from the press as long as they could before people started asking what was wrong with her. So they relented on September 11, 2008 and let her be interviewed by Charlie Gibson.

That is when everybody learned what was wrong with her.

That was then followed up by those Katie Couric interviews, during which Palin, blaming Nicolle Wallace for her problems with the Gibson interview, refused any help with preparation. That was essentially the beginning of the end for Palin's help in the John McCain campaign.

She was mocked by EVERYBODY, including being hoaxed by a Canadian comedy duo on radio, and becoming a staple for late night comedians, and even helping to turn Tina Fey into a household name.

By the end everybody on the McCain campaign, and virtually every political expert in the country, knew that Palin was an albatross around McCain's neck.

So I don't know what kind of data these two idiots were looking at, or how far up their ass they had to mine for it, but any political scientist who thinks that Palin was anything but a disaster, or has ANY future in politics, needs to choose a different profession immediately.

Because Spanky, this is NOT your thing!

P.S. I know this article is a few days old, but I literally just ran into it today.