How John McCain's Losing Was All My Fault: Confessions of a Jammy Blogger

Ok - now that the election is well over, I can finally fess up.

It was all my fault that McCain lost. I don't go as far as to credit myself for Obama's win: Obama deserves a lot of the credit for that. But I do confess that is was I who secretly torpedoed McCain's campaign.

I didn't plan it to work out that way. It just did. But now that it's all done, I feel I must go on the record in case any of you want to know the real reason for McCain's political demise. Please don't judge me too harshly. No one could have completely foreseen my role in all of this. But I do now see how the dots all connect.

Here's how it all happened.

I was just going on my merry way, writing my own little ramblings in cyberspace, not realizing how dramatic an effect it would have on the outcome of the most important Presidential election in history.

It all began on June 19th. In what I thought was a completely innocuous post, I speculated about who might be the Republican choice for VP. One of my readers, a Republican partisan who seemed to be trolling the internet looking for places to push his suggestion, posted a name I'd never heard before: Sarah Palin. I did a little quick research, turned up only that she was governor of Alaska, but that sounded good enough to me, so on June 22nd, I wrote a new post suggesting Sarah Palin as perhaps a "good pick" for McCain and one of his overlooked choices.

Little did I know then the central role that might post would play in the 2008 election.

On August 29th, McCain picked Sara Palin as his running mate. We didn't know it then, but he'd found her by doing a search on Google. Since, until my post, very little from uninvolved sources was written about her, I must conclude that it was my June 22nd post that gave Steve Schmidt and other McCain campaign managers the confidence that Palin was a pick that could reach across to the broad middle.

But on June 22nd, I knew as little about Palin as McCain did. So after the pick, I did a little more research, and assembled a list of the Top 10 Sarah Palin scandals. It was clear to me then that this woman was bad news.

My post turned out to be huge. Many came to my list to find out all the scary scandals hidden within Palin's closet. Within a month, public opinion began to turn. It was clear that choosing Palin was not a brilliant move; instead, it was one of McCain's big mistakes. Would he have chosen her if I hadn't written my post of June 22nd? Would public opinion have turned as decidedly against her without an easy to find list of Sarah Palin scandals (search "Sarah Palin scandals" on Google and there it is)? Who knows...who could have predicted Common Mistakes would play such a role in all this?

By the end of October, it was clear that Palin was an albatross: she was even driving conservatives to Obama.

Then, Obama wins the election, and wins big. Analysts now say that it was the Sara Palin pick - not Bush, not the economy - that was decisive against McCain.

So could it be that somehow, my post of June 22nd, my follow up at the end of August, may have led to the greatest Republican defeat since Nixon? It's quite possible, now that I look at how everything has played out.

When I posted the Sarah Palin scandals, one reader suggested I was on the payroll of the DNC. I wasn't. But maybe Obama wants to send me one of those seven-page application forms to fill out. I'll gladly fill in everything about my roll in the 2008 election. Maybe he can give me a job as Chief Blogger, and send me after other political enemies. Not that I can predict these things, mind you. But maybe I just have that kind of luck.

After all, I think he owes me one.

(BTW, since I apparently am still having trouble with my readers reading my sarcasm, I suppose I must spell out: tongue planted, cheek. What, has no on the internet ever read A Modest Proposal?)