What impact did Sarah Palin have on John McCain's candidacy?

Okay, fair enough. Let's go with this version and I'll archive the "good choice" issue.

Yes, but the problem we reach with something like "was she a good choice" is that we're essentially going to be posting evidence of people who are saying "post-mortem" that she lost him the election but who may have felt she was a "good choice" before election day (and we won't have any of that previous evidence for archival purposes to show that)... it's creates the possibility for misrepresenting public figure opinions if we keep that issue up which was meant to be for reactions leading up to the election. I've also always been wary of the phrasing "good" for the VP announcement issues.

Well, should we archive "was she a good choice?" It's still a good issue although in hindsight your opinion could be different. If that's the case though you should change your opinion.

isn't the was she a good choice archived?   

Maybe:

Was Sarah Palin a signficant factor in the McCain campaign's loss?

Yes

No

I like the original direction of this issue more than the positive/negative impact issue.

Not feeling this is so necessary on top of "was she a good choice."

Just saving evidence here...

From CNN:

Palin also denied the suggestion her presence on the GOP ticket contributed to Obama's electoral landslide victory.

"I don't think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain's loss to me," she said.

"Now having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry about that because John McCain, I believe, is the American hero. I had believed it was his time," she added.

I concede then, since the two of you will go back and forth bickering about the issue otherwise... hah.

"Simmer!"

But yeah... I guess the candidacy is fine... I just thought asking about her impact on the election outcome was more interesting. Whatevs.

Asking "what impact on the election" is strange. In my judgment, she had a terrible impact on McCain but she certainly got more people active and interested in the election itself. I think the better debate is her impact on John McCain's candidacy, which is an ubiased way to get at whether or not she played a factor in his loss.

What if I want to say that she actually helped McCain mroe than she hurt him? Is this an issue I can take a stand on?

Well, I mean... the retrospect of "she had a negative impact on the election" is different than she was a good choice.

So I'd be fine asking:

What impact did Sarah Palin have on the 2008 Presidential election?
-Postive
-Negative
-None

You could easily feel she was a good choice but in the end she had a negative effect on the election itself.

You're still asking whether she was a good choice. This is about "what factor did she play in McCain's loss?"

Major, Minor or none.

You could still say she was a bad choice and also say she played no factor in McCain's loss.

ok, I see what you're saying.

In that case, however, this wording is biased in that the issue assumes she was unquestionably a negative impact by phrasing the question around a negative result - "McCain campaign's loss"

What net impact did Sarah Palin have on the John McCain's candidacy?

Positive

Negative

No effect

Yeah but the positive / negative aspect is "was she a good choice"... my issue is more about whether having her on the ticket actually affected voter decision at all in the McCain camp's loss.

in the vid below, Kristol, Barnes, Hume and Juan Williams speak at lenght about this issues.

Aren't there two kinds of factors that Palin could play though? A minorly or majorly negative impact....or a minorly or majorly positive impact.

I think we need to phrase as What kind of an impact she played - positive or negative.

Boo. "None" sounds terrible. That's like being able to say that any aspect of the campaign had nothing to do with the loss. Everything in a campaign has SOMETHING to do with the outcome... and that way "Sarah Palin was a negligible factor in the McCain campaign's loss" clarifies that rather than "Sarah Palin was not a factor."

Let's go with "none" instead of negligible.

The wording probably isn't perfect right now. However, I think the three options are necessary. For the record, I like "negligible" rather than "was not a factor"...