Skepticism of Palin Growing, Poll Finds.

With Palin preparing to debate Joe Biden later on tonight, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that the media scrutiny - since McCain revealed her - has seriously tarnished her image, with half of all voters saying that they were uncomfortable with the idea of McCain taking office at the age of 72, and 85 percent of those same voters saying that Palin does not have the experience to be president.

Obama also faced the inexperience charge early on in this campaign but he responded by coming out and arguing with Hillary Clinton and the best that the Democratic party had to throw at him.

The McCain campaign's tactics with Palin have been disastrous, easily demonstrating that they don't have faith in their own candidates ability to perform by the way in which they have sought to keep her far removed from press scrutiny. It is simply astonishing that since she was unveiled to a slightly shocked and puzzled electorate - who initially gave her the benefit of the doubt due to the fact that they didn't know her - that she has never subjected herself to a single press conference.

And, on the few occasions in which she has subjected herself to scrutiny, she has been found to be woefully lacking.

Nearly a third of adults in a new poll from the Pew Research Center said they paid a lot of attention to Palin's interviews with CBS News's Katie Couric, a series that prompted grumbling among some conservative commentators about Palin's competency to be the GOP's vice presidential standard-bearer. The Pew poll showed views of Palin slipping over the past few days alone.

And, in an election which many have predicted will be decided by independents, the bad news for the GOP is that it is amongst this group that Palin fares the worst.

The 60 percent who now see Palin as insufficiently experienced to step into the presidency is steeply higher than in a Post-ABC poll after her nomination early last month. Democrats and Republicans alike are now more apt to doubt her qualifications, but the biggest shift has come among independents.

In early September, independents offered a divided verdict on Palin's experience; now they take the negative view by about 2 to 1. Nearly two-thirds of both independent men and women in the new poll said Palin has insufficient experience to run the White House.

It was always suicidal for a 72 year old man to name someone who the country had never heard of as his running mate. At the time I thought McCain had brought into the election the one thing which Democrats were frightened to mention: his age.

I think very few people would have worried about McCain's age had he picked a Vice President who was obviously qualified, but the choice of Palin raises the terrifying spectre of an utterly unqualified person assuming leadership of the free world. I have no way of knowing how much this factors into people's reaction to Palin, but common sense would indicate that this is surely something which they take into account when considering her.

Palin now repels more independents than she attracts to McCain. The share of independent women less apt to support McCain because of the Palin pick has more than doubled to 34 percent, while the percentage more inclined to support him is down eight points.

With his choice of Palin, McCain, as many said at the time, threw a Hail Mary pass. He didn't know how it was going to turn out, he simply knew that he had to change the game.

There were many of us who felt that the recklessness of this decision alone was enough to prove that he was undeserving of the presidency.

I am greatly relieved to see that so many Americans are coming to their senses and beginning to see the absurdity of McCain's proposition.

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Tags: Palin, US election 2008, experience