Conor goes after Palin's cult base:
The most peculiar thing about the affinity of social conservatives for Sarah Palin is that they despise John McCain, distrusting him as much as any other Republican in the Senate… but are completely unbothered by the fact that he was championed by Palin not only on the campaign trail in 2008, but also in his 2010 bid to be re-elected to the Senate. Fellow mavericks! Ask a Palin supporter about this. They’ll usually reply that she was just being loyal to the man who helped establish her on the national scene. Put another way, Palin acted like a typical career politician by supporting someone not based on shared convictions, but because that person helped to advance her career. In other contexts, that sort of quid pro quo is held up as representing everything that is wrong with politics.