The Pendragon's Hall

I did not expect a politically-saavy VP choice by John McCain anymore than I expected it from his identical twin, John Kerry, in 2004. But McPain's selection of first-term Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, as his running mate absolutely boggles the imagination. The man hasn't even won over his own party and he's going after Democrats. I don't know why I'm surprised--it's how he's lived his entire political career. Palin makes Obama look experienced, and Heaven knows that's hard to do. As for her supposed economic know-how, running the miniscule, always-red state of Alaska for less than two years and the possibility of having to run one of the largest economies in the world, yeah, that's the same. As far as I can tell, she's McCain's mirror image, a "traitor Republican" who talks a good game when an election is on the line. She brings no battleground states to the mix and the conservative game she'll have to talk to be on the ticket will not bring Hillary Clinton supporters into the McCain camp. The senator seems to assume that female voters are only interested in having a woman, any woman, revolving around the presidency. With one fell swoop, McCain deprived his own campaign of his only reliable asset: his experience vs. Obama's newcomer status. Also, he handed one of his own potent weapons to the Obama camp. When Obama unveiled his runningmate, McCain went on the attack, saying that Hillary Clinton was kept off the ticket "because she spoke the truth about Obama." The thing to do at that point was pick Mitt Romney and say that even though they disagreed, Romney was clearly the man for the job. At this point, McCain would look like an old statesman who put party unity above personal opinions and it would have curtailed the criticism from Obama that Romney and McCain should not put aside their differences, because the candidates could simply say they were willing to disagree with each other and yet agree on general topics, contrasted with Joe Biden who is essentially Barack Obama in twenty years. Palin is probably a very nice lady, but she's no conservative watchdog which means the right wing is still left hanging; but she's conservative enough that liberal women voters will not find her palatable; she's not well known enough to deliver a lot of swing votes and her state would have been in McCain's column anyway. Yeah, good job, John. Have fun at the unemployment office this winter.