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It was a Hail Mary pick. Pandering, panicked and foolish. I can't say that it wasn't daring, but jumping off a cliff is pretty daring too, not too bright though.
She has some things going for her. Young, attractive. Sure she's inexperienced, but she also doesn't have a mile long record to pick at either. But she's a paradox, really. What she has going for her is canceled out by other reasons.
First of all, it's an obvious pander to women. He wants those supposedly angry Hillary holdouts. But Hillary supporters and women voters aren't stupid. Palin is a woman, but she's a right-winger. She's been around for two years. Hillary is an icon, she's been fighting this battle and inspiring generations of women for a few decades now. Not quite as long on a national level, but almost. If the GOP thinks women are going to drop the party of Hillary Clinton, for somebody they never heard of until today who doesn't have much of a record on anything good luck. And if she does bring in some women, I still think there are alot of Republican men who would be turned off by the thought of a woman being a heartbeat away from the presidency. She doesn't galvanize the sexist racist part of the party who believe women are basically meant for breeding and cooking, that's for sure.
And it also kills his "inexperienced" argument. If experience was so important, why would a 72 year old man with health issues pick somebody who isn't even remotely qualified to be president? Even then, she has shown little judgment on anything. It makes little sense.
I don't know if her ethics issues will be a problem, but does McCain really want to start delving into petty Rezko stuff, when it will drudge up the Alaska scandals, and then Keating 5 and his Abramoff coverups? Even if he can win these battles, it wouldn't be by much. Not enough to truly hurt Obama. He put out those ads last week with Rezko, Ayers etc, and they sunk like a stone. Maybe they can get some traction, but Obama has crushed that stuff time and time again and nobody in the media or anybody else seems to think there is anything to that stuff.
But last, and I said it yesterday. He's serving up a lightweight to Biden. McCain's a lightweight himself, he can barely remember a talking point about the price of milk without a cue card, and since he's starting to turn his POW line of defense into a punchline, he's starting to be forced into actually talking about policy, something that he seems to know frighteningly little about. Someone like Romney at least had a fighting chance. I think they conceded debates to Biden already. I'd look for them to play down expectations in both debate settings. If McCain and Palin can avoid going out and drooling all over themselves, it might be fine, so long as they lower expectations enough.
Problem is, this is an election of high expectations. Nobody wants to lower the bar, we're looking to rise to the occasion. As a pick, I'd say she's a D. A desperate move that evidently McCain felt he had to try. Poor judgment and it leaves the door wide open for Obama this fall. He just has to keep the momentum and go do what he has to do. All of us do.
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