McCain is shooting himself in the foot in the long run with his VP pick. Yes, Palin is a smart woman, a great story,and definitely brings the spotlight to his campaign for now. But let’s be real. She has even less experience than Obama. She's been a governor for all of 2 years, and what qualified her for that position, the fact that she was a mayor of a town of 9,000? She's going to look foolish debating a hard-hitting guy as bright, informed and well versed in foreign policy as Joe Biden is. Eventually people are going to be asking themselves "Is this woman really ready to be one heart attack away from the presidency?" And John McCain will be 72 at the time he would take office, which would make him the oldest president ever, even older than Reagan. His need for a trustworthy replacement in the event of sickness is a sad reality of old age that he needs to face.
To go with the campaign cliché, it's a maverick pick by McCain, no doubt. He took a risk by picking someone fairly inexperienced in order to appeal to the Hillary fanbase. Will it work in the long term? Doubtful. Liberal females won’t see any merit in supporting a woman who doesn't support woman's rights such as abortion.
Speaking of abortion, you can expect that issue to come back into the spotlight again now that we know Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Obviously she's keeping the baby, which is commendable. But this will make Palin a 44-year-old grandmother, and the first GMILF I've ever come across. Also keep in mind that as VP, she won’t exactly be giving her one-year- old special needs kid her undivided attention. I’m not sure what the family values conservatives will think of that. Maybe the recent emergence of her evangelical image is the GOP’s way of keeping that part of the base happy.
Overall, Palin's a joke of a VP pick. The McCain camp wants to convince you that she's been disrespected. But people have every right to bash her for being an insane religious nutcase, especially when running for office in a country that’s supposed to separate religion and state. We have a right to hate on her for dismissing the realities of global warming. We have a right to call her out for having zero international experience. She's a joke in the context of what she would bring to Washington and to be honest, has little to no business making political decisions, period.
But does any of this really matter? Of course not, because Palin is the type of figure that the media craves, just like Obama was. She’s different; she’s exciting. The Democrats strategy should now be to bring some of the focus back to McCain, even if they can't change the fact that the spotlight is always going to be on Palin to a certain extent. And as long as that's true, the Obama camp needs to keep working to put that "nutcase" label on her. Elections are all about image. Even though Palin shouldn't be a major player in all of this, the reality is that she changes the image of the Republican ticket. It would be irresponsible for Democrats not to attack her and change the way the public perceives her.
--posted by Dave
