McCain’s VP Choice: Sarah Palin

After months and months of talking about experience is so important, John McCain goes and picks Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin who’s been Governor of Alaska for about 18 months and has, to my admittedly limited knowledge, has no national political experience.

So you have the oldest candidate in history picking someone with virtually no experience to be second in command, a heartbeat away from the Presidency. OK then.

The only things I do know about Gov. Palin are that she just had a child, her father is a big oil executive, and her State legislature is investigating her for ethics violations.

Other than that, I don’t know a ton about her, so we’ll see how it plays out with who it matters to: the conservative base.

One thing I do recall seeing a month or so ago was polling among conservatives that showed 20% of them wouldn’t support a woman for President, no matter who it was. Maybe they’ll feel different about VP.

The worst part about this for Sen. Obama is it more than likely takes Alaska out of the “too close to call” camp and puts its three electoral votes safely with the McCain/Palin campaign.

Personally, I was always pulling for Romney to be the choice purely for selfish reasons and the pure comedy that would have ensued.

• 

  By Sean, August 29, 2008 @ 10:09 am

  WOW, not who I thought would have been in the top 3 or 4. I, unfortunately, believe this pick will not only NOT help McCain, but actually hurt. Her obscurity will be McCain’s biggest downfall. He needed to get the base of this party excited, because God knows his speaking, as above average as it might be, will not do it, and picking Palin does nothing to energize the party. I hope, as a conservative, that I’m wrong, but I have that funny feeling in my gut that I am not.
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  By DaveS, August 29, 2008 @ 10:26 am

  “virtually no experience”. Where have we heard that before and who did it apply to? Lack of experience for the second in command is a problem for liberals, but lack of experience for the commander in chief is OK? How does that work?
• 

  By Daniel Cody, August 29, 2008 @ 10:27 am

  I hear you Sean.. In all honesty though, who would have been a great VP pick for McCain? Rudy/Lieberman/Ridge and the right-to-life wing would have gone bonkers. Pawlenty - mid-sized Governor with no national name ID. Solid conservative, but not much else for upside. Jindal? Again, solid conservative but the contrast between old/young would be considerable, and again, limited experience and no national name ID.

  That leaves Romney for the most part. But theres a good reason the social conservatives didn’t support him in the primary, and unfortunately a lot of people even in this age couldn’t get over the Mormon thing. The biggest downside to Romney though would have been his harsh criticizm of McCain in the Primary and his wealth would only feed into the “out of touch” theme from the Obama campaign.

  In some ways, they’ve all got their baggage, as everyone does of course, and in the end I suspect it was lets pick the one with the least and try to win this thing.

  Curious what your thoughts are.
• 

  By Sean, August 29, 2008 @ 11:39 am

  You’re 100% correct on the Rudy, Lieberman, Ridge, and Romney analysis. I would have been personally OK with Romney and the Mormon thing, but there is a large percentage of the base that, for whatever reason, could not and would not get over that. As for Pawlenty, it is true his recognition was low, but all it takes is a few commercials, debates, and assorted other public appearances and he’d be “out there”. That’s water under the bridge, so now we’ll have to see how Palin does. Looking into it a little further, she’s got some interesting points (husband who’s part Yup’ik Eskimo, him being part of the oil worker union, her ability to oust a standing Republican Gov., etc). I will be VERY interested in how this all shakes out, as I’m guessing everyone else will be….
• 

  By Smitty, August 29, 2008 @ 2:53 pm

  I think McCain didn’t pick Romney for the same reason Obama didn’t pick Hillary as a running mate—there’s just too much residual bitterness from the nomination campaign. Romney, though would have been a good choice. Rudy, Ridge and Lieberman just had too much baggage (I also think both Republicans and Democrats would have been outraged if McCain had picked Lieberman).

  Pawlenty and Jindal would have been acceptable to Republicans (although I believe Jindal previously took himself out of consideration). But the selection of Palin rubs in the complete rejection of Hillary by Obama and makes his choice of Biden look weak. Still, I doubt there are many Democrat voters who will reject Obama based on his rejection of Hillary.

  I think “experience” will be an issue in the coming campaign and
  the debates should be very interesting.
• 

  By Yeah Boy, August 30, 2008 @ 2:17 pm

  her father is a big oil executive

  Laughable. Her father was a school teacher. Whatever, though, you can try to make her sound bad if you want.

  One thing I do recall seeing a month or so ago was polling among conservatives that showed 20% of them wouldn’t support a woman for President, no matter who it was. Maybe they’ll feel different about VP.

  Source? Or just throwing BS out there and hope it sticks again?
• 

  By RAFE, August 30, 2008 @ 9:52 pm

  I pop into this blog every once in a while for pure comic relief.

  Dan, you never fail me.

  I think you are starting to go off the deep end though.
• 

  By DaveS, August 31, 2008 @ 10:00 am

  “Ethics violations” She fired the Democrat that she appointed as the Public Safety Commissioner for going to the AK state legislature with their budget dispute. He claims that he was fired for not firing Gov. Palin’s former brother-in-law who is a state trooper. In addition to the state legislature hiring an investigator, Gov. Palin also requested an inquiry be conducted by the state’s Attorney General over the matter. That dosen’t sound like she has a lot to hide. Keep in mind, as an appointee, Gov. Palin has the right to fire him at any time and for any reason.
• 

  By Yeah Boy, August 31, 2008 @ 10:14 am

  but lack of experience for the commander in chief is OK? How does that work?

  Dave. Dave. Dave. Have you not been here long?

  Here’s how it works:
  Joe Schmoe, D - lack of experience, no problem. oh yeah and by the way a perfect human being. Misunderstood and certainly of the highest moral character.
  Jon Schmidt, R - lack of experience, BIG problem. oh yeah and by the way, an evil, evil person. Racist, bigot. If he hasn’t been exposed for the slime he is, he will be.

  There is ZERO objectivity here … as if you haven’t noticed already. :)

  @RAFE: You know, your comment about his going off the deep end was exactly what I have been feeling. It truly saddens me, though. I am hoping some day Dan will wake up and realize it. Until then, I will keep trying to splash the proverbial “water in the face” to bring my friend back.
• 

  By Daniel Cody, September 1, 2008 @ 10:03 am

  Need to relax there yeah. I was wrong about the father, like I said, I was just throwing out what I thought I knew. As for the polling data, there’s this: Gallup poll which says that only 82% of Republicans would be willing to vote for a woman candidate.

  That’s not “BS”, so again, relax. This reminds me of the other time you tried for the big “GOTCHA” moment after the spring election.

  @Rafe: If you have nothing better to do than post comments like the one above, don’t waste your time coming to my weblog anymore. It’s really that simple.

  As is the fact that the primary goal of this weblog is not to please those who think I’m a partisan/hack/lefty/deepend/whatever.

  So please. I enjoy the debate with most of you and think it’s productive and interesting for the most part. But the debate doesn’t include your personal feelings about me or how you think I am or am not doing a good job in being absolutely OBJECTIVE(!) with everything I write. I’m not a journalist and neither are any of you as evidenced by your comment joe directly above this one. I’m not off the deep end, and neither are you. We just have very different opinions about public policy among other things, but it doesn’t mean any of us need “saving” from our own opinions.
• 

  By Jill, September 2, 2008 @ 12:04 am

  Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. This is ok to conservatives now because:

  a) This is abstinence education at work
  b) We think 17-year-olds make the best moms (actually, she’s gettin’ a little old…)
  c) That Jaime Lynn Spears sure is a trendsetter
  d) She’s going to marry the dad, so it still falls within the “family values” category

  And McCain knew when he picked her - seriously, that’s what they gave you? I know the evangelicals will eat it up because of the pro-life stance, but this story has problems on so many other levels…

  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/01/palin.daughter/index.html

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