Sarah Palin

Senator John McCain yesterday announced that his choice for the next Vice President of the United States of America would not be his favorite, former Democrat Joe Lieberman who has been his shadow throughout this campaign, but rather Sarah Palin, a new face on the political scene with several years experience as mayor of a city of 9,000 and a year and a half experience as Alaska's governor. This after a two-hour private meeting with her the evening before the selection according to an ABC blog.
All I can offer at this point is some early thoughts on this unusual move by McCain. It's hard to figure this out, actually, why he would choose a running mate who has significantly - astonishingly even - less experience than even Obama whom the Republicans - following Hillary Clinton's lead - have been criticizing for months as inexperienced. Who would you want answering that phone at 3 AM while you and your family are sleeping, Sarah Palin, hockey mom and moose-slayer, or Barack Obama? The open hypocrisy of McCain's choice is amazing.
Was it my imagination or was John McCain overly friendly with Palin in the announcement ceremony. I even sensed - and as a man I'm qualified to make this observation - that McCain was almost fawning over her. McCain does have a reputation with beautiful women so maybe that's where I got that impression.
As far as my first impressions of Palin, she reminds me of the Bush Administration's young female religious right beaurocrats like former Justice Department bureaucrat Monica Goodling and former GSA chief Lurita Doan. Both of these women appeared to be ditzes and neither seemed capable of recognizing truth if it slapped them in the face. Unfortunately, my early readings about Sarah Palin leave me wondering if she wouldn't also be this same kind of religious right political hack.
Some suggest that McCain's choice was a gamble to win the Hillary faction. Somehow I can't imagine even a single Hillary supporter voting for a religious right, moose-hunting, wolf-slaying, global warming denying, oil-drilling, creation science promoting, opponent of a woman's right to choose. Palin stands firmly for these politically divisive minority right-wing issues. However, there is a significant demographic among women that I've never seen recognized that Palin speaks directly to and for - my wife's friends among them. These aren't Hillary women at all. They wouldn't be caught dead voting for Hillary. What they are is the female component in Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority." The demographic in American politics is huge, especially considering that many of these women bring their husbands along with them. This demographic spans all age groups. George W. Bush relied heavily on this demographic. John McCain has never had them. Political pundits don't even seem to know they exist, but Sarah Palin knows they do. My guess is that she was able to convince McCain that they do and that she could land them in his boat.