The Palin pick sure will win headlines. It wasn't competely out of the blue, but it's a little mystifying for one obvious reason. If McCain's entire argument so far has been that Obama is too untested to be president, then how can he pick a 44-year-old first-term governor of a state with 600,000 people with no foreign policy experience whatsoever?
What this means, it seems to me, is that McCain has decided he cannot win without Clinton Democrats, and this is his attempt to win them over. He has decided that he cannot win on the experience card, so he is trying to pick the change card. Palin's record on climate change is certainly impressive - and she seems a charming, capable person. She is certainly a different kind of pick for a Southern-based GOP. But McCain will be the oldest first term president in history with a history of health concerns. If America is concerned that Obama isn't ready, how could anyone say Palin is?
I am giddy.
Happy 72nd birthday, John McCain.
4 comments:
The thing is, Derek, is the average American voter going to be able to see through all of this? Similarly, will Obama's campaign be able to highlight this without coming off as women-bashers?
Good points -- but how can McCain pull the experience card?
I'm listening to her speech right now. She sounds like an extra from Fargo. And her speech sounds like someone running for alderman. She's impressive in her way, to be sure, and will appeal to the red meat crowd. But I'm pretty confident that this one will not be a winner for McCain.
dcat
The VP debates should be...um...'interesting'.
Would love to have been a fly on the wall of the McCain headquarters last night. Oh yeah...there must have been some very long faces. That crowd, that speech! Beautiful stuff.
A friend in Denver said there were mile-long lines to get into the convention.
For the first time in, perhaps forever, Judith Apter Klinghoffer at HNN came up with a halfway decent idea: If McCain wanted to peel away the Clinton Democrats, why not come up with a credible female pick, like Kay Bailey Hutchison?
The Palin nomination is a combination of sheer pandering and McCain's, shall we say, less professional decision-making abilities when it comes to women. My two cents.
My third cent: It won't work. Even the PUMAs will see through this.
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