McCain's Shocking Choice For VP: Sarah Palin

The day after Obama's amazing acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, where he outlined the failed policies of the Republicans and how he, with our help, will change the direction of this country, McCain picked his VP. It's Sarah Palin.

The correct response would be: Who?

Sarah Palin is the current Governor of Alaska (47th in population nationally--less people than Memphis, Tennessee). But here's the real kicker: Sarah Palin only has a year and a half of experience on the job! Before that, she was part-time mayor of a village of fewer than 9,000 souls. Before that, the PTA. To boot, she is also caught up in a political scandal (as are all of the Republicans in Alaska), her husband works for Big Oil (and, like McCain, she is a big supporter of drilling, everywhere), and she isn't a big fan of polar bears because keeping them alive might interfere with oil company profits. To me, this pick tells me many things, but chief among them is that McCain has all but given up on winning the presidency.

Let's take a closer look at what this all means:

• McCain can NEVER attack Obama for "not being ready" to be Commander-in-Chief, nor on "not having enough experience". Those days are OVER. They were baseless claims from the beginning, given that Obama has more experience than either Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan did, but now that McCain's own VP has only a fraction of the experience Obama has, that game is over.


• Lack of experience can only have one meaning in this election from now on, and that focus is squarely on Sarah Palin, who is one 72-year-old away from being president, with virtually no experience. Before there was reason to worry about McCain's age, his history of cancer, his family history of heart attacks, his showing signs on Alzheimer's, his lack of stamina, and honestly the chance a stroke could take him out at any second while on the job. Those are just the facts, and very real considerations. But that was back when we figured McCain would pick someone like Lieberman, who actually has experience, or Mitt Romney, who didn't have much experience, but still had tons more than Sarah Palin. But his insane VP pick changes everything. Now, if he is elected, this complete amateur (no offense to Gov. Palin, but seriously), this complete unknown (McCain says we supposedly don't know enough about Obama even though he has written two books, been campaigning for almost two years, and almost everyone in the world knows his name, and yet until this morning 95% of Americans probably had no idea who Sarah Palin was, let alone her positions on critical issues), will be in control of the most powerful nation on the planet. That should keep any Americans who are concerned about "experience" up at night.


• So why on Earth would McCain pick someone so drastically unqualified, someone that would undermine his primary course of attack against Obama, and someone who is embroiled in a political scandal? The answer is clear: McCain thinks women are idiots. That is it. McCain and the Republicans think so lowly of women, that they think women will vote for them, Hillary's supporters in particular, just because his VP has a vagina. How insulting. That is seriously OFFENSIVE. To think, McCain picked a token female for his VP, only because the Democrats had a woman running first, and he wanted to make a cynical swing for Hillary's supporters (PS: Palin said she couldn't support Hillary and called Hillary a whiner), and women in general, who support Obama over McCain by large margins. That is how stupid and simple-minded McCain thinks women are. And Sarah Palin is anti-choice on top of that, so for anyone who thinks that a woman on the ticket will inject a respect for women's issues or reproductive rights onto the ticket, you can kiss that goodbye. Sure, Sarah Palin doesn't look like a typical Republican, but what little record she has shows that she is just another Republican. Hell, she even believes that creationism, religious dogma, should be taught alongside evolution in our public education system (read my previous blog on why it is important for elected officials to have a decent education, case in point)! She doesn't believe global warming is man-made. She is hardcore conservative, member of the NRA, she has all the credentials.
  
  [Update: She made her role perfectly clear in her speech today, cynically citing Hillary's "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling", despite being anti-Hillary and calling her a whiner. What a hypocrite. Maybe she is indeed comfortable with her new role.]


• The choice also highlights some big differences between Obama and McCain. Obama chose a VP not to increase his chances in a particular state, and not to pander to a particular demographic; instead, he chose someone with solid experience, someone who could help him be even more effective in charting the future of this country, and making change actually happen. He was already a very strong candidate, but not content with just being very strong, he picked someone who made the ticket solid as rock. Beyond that, he also picked someone who could absolutely take over as president if something were to happen to him. McCain, on the other hand, didn't pick someone at all experienced. He didn't even pick someone who could help him in an important state (Alaska is a Republican-leaning swing state, but it doesn't have enough electoral votes to matter much). He picked a candidate because she has a vagina. He picked a candidate in order to cynically and transparently pander to a demographic group. McCain doesn't care that she has no experience, he doesn't care that if something were to happen to him, if he were to have a stroke or his health was to fail, control of the country would be handed over to an amateur with absolutely no demonstrated ability to lead or deal with major issues, foreign or domestic. That is reckless. He doesn't care that his pick could endanger the country. He doesn't care about the future of this country, or having the best person for the job. He cares about WINNING the election at ALL COSTS. And so he threw his Hail Mary. He knows he can't beat Obama on the issues. He knows he has tried to smear the hell out of Obama with lies, and even that hasn't given him the lead. He knows his POW-card is wearing thin. So he obviously made the political calculation and decided to put a token female on the ticket to pander to women, because he thinks women will vote against their own interests just because he picked a VP who happens to have a vagina. Obama is cares about leading and doing it right. McCain cares about winning, at all costs. And you can start the countdown til McCain tries to use her gender as a weapon, accusing anyone who questions of her of being sexist (in order to inflame Hillary's supporters), just like he accused everyone who questions him of attacking his military service.
  
  [Update: Back when people were wondering if Obama would pick Tim Kaine, Karl Rove trashed the idea, and said if Obama picked someone so unqualified (Kaine has been governor for three years, basically stomping Palin's resume) it would show he was doing it for politics, in order to win an election, instead of doing what was best for the country. Funny, that sounds exactly what McCain just did, while Obama picked an excellent and qualified candidate. I await your condemnation of McCain's choice Karl. H/t to unwilledatom]

I'm sure I'll add more to this later, but for now all I have to say is that I feel sorry for Sarah Palin. She should have never been put in this position. Maybe she is OK with it, but personally I think it would feel pretty shitty to know that you only got picked for a position because of your gender and nothing more. It is rather embarrassing, that because McCain picked her she will have to face the nation, face Biden in a debate about stuff she knows nothing about and has no experience in, knowing full well that she is nothing but a token female to the Republicans. Maybe I'll feel less sorry for her after we learn more about her. If she is a nasty character like McCain, then I won't feel bad. But on the surface she seems like a nice enough person, despite her right-wing beliefs. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

John McCain, you are such a prick.

Update: Even conservatives think it is a horrible decision.

Update #2: Obama's campaign responds with the obvious, seriously, what else can you say?:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same.

Update #3: Other Democrats respond, basically a lot of the things I said, with some comparisons to Dan Quayle.

Update #4: Almost as soon as she became McCain's running mate her campaign removed a video of fellow corrupt, and recently indicted, Republican Senator Ted Stevens endorsing her from her website. I thought that was funny. There basically isn't a high level Republican in Alaska that isn't being investigated for some sort of corruption or scandal. Some call it the most corrupt state, which is why it is turning blue fast. Also, apparently Palin, Palin's son, or someone who really likes Palin scrubbed her Wikipedia entry right before the news officially broke that she was picked by McCain.

Update #5: It turns out Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty aren't so happy about being passed over for Palin. They are saying that they have been "rudely strung along" and "feel manipulated", while they now realize that they were only used as decoys to hide his real choice, someone who was far less qualified than either of them (which is definitely saying a lot with Romney), and someone who was chosen over them based solely on gender. Funny, and I bet McCain still says he is against affirmative action (not that this is affirmative action, it is a thousand times worse, at least with affirmative action they still need to be QUALIFIED). Oh yes, and we DO expect the media to report on this, since they spent months trying to hype up similar stories for the Democrats, even after it was long acknowledged that the Party was unified. Enjoy the media's double-standard.

Update #6: Oh, and then there's this:



In all fairness, she goes on to say that if she were to be VP she'd be looking to help Alaska out, seemingly unaware that the VP is a national position, and not particularly Alaska-focused.

Update #7: Now I'm really uncomfortable. Watch her acceptance speech, and see if you notice where McCain's eyes keep wandering while he unconsciously plays with (or perhaps tries to tear off) his wedding ring.

Update #8: This is a pretty decent overview of Sarah Palin, from a local point of view: "What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan’s Perspective"