Blunderful news

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made one of the most egregious political “own goals” in the last couple of decades. Think Dan Quayle misspelling potato or George H.W. Bush’s befuddlement at the supermarket checkout counter (boy, their 1992 campaign was dreadful). Even when cast against those major bungles, the Palin pick as VP is epically bad. Her appointment was all about politics and nothing about who could best do the job. The McCain camp seems to think that her selection serves two purposes; first, she will help shore up the base and second, peel off some of the Hillary vote that is dissatisfied with Obama. They are probably correct on the first point but fantastically wrong on the second. I am really kind of amazed that they are even trying that tact, given that Palin’s politics are the polar opposite of Hillary’s. Palin is a gun-loving, anti-choice creationist, policy lightweight, and a darling of the conservative movement. Now I ask you dear readers, how is the hell is that profile going to appeal to Hillary supporters? It seems to me that McCain is making the rather misogynistic bet that Palin will draw support from women because she is a woman. That, IMHO, takes a pretty dim view of female voters in general and Clinton supports in particular.

The second strike against this decision is that Palin is, by any honest accounting, a strident yet inexperienced ideologue and something less than a policy wonk (which is to say she is William Kristol in a skirt). The sum total of her experience in office is six years as mayor of a town of 9,000 and a year and a half as Governor of Alaska. Her resume is so thin that some rightwing cheerleaders are touting Alaska’s proximity to Russia as credible foreign policy experience and I shudder to think about the savage beatdown she will receive in a debate with eminently more qualified Joe Biden. Furthermore, Palin, standard bearer for the corrupt as hell Alaskan GOP, has her own abuse of power scandal brewing right now. Those facts ought to have disqualified her outright. That should go double when one considers that McCain is 72 and had several bouts of cancer. This is not someone we need a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Finally, this choice undercuts one of the McCain campaign’s best arguments: that Obama is too inexperienced to lead. Put plainly, anyone that tells you that Obama lacks the experience to be Commander in Chief but that Palin is up to the job is lying to you. If Palin passes the VP test, then so does Obama. Period

The McCain campaign has been something of a rolling disaster from the start. The lack of depth in the GOP field pretty much made him the candidate by default. McCain was swimming against a stiff current before he picked Palin. Now, her candidacy has lent the already nasty and dishonest campaign the foul air of desperation as well. If this move is any indication of how low McCain will go in this election, we are going to need a ladder to reach the gutter.