McCain's VP

It was very clever for McCain to select Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate on his ticket. According to Economists for Obama:

Passing over Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Kay Bailey Hutchinson, women either too liberal or too smart to join a likely losing ticket, quick-draw Johnny went for a woman he's met only once (as far as I can work out from the press reports). So, in a profoundly cynical move, the man who claims to put "country first" in fact put national security, the economy and pretty much everything else last and picked Sarah Palin. He thinks she checks off two dumb communities in a way Lieberman, Ridge, Romney and the other has-beens who would actually accept the VP job cannot. Of course, to really check off women, they have to ignore the fact that she's rabidly pro-life, thinks global warming is still a questionable hypothesis and has no knowledge of international affairs.

Indeed, McCain assumes that he will be able to pick up a large chunk of young, female voters with his choice of VP. He thinks he will be able to capture groups of swing voters, or those that would have voted for Hillary but were unsure of Obama.

Our country is not that stupid. Everybody sees through this ploy and I am hoping that it has the adverse effect of hurting his campaign more than helping it.

Update: Tyler Cowen says that liberals should not fall into the trap of harping on Palin's lack of experience in the public arena. He says:

Most American voters do not themselves know much detail about foreign affairs and their vision of an experienced leader does not require such knowledge. Was it demanded from Reagan? Doesn't everyone agree that Cheney and Rumsfeld knew plenty? Rightly or wrongly, many American voters will view Palin's stint as mayor of small town, her background in sports, her role in a beauty contest (yes), her trials raising teenage children, and her decision to stick with her priinciples and have a Downs Syndrome baby as all very valuable and relevant forms of experience. The more the word "experience" is repeated, no matter what the context, the more it will hurt Obama. Palin needs to appear confident and capable on TV and in the debates, but her ticket is not going to lose votes if she cannot properly spell Kyrgyzstan or for that matter place it on a map.

Cowen has a point here. However, the fact that Palin was chosen as McCain's VP negates his criticism of Obama's experience. He cannot possibly continue to raise the experience argument against his opponent when he has selected someone like Palin for his team (apparently, someone who he has met only once!).

Also, Kevin Drum has a post here that brings together some information on Palin's views on some major campaign issues. Enjoy! Here is my favorite:

Joe Klein on taxes: Palin exploded her state's coffers by imposing a windfall profits tax on the oil companies...sort of — no, exactly — like the proposal Barack Obama has made and John McCain has attacked. Apparently, she also supported the Bridge to Nowhere, despite her disclaimer at today's event. So how does McCain explain putting a tax-raising porker on his ticket?

Update 2: Here is a Republican Alaskan State Senator and an Alaskan editorial (respectively) on Sarah Palin (both via Brad Delong)

McCain's choice catches politicians by surprise: State Senate President Lyda Green, from Palin's hometown of Wasilla, said she thought it was a joke.... "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" Green told the Anchorage Daily News. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"...

And the editorial...

No doubt about it. In fact, as the governor herself acknowledged in her acceptance speech, she never set out to be involved in public affairs. She has never publicly demonstrated the kind of interest, much less expertise, in federal issues and foreign affairs that should mark a candidate for the second-highest office in the land. Republicans rightfully have criticized the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, for his lack of experience, but Palin is a neophyte in comparison; how will Republicans reconcile the criticism of Obama with the obligatory cheering for Palin? Or will everyone just be forced to drop the subject? That’s not a comforting possibility. Although no one has the perfect resume and experience isn't everything, it is an important quality to weigh. Palin, if elected vice president, would ascend to the presidency if anything should happen to McCain, who turned 72 today.

Here is Ezra Klein:

Karl Rove:

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?

Interestingly, the Richmond Metropolitan Area is about twice the size of Alaska. And three years are more years than two.

More from Ezra Klein (on foreign policy!)

From a March 2007 interview:

ABM: We've lost a lot of Alaska's military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.

So in March 2007, Sarah Palin wasn't paying enough attention to Iraq in order to have a particular opinion on the surge, or whether the administration's definition of "success" constituted a viable exit strategy. Meanwhile, McCain's whole campaign is predicated on the primacy of Iraq and the War on Terror -- the "transcendantal" nature of the threat that should overwhelm most all other considerations Which gets to the weird thing about the Palin pick.

There's plenty more, but I think I'll leave it at that for now.