The McCain/Palin ticket : Genius or Insanity

Last night the pundits were left either completely speechless or spilling praise after Obama’s nomination acceptance speech. Everyone asked how McCain could possibly respond to such a speech that laid out populist policy plans, attacked McCain’s political experience, and rebutted a number smears.

But he did manage to steal some of Obama’s thunder this morning with the announcement of Sarah Palin for VP.

A few considerations. . .

To some degree, it’s impossible to deny McCain is reaching out to the remaining disgruntled Hillary voters who aren’t yet convinced by Obama.  But the question is why Palin when Kay Hutchinson and Elizabeth Dole would be far more recognizable female Republican running mates?  Palin has even less experience than Obama — and experience has been a focal issue for McCain this campaign season.

That we know little to nothing about her is actually to the advantage of McCain.   Right now, it looks entirely possible that the Republican National Convention will be postponed and scaled down, if not cancelled entirely due to Gustav’s impending arrival on our shores.   No RNC this year means Americans won’t have a direct line of vision into the policies supported by the GOP going into this election.  Plenty of Americans still think of McCain as a party maverick and/or pro-choice and/or a moderate.  His record shows that he is none of the above.

Now we have the addition of Sarah Palin who has zero nation or foreign policy experience.  Frankly, given her limited local government roles, we know little of her positions on a number of key issues for Americans: health insurance, education, Social Security, etc.  And the Average American isn’t going to necessarily be exposed to what little is known about her.

As Huffington Post columnist Linda Bergthold points out, here’s what we do know:

She is NOT pro-choice. She has NO national experience. She has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign. She is under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal. She has no international experience. Her experience governing is in a very small state, famous for its “Bridge to Nowhere” kind of political graft. Her Republican colleague in that state, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted for corruption.

Does that sound like a candidate ready to lead on Day 2, should Sen. McCain die during his first term in office?

While she acknowledges the Republican Party in raising the profile of women in this election, Ann at Feministing notes she is pro-life and on the wrong side of progressive social issues.

First up, she’s super anti-choice. The forced-pregnancy crowd is thrilled today! (She recently had her fifth child, who has Down’s syndrome.) She’s against marriage equality and supports a federal gay-marriage ban, but has made sure to note that she “has gay friends.” Though she has signed on to same-sex partner benefits. She believes schools should teach creationism. She’s also pretty terrible on environmental issues, and is a huge advocate of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

The upside to this election, women’s issues will now be front and center going into the fall.  The downside, if they can keep Palin off the center stage, fueling low key events that get less coverage, the maverick might be able to keep his image intact, and possibly make this a closer election than anticipated.