John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate! I'm out the door to the office now, so more reax later. Real quick:
1. What a bold, even electrifying choice -- exactly what McCain needed, but it didn't look like he'd get. A real game-changer. Many of those Hillary voters are now in play.
2. Palin is pro-life and very solid on issues of concern of social conservatives. No problems there.
3. Big downside: inexperience. She's got less high-level political experience than Gov. Bobby Jindal, who served in Congress before he took over in Louisiana. She can't hold a candle on this front to Joe Biden. People will have to ask themselves which of these two they'd prefer in charge of the United States if the president died or had to step down.
4. On the other hand, Biden can't rough her up too much in the debate, or he'll risk coming off like Rick Lazio in the 2000 Senatorial debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Lazio was tough, and didn't condescend. But it came across on TV as bullying.
5. Gut reax: I'm really glad McCain did this. The risk of the Palin pick might outweigh the reward, but it's a good sign that he took this risk. And Palin's wonderful. When I was in Eagle River, Alaska last year, I spent some time with a reform Republican who had worked hard to elect Palin, in part because she was the reform candidate against the corrupt Alaska Republican machine. Scott, you must be over the moon this morning!
UPDATE: Ross has the best take so far. Excerpt:
I'm pretty excited, I have to say. This could, of course, turn out to be an enormous debacle if she isn't ready for prime time. But for now, Sarah Palin looks like a perfect face for the sort of Republican Party I want to support: She's a pro-life working mom; she's tough on corruption and government waste without being a doctrinaire Norquistian on taxes; she's more supportive of gay rights than the current GOP orthodoxy (while stopping short of backing same-sex marriage); she has a more conservationist record than your typical GOP pol, but supports drilling in ANWR; she's an evangelical but she isn't a southern evangelical ... and if McCain loses, she can run at the top of a Palin-Jindal ticket in 2012!
McCain obviously loses a lot of ground against Obama on the "experience" turf ... but he gains a lot on the "change" front. I confess I was half-dreading going to the GOP convention next week, because I was sure McCain was going to go with Pawlenty or Romney, both solid but dutiful and uninspiring picks in a year when Republicans desperately need a reason to get inspired about their candidate. McCain takes a huge, huge risk with this pick; after all, she might turn out to be Dan Quayle. Or she might just turn out to be fantastic. All I know her by is reputation. Suddenly, I have a new reason to be interested in this campaign. My Derbyshirian gloom has been ever so slightly ameliorated by a ray of Alaska sunshine.
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Well what will soon be big news is that the McCain camp has announced that Palin's 17-year old unwed daughter is pregnant. And McCain new it when he picked her.
So McCain thinks it's good to make Vice President a mother of five youngish to young children who's unwed daughter is going to be a mother and who has no experience in foreign policy. She may well be very bright, we don't know, but who can learn how to be President from scratch while being mother to a pregnant unwed teenager and four other young kids?
I think that shows very well McCain's real unconcern for America. He would put someone that unprepared and that occupied with important family issues in place to suddenly become president!
Of course he showed his unconcern for America four years ago when he campaigned for George W. Bush for President. If you supported Bush eight years ago you could use the excuse that you are a really poor judge of character, but four years ago people like McCain knew what Bush was doing to the country and he campaigned for him anyway.
McCain wasn't putting America first, he was putting his chance to be nominated first. And in picking Palin with all her baggage and all the more qualified people he could have picked he wasn't putting America first, he was putting his chance to be elected first.
oops, the scandals keep coming with just a few hours since McCain gave us Democrats the "gift", clearly she was not properly vetted. Women in my office laughed, it was such a lame, obvious attempt to impress the women and pander the vote.
1) A preggers daughter with "daddy's" my space site saying he did not want to have children(until it was taken down today)--good old fashioned shotgun wedding/romance. The boy wanted the action, not to be a new Daddy.
2) New Impeachment probe(began in July) with recently fired state official accusing her of abuse of power, firing him because he would not fire her ex brother in law, a state trooper. Hell hath no fury like a woman's sister scorned. She just hired a private defense lawyer this week to defend her on those allegations made BEFORE she was ever a serious choice for VP, so they are not politically-motivated.
3) Hubby alleged to have a DWI
4) Took a record number of earmarks as Mayor and now as Gov, tho she claimed to be against them last week.
5) She was a member of a weird Independent Party for a long time that had the platform for Alaska to Secede from the Union--she didn't even want to be an American back then
All of this and probably more secrets to be revealed, with only 2 years as Governor, no national experience, Green Acres small-town mayor before that. No international experience at all.
He really messed up his first big decision. "Mavericks" sound cool when venting, but in the real world, it is the quiet gentle patient plodders like Reagan and Roosevelt who get things done.
You can tell how effective this pick was by the rabidity of the opposition. What the left is going to do to Sarah Palin and her family in the next two months will make the Thomas and Bork character smears look like 5 year olds playing in the park.
She looks like a pretty solid pick to me. She's accomplished more in her two short years as governor than most politicians do in a lifetime.
"A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not why ships are built."
Best line from any speech this campaign.
Regarding Palin advocating teaching creationism.
My understanding is she wants to let school boards make the choice. And, yes, it would probably be taught in science class.
And, no, that doesn't automatically make the science class unscientific or a religion class; it depends on how it is taught.
But, personally, I would settle for the theory of evolution actually being taught scientifically rather than as dogma.
Heck, I'd settle for simply teaching the scientific method correctly in science classes. Then most people would be able to figure out for themselves just how unscientific TOE is.
As far as I'm concerned Palin's children are a non-issue. I wish the blogosphere and she would stop making them an issue.
I am concerned if she wants to force the teaching of creationism along side the teaching of evolution.
The scientific theory of evolution is one of the most comprehensive, most consistent with observations, and technically useful theories in the biological sciences. As a teacher of agriculture, I can't imagine how to teach the complexities of the agroecosystem and how to evaluate and develop new agrotechnologies without the understanding that the theory of evolution provides.
As a Christian who has taught evolution I think masquerading creationism/intelligent design as sciences does a disservice to both science and faith.
And yet I agree the intersection of the two needs to be discussed. Perhaps the best place would be a joint seminar of religion and science.
I still don't really understand what Palin is proposing. I do worry about having someone in the White House who does not understand and respect the power of the scientific method to determine what is most probably true (science rarely deals with absolutes). And for that matter its limitations.
I will continue to seek more information.
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