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August 29, 2008
Who?
Meet the Republican V.P. pick, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska: a right-wing neophyte chosen to placate social conservatives who seems likely to resemble a deer in the headlights when she faces the full force of national media scrutiny.
By late September, of course, no one's going to be talking much about the vice-presidential candidates. This will be an Obama-vs.-McCain fight, just like any presidential contest. But since our breathless, short-attention-span media culture is all excited about this, here's an early blogger reaction that caught my eye:
In addition to further associating McCain with the Republican culture of corruption, the Palin pick undermines one of his main anti-Obama narratives. It's going to be laughable to hear McCain assail Obama's supposed lack of experience after naming the first-term governor -- only one-and-a-half years into her term -- of the 47th largest state to be his running mate. Palin lacks any foreign policy experience, and is bereft of even the two core areas of policy expertise that governors are supposed to bring to a ticket -- ag policy (Alaska doesn't have much in the way of traditional agriculture) and urban affairs (Anchorage is the 65th largest city in the US, behind giants such as Corpus Christi). She's easily the least experienced running mate in recent memory, which is pretty scary, given McCain's age and his history of cancer."Worse Than Quayle", Trapper John on Daily Kos
I'm watching her coming-out speech right now—and as if the public needed any more reminders of the George W. Bush administration the McCain campaign already resembles, Palin's pronunciations include "Eye-rack" and "nookular".
Impressive.
