On Sarah Palin

I've been paying attention to the Presidential race for a while now and I've come to some conclusions that I thought I'd share with you all.

The first among these is that Sarah Palin was chosen, not for her record as a Govenor, but for purely political purposes. There were other female Govenors that had far more experience and were more widely known and respected that McCain could have chosen. Instead he chose someone who very few outside of Alaska had even heard of. Now it is his right as the nominee to pick whoever he wants, to an extent, as his VP, but my understanding is that Joe Lieberman was his first choice. It's also my understanding that the people running his campaign convinced him to choose someone else that was more in line with the Republican base and who wouldn't cause a riot at the Republican convention. In response to this he chose a woman who he had only talked to once on the phone and had only met with personally for fifteen minutes.

Sarah Palin simplly wasn't prepared for the level of srutiny that was headed her way and it's interesting that the McCain campaign has gone out of their way to shield her in a way that would never be tolerated if she was a male VP candidate. Now it is very true that there are those in the bloggosphere and the tabloid rags who were totally out of line in regards to her family, we can all agree on that one. However to equate any questioning of her record or her qualifications to be President as an attack is just insipid pandering.

The recent interviews with Katie Couric have shown that Palin is totally out of her depth in regards to a national election. It's important to remember that Palin comes from Alaska here. Alaska is one of the largest states in the Union we're told, and this is true if one is talking about land mass. In terms of population it's one of the smallest. Their total population is half that of some major cities and, like it or not, that means that she's much more used to small town politics and that just doesn't work on a national level.

It's important for me that you understand that I don't think that Palin is a stupid person. She definitely does have charisma and moxy in spades, not unlike Joe Biden in that regard. What she doesn't have, however, is any national experience. Her answers in recent interviews have been rambling responses that don't really adress the question that she's been asked and no matter how much experience you have you can't do that any more. There are too many means by which the people can call you on it.

Let me ask this one question in closing. Would we demand from any male candidate that their opponent not be condescending in a debate, or not use sarcasm? Shouldn't she be treated like she's one of the big players since she seems to want to play the game at the biggest levels?