Since the vice-president is a heartbeat away from the presidency, the choice of president-in-waiting is a very big deal. The candidate who does the choosing has a serious responsibility to choose someone who is ready to step into the Oval Office and keep things on track, which isn't easy when the economy is tanking, North Korea is resuming work on its nuclear reactor and the Kremlin is playing mechanized-armored Czarist cavalry tactics with former possessions like Georgia.
So when McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Dems have howled and derided her as being unprepared, unqualified, and un-everything. She's been the governor of Alaska for a year and before that the mayor of Wasilla, an Anchorage 'burb. She's a wife and the mother of five. She's also bright, scrappy, and a real politician who delivers a mean speech with style and emphasis. The problem is that it was written for her, it seems.
Nevertheless, her nomination and appearance on the national scene have energized McCain's base, his campaign, and himself. The whole country is talking about her. I posted a comment on VP selection to the Con-law professors list and suddenly we had a long discussion going. I went into the oculist in San Francisco yesterday where they sell the eyeglass brand, Kazuo Kawasaki, worn by Gov. Palin during her acceptance speech. People were coming in just to see the eyeglasses she wears. The phone was ringing off the hook and the manager who waited on me told me it was crazy, he was selling Palin glasses all over the country via the Internet. He should put a pair in the window with a sign stating that the line starts here. For the record, I'd been in the store on Chestnut Street two weeks earlier looking for a frame where the lenses couldn't pop out any more and found that this pricey brand has a unique, screwless, method of attaching bridge and earpieces: the lenses are drilled and the frame is shaped on the end like a paperclip (of titanium metal) which is twisted into the hole along with a bushing. Slipping out is not a problem. They look wonderful and I bought a pair, carefully avoiding the Sarah model.
I wonder whether it's too late for Obama to dump Biden and replace him with HIllary to counter Sarah.
The article below discusses the danger of dissing Sarah (as former Great Kills lifeguard Bill Noll says, all the women of the country will relate to her). Bill is a former StatNislandah who settled in Alaska 37 years ago, where he'd been stationed, after mustering out of the service.