Meet Bizarro Hillary

John McCain the maverick is back and has defied convention and the odds makers by picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin to join him on the GOP ticket. There are some risks with this pick but, it could be a brilliant move or come off as exceedingly calculated and condescending to voters. The McCain campaign certainly must be aware of the danger but had to weigh those risks against the long shot chance of winning this election. Defying convention with Palin is one way to shake up the race and create their own fate. I agree with Ed Shultz, it has the feel of a Hail Mary pass. It is telling about how hard they think it's going to be to win the election.

IOKIYAR Alert

Obviously her lack of experience in Washington in the foreign policy milieu is going to be hard to shake. Andrew Sullivan makes a good case for
not going the Palin route at the Daily Dish:

The first criterion for a veep - and I'm simply repeating a truism here
- is that they are ready to take over at a moment's notice. That's
especially true when you have a candidate as old as McCain. That's more than especially true when we are at war, in an era of astonishingly difficult challenges, when the next president could be grappling with war in the Middle East or a catastrophic terror attack at home. Under those circumstances, we could have a former Miss Alaska with two terms years under her belt as governor.

There's no easy way to predict what the McCain handlers were thinking. Here are some reasons that the McCain people must have used to rationalize the Palin pick:

The Bizarro Hillary

Attract the legions of disaffected Hillary supporters that supposedly have left the Democratic party. Have these guys read the latest polls? The massive carve out of Hillary supporters heading for the McCain camp looks more and more like a media concoction built up to attract
eyeballs to cable news channels. How many pant suits does this women have? She will need a lot of them to pull of the Hillary switcharoo if that's what she plans to do.

A Biden Factor

A perceived vulnerability of Biden by McCain could be a factor in selecting Gov. Palin. He will easily demonstrate his gigantic advantage in foreign policy over Palin during the VP debate. Biden has legendary loose lips and they may perceive a slight chance that he could mutter something condescending or rood during the debate. The echo chamber would cycle such caddy behavior and pull Biden down with it. On the other hand he may try to hold back and not completely school her to avoid looking like a jerk.

Bucking Party Orthodoxy - To a Degree

Palin has the appropriate bona fides. She is of course a pro-life evangelical, a lifetime member of the NRA, an advocate of small government, anti-earmarks, pro-drill-the-shit-out-of-everywhere and a defense hawk (how can you tell). She does however support some rights of gay couples, is an advocate of energy diversification and likes basketball. I think the McCain camp realizes the Republican brand is in shambles and introducing a female VP pick that has a mavericky edge like him could be effective in attracting independent and swing voters. This may not be 100% amiable to the GOP faithful but they will fall in line in the end of this pick pays off.

As much as he annoys me I think Romney would have been a better pick for McCain. He espoused all of the right conservative viewpoints on the primary trail as evidenced by the prattling done over him on right wing radio. He would also give McCain the edge in Michigan. And since he isn't a Washington fixture or a party insider he has some of the outsider cache that today's right wingers thirst for. Apparently the focus group horseshit conducted by Team McCain said otherwise.

Obama certainly has many angles to go after on the Palin VP pick and he should exploit those where possible. In the end I wouldn't underestimate Palin. She has risen in a meteoric fashion to get to the governorship of Alaska. I know it's only Alaska and not a mighty swing state like Ohio or Michigan but, her political achievements like those of Obama have come at a relatively early age which speaks to her determination and savvy.

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