Well, so it's taken all of one long weekend for all stripes of media to shoot the arrows into Governor Palin's political carcass. I know there are reports that McCain barely vetted his running mate, but, c'mon. He polished off Mitt more than six months ago and has been working his VP choice ever since. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying the crap that he didn't even vet her. Call me crazy, but I smell a Rovian trap.
Let's look at the facts here:
McCain's campaign realizes that they are basically screwed, given the clamor for change across the country.
Though McCain still smells an opportunity to court Hill-ocrats (even after the show of unity in Denver), there is no way that he could possibly choose a running mate that would actually support any of Hillary's three pet issues: 1) economic justice, 2) universal health care, 3) women's rights (read: pro-choice). Those three issues are poison to the GOP base, so there's no way that McCain could pick a VP candidate who could speak to them.
Furthermore, let's look at the GOP bench. I can't think of any top shelf female Republicans who meet McCain's needs on the issues who aren't either too old (Liddy Dole) or personal enemies of his (Kay Bailey Hutchison). If he was going to pick a woman, it would have to be someone way out of right field like Palin.
OK, then, so you're a 72-year old, conservative white guy with a history of less than stellar treatment of women. How do you instantly win the sympathy of millions of Hillary fans? Simple--play into the theme of sexism that Hillary herself raised when it was obvious that Obama had beaten her fair and square.
Here's the game plan:
- Pick an obviously flawed female conservative as your running mate
- Watch the media and the Democrats destroy her
- Trot Governor Palin out at the convention where millions of women can see her crying before a national TV audience as she lashes out against how she is being treated differently because she's a woman, and a mother of five to boot
- The next day have Governor Palin issue a statement to announce her resignation while declaring that Obama hates women and will do anything to destroy them
- Pick the milquetoast male conservative that McCain wanted all along(Pawlenty?) to take her place
So McCain ends up with his VP pick, while simultaneously shoring up his conservative support and his appeal to disaffected Hill-ocrats.
Maybe I'm just paranoid after decades of cynical crap like this by the GOP, but I can't think of any other plausible explanation for Palin.