The selection of Sarah Palin is puzzling. John McCain has placed a lot of emphasis on "experience" in this campaign. Obviously, Palin is a fairly inexperienced candidate from a small state with fairly non-complex issues. So what’s up with this pick?
One obvious reason might be that McCain is making a play at independent/moderate woman voters. Maybe McCain sees a 2-5% increase in his overall vote total by picking Palin. But this seems to disregard other voters who might be a little uneasy at Palin’s inexperience. McCain is 72 years old after all.
However, McCain has relentlessly attacked Obama on the "experience" issue. Which makes me wonder if Palin functions as "bait" in order to focus the Presidential Election into a referendum on experience.
McCain seemed to pounce a little too quickly on the "racism" issue a few weeks back. His responses seemed very well-calculated into hitting all the right buttons. Could the choice of Palin be an attempt to cause an overreaction by Democrats on the issue of experience? If Democrats relentlessly attack Palin as inexperienced, it gives the McCain campaign a big microphone to attack Obama’s lack of experience (a 1-term Senator). It changes the debate into an area where McCain feels he has a big advantage.
Maybe Palin should be treated as the small-potatoes she is. It might be better for Democrats to focus on the Trooper-gate and creationist issues than to relentlessly attack her inexperience. McCain chose her for a reason, and one of the reasons may be to bait the Democrats into a referendum on experience.