I have been concerned about this possibility for a while, and it seems that McCain has set it up to play well. Palin was always in consideration because she could peel some of the disaffected Clinton holdouts away to the dark side. She changes the race and changes the narrative.
She softens the hard edge of the republican brand, and now the media will spend weeks talking about the women's vote. It keeps him on the tv, and we get to see lots of teeth-gnashing from the dems to further undermine us. I guarantee that will be how it plays out.In the short term, McCain plays gotcha with the media, so they will say, "Oh, how cunning. The crafty fellow tricked us. We thought it was Pawlenty, but he fooled us. He is crazy like a fox!" I suspect that McCain was going to go with someone more conventional, but then after watching the virtuoso performance last night, decided he needed to go for a longshot. So that settled it.
So, know your enemy:
http://www.politico.com/...
http://wizbangblog.com/...