Let's try and get inside the mind of John McCain and figure out why he has chosen an unknown, under qualified Alaska governor as VP nominee. It is actually not as mysterious as it seems. There are 3 key factors: 1) The need for an out-of-the-box history-making pick, 2) the desire to try close the gender gap, and 3) the need for a social conservative that would firm up his support with the right of his party.
- McCain decided that he needed to distract people from Obama's acceptance speech by making an out-of-the-box history making pick. This sort of a pick would make people re-examine and brandish his "maverick" credentials that have faded, because of his rightward swing in recent months. He probably did succeed in minimizing Obama's convention bounce.
- McCain also opted for a woman to try and peel away at least a small percentage of Hillary voters who would be attracted to a woman on the ticket. He knows such a socially conservative pick wouldn't appeal to most of them, but perhaps he could slightly close the gender gap and in a close election that might be enough. This may not work, but he figured that trying to appeal a little more to moderate women in swing states was worth a shot.
- McCain is still not trusted by the social conservative wing. The trial balloon of a pro-choice candidate (presumably Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman) went over like a lead balloon with the Republican base. Such a pick would have divided the Republican Convention. So he was limited to a woman with social conservative credentials.
The problem for McCain was that when he looked around for such a woman there were very few women (or minorities for that matter) holding major elective office in the Republican Party. There are five Republican women Senators. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (whose name was floated this past week) are pro-choice. Elizabeth Dole is pro-life, but she is tied down in a close re-election battle in NC and, more importantly, she is the same age as McCain - 72. McCain's fourth criterion was that he obviously needed someone 10 or 15 years younger than himself. So the Senate was out.
How about Governors? Well, there are only 3 Republican women governors and the other two, Linda Lingle and M. Jodi Rell, are pro-choice. And Lingle is Jewish and twice-divorced, which wouldn't have gone over well with the social conservatives. So they were out. That leaves Palin among the Governors.
How about non-elected figures? He seemed to economic conservatives from the business world - Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman from HP and Ebay - but their social issue views are pretty unknown and probably wouldn't have been trusted by the right of his party. Condi Rice would have had same problem since she is only known for her foreign policy views. McCain needed a socially conservative woman.
How about the US House? Again, most of the women in the House are Democrats. Of Republicans, Ileana Ros-Lehitian was born in Cuba, so she's out. Of the rest, most were either inexperienced or kind of off-the-wall. And besides the fact that you don't usually put House members on the national ticket, he wanted someone who was outside of Washington - and you couldn't get a figure that was further outside of DC than Sarah Palin.
Add to that her image as a reformer, her gun credentials, her pro-drilling credentials, her son going to Iraq, her mother of 5 pro-life evangelical Christian credentials and you can see why she was the best of the slim pickings of socially conservative women available to John McCain. Frankly, most socially conservative Republican women don't really going into state or national politics. Clearly with no foreign policy credentials and a year-and-a-half running one of the smallest states in the country, it is hard to argue that she is ready to be President. He opted for an untested campaigner, someone without Washington experience, and somehow he barely knows.
Will it work? Well, we will just have to see. Mondale wanted to put a woman on the ticket and he came up with Geraldine Ferraro who had little national experience as a 3-term Congresswoman and a husband with a load full of suspicious business dealings. It clearly didn't work very well. This shows what happens when you put someone on the ticket for the wrong reasons. It is too early to tell, but Palin may well backfire on McCain in the same way.