The Pocket Veto

The Pocket Veto| Christopher Devine
August 29, 2008 1:00 PM CDT

John McCain announced today that he has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Here are ten thoughts I have about McCain’s selection:

1. 99% of Americans (myself included) have never heard of this woman.

2. There are 67 days until November 4th. You think voters are going to feel comfortable with someone they’ve known 67 days? Barack Obama has been in Washington for 3 and a half years, and some voters still claim that they “don’t really know him.”

3. Palin will be the Republican Party’s first female candidate for the vice presidency–a fact we are likely to hear thousands of times between now and election day. Obviously, McCain’s choice was fueled, in part, by an ongoing effort to recruit disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters.

4. Hillary Clinton has been a women’s rights advocate for more than 40 years. There is little evidence to suggest that Sarah Palin has ever advocated for Women’s rights. (Unless, of course, you count her second-place finish in the 1984 Miss Alaska beauty pageant.)

5. Disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters–many of whom, by the way, have donned Obama buttons in the wake of Hillary’s speech on Tuesday–were not upset that a woman lost the nomination, they were upset that Hillary Clinton lost the nomination.

6. It is insulting to suggest that the female electorate will vote for a woman simply because she is a woman. Were this the case, wouldn’t Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro have won the 1984 election? (They lost to Reagan/Bush by a margin of 18.2%, and they carried only one state: Minnesota.)

7. Her eldest son is in the Army, and he is slated to leave for Iraq on September 11. Great. Joe Biden’s eldest son is the captain of the Delaware National Guard, and he is being deployed to Iraq on October 3.

8. She was pretty cute in 1984:

9. The beauty contest is over. Joe Biden is going to DESTROY her in the VP debates. (This has nothing to do with her gender. This would have been true for any of the running mates on McCain’s short list.)

And finally…

10. Sarah who?