Palin?

I'm writing this without the "benefit" of the pundits' (right, left or middle) takes on McCain's pick, but I will admit this: When I heard the last name, I immediately thought of this Palin, and, it turns out, he may have been a wiser choice. At least he has some experience.

This choice, to me, is the death-knell for McCain. It makes the Democratic ticket look staid and solid; it makes the Republican ticket look like a trick, a con, a silly game. Obama suddenly becomes a relative veteran in all fields of governance compared to the heartbeat-away lady from where? I mean, could McCain have picked anyone with less experience governing people than a two-year (the least time anyone can have been governor, as of 2008, given the sequence of elections in this nation) executive of the nation's least-populated and most-irrelevant state? You can't write a less-credible story--Random House would throw your fiction manuscript back over the transom before it even landed on the desk.

Besides the obvious observations--including the one above--I have this thought: Think about those wavering independents. The ones who haven't chosen a party preference because they vote according to policy or personality, not party. Think what this choice tells them. I believe they now see what's afoot. An attempt by the Republican Party to win the White House by whatever means they can, even at the expense of our nation's fate and future. To which I say, Youbetcha--welcome to the real world, finally.

I have this final observation: As tempting as it is to think of this as McCain's "Harriet Miers moment," he's stuck with Palin. He can't back out of this blunder like Bush did with Miers, because he'd risk a McGovern-Eagleton style catastrophe, and undercut his "judgment" maxim. So, McCain is stuck with her for the next two months, and she'll be a gift to the Democrats that keeps on giving.