One heartbeat away from the presidency…

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A friend of mine has enjoyed joking for months now that "John McCain has to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate or he is going to have to have Joe’s lips surgically removed from his ass."

Apparently the surgery was a success.

Today, in his first "executive decision" as the presumptive presidential nominee of his party, John McCain chose little-known Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. (sound of crickets chirping)

Who?

What was the reaction from the chattering class when they learned of McCain’s choice?  Momentary stunned silence. Then laughter (seriously).  The chattering class laughed at his choice and was derisive until the McCain campaign surrogates took over the microphones with their McSpin talking points.

This is manna from heaven for Democrats. This is the cherry on the top of the Rocky Mountain Sundae of a successful convention in Denver.

John McCain has gone completely bonkers.

There is so much to cover; where do I begin?

Sarah Palin is a 44 year old one-time beauty pageant queen (aren’t they all), and former mayor of the small town of Wasilla (pop. 6,700), who was first elected Governor of Alaska in — 2006.  That’s right, 18 months of "executive experience" as a governor. She has a degree in journalism and worked briefly as a TV reporter (I don’t like her already). She is a right-wing conservative (anti-choice, wants to overturn Roe v. Wade) and a "hockey mom" of six children, one of whom is in the Army and one of whom has Down syndrome. McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate; McCain Introduces Alaska Governor Palin as Running Mate

Let’s begin by breaking this down into bite-size pieces.

First, John McCain just took the "experience" factor that he has been hammering on throughout his campaign off the table by selecting an inexperienced political novice who is younger and has far less relevant experience than Barack Obama, and who has zero foreign policy experience or knowledge of the ways of Washington. (The McCain campaign tried to play up that the Governor commands the Alaska National Guard.  The governor of every state commands their National Guard, unless federalized.)

McCain is proposing that Governor Palin be one heartbeat away from the presidency – on his 72nd birthday no less.  As Barack Obama suggested in his speech last night, what does this say about McCain’s judgment?  Palin clearly is not "ready to lead on day one" or answer that "3 a.m. call."  She is the female equivalent of Dan Quayle.

The theater of the absurd announcing his VP choice only emphasized the McCain advanced age/one heartbeat away issue.  Palin made McCain look like her dotting old grandfather standing next to him.

Serious minds had better start asking tough questions about Palin’s knowledge and experience.  I understand that Alaska is not a particularly hands-on governorship and wields little executive power.

Second, the beauty pageant queen thing is just a "celebrity" ad waiting to happen. (Palin had better hope that no one out there still has photos of her from the swimsuit competition).

Third, McCain has elected to run to the right rather than run to the center in a "change" election year.  He is clearly under the influence of Karl Rove. Palin is anti-choice, and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, said "[We]’re beyond ecstatic… This is a home run. She is a reformer governor who is solidly pro-life and a person of deep Christian faith."  McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate Ralph Reed was not the endorsement McCain wanted.  (It just reminds voters of the Jack Abramoff scandal that McCain helped to cover up.)

In a poll conducted in June 2008 by the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the firm’s survey of 1,788 likely women voters in battleground states including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, found that Obama gained 13 points among pro-choice independent women and 9 points among pro-choice Republican women once they were presented with what the pollsters called "a balanced description of the candidates’ respective positions on choice." Poll Shows Abortion Issue Could Push Independents and Pro-Choice Republicans to Obama

Republican voter registration is steadily declining at a time when Democratic voter registration is setting new records. Does McCain seriously believe that Governor Palin will appeal to pro-choice moderate Republican and independent women?  He is delusional.  Again, what does this say about his judgment?

The McSpin team is packaging both McCain and Palin as "independent" and "mavericks."  Apparently they did not think this through all the way. In order to be a "maverick," as McCain has defined it, he has to take positions at odds with the positions of his own party.  So McCain is proposing to go to the Republican National Convention next week to tell Republican delegates "Piss off! I’m running against the Republican Party this fall." To my friends in the Republican Party I urge you to use your RNC convention rules any way you can to select another party nominee. John McCain is mocking you and abusing you, and he has worn out his welcome.

Besides, I think the speakers at the Democratic National Convention pretty much drove a stake in the heart of the myth of the maverick (that only lives within the McMedia).  When John McCain votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time, "he’s not a maverick, he’s a sidekick" as Sen. Bob Casey said.

Fourth, John McCain is a misogynist.  Always has been. The chattering class immediately saw through this move and recognized his choice of Governor Palin for what it was — a desperate politically cynical attempt to appeal to women voters, in particular, to Hillary Clinton supporters who earlier this year told pollsters that they would not vote for Barack Obama.

Karl Rove said on Fox News that picking Palin "would be an indication that McCain is hoping to make a direct appeal to women voters, especially those who voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton(N.Y.), not Obama, during the Democratic primary." McCain Introduces Alaska Governor Palin as Running Mate

News flash Karl: Hillary Clinton supporters voted for her because of her strong stance on women’s issues like abortion rights, access to birth control, women’s health care and equal pay for women — all issues that conservative Republicans like Governor Palin oppose.  They didn’t vote for Hillary because she was a woman, you misogynist pig. "I know Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a phone interview with NBC. McCain Introduces Alaska Governor Palin as Running Mate Few women are going to be persuaded to vote for a McCain-Palin ticket simply because Palin is a woman. Just ask Geraldine Ferraro how well it worked out for her.

For the McCain campaign to pursue such a transparently sexist strategy is both condescending and demeaning to women.  It is an insult to their intelligence.

Fifth, Governor Palin is also the titular head of the most corrupt state political party in America.  (To her credit she was a whistleblower who was elected governor on the promise of reform.) McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate  But Palin has been accused of improperly using her office to have her ex-brother-in-law fired from his state trooper’s job, and is currently under investigation herself. McCain Introduces Alaska Governor Palin as Running Mate  And in her first 18 months, too.

An ethics investigation is just the helpful reminder voters need to refresh their memory of John McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal. It may also invite another look at the investigation by the New York Times earlier this year into lobbying efforts by Vicki Iseman on behalf of Paxson Communications.  For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk  Or the more than 60 present and former telecom lobbyists working for McCain’s campaign as staffers and volunteers. In Senate, McCain has been reliable ally of big telecom firms  Or McCain’s lobbying efforts on behalf of EADS over Boeing in the military’s air tanker deal that went sour. Blog For Arizona: McCain, Lobbyists and the Air Tanker Deal  Or just looking at the dozens of other too cozy lobbyist relationships McCain has with the lobbyists running his campaign.

The Alaska Republican Party is the poster child for political corruption. (More than a half-dozen state legislators have been indicted or convicted, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens was recently indicted, and Rep. Don Young is under investigation, all for campaign finance law violations (or bribery) by VECO Corp., an oil pipeline service and construction company).  Selecting an Alaska Republican just moved the "GOP culture of corruption" that worked so well for Democrats in 2006 to front and center again.

Palin’s husband works for BP as an oil field production operator. McCain Introduces Alaska Governor Palin as Running Mate  Palin supports opening up ANWR to oil drilling, while McCain, despite his "drill here, drill now" fraud does not.  McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate Did an oil company lobbyist working for McCain, or the recent campaign donations from oil company executives since McCain flip-flopped his position on offshore oil drilling have any influence in the selection of Palin?

We will have to wait for additional reporting to come to light to learn more about Governor Palin.  Stay tuned.

But for now this appears to be a desperate "hail Mary" play by McCain to appeal to women voters, and to retain the GOP’s fundamentalist Christian wing with whom he has not yet closed the deal. There are far more qualified and experienced Republican women from whom he could have chosen a running mate.  Governor Palin appears to have been a very poor choice indeed by McCain.