I have mentioned before in my media shows and writings that I have known John McCain for a long time and that he is an independent thinker. He has a reputation as a maverick and does what he thinks is best. He certainly has once again lived up to his reputation with his selection of the Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Sarah Palin is a maverick in her own right. She was not the Republican choice to be the nominee for governor in 2006. However, she won the nomination and the election and immediately began fighting corruption in the state of Alaska and did a really good job at it. She is married, has five children, one of which suffers from Down syndrome. Her husband Todd is a Native Yup’ik Eskimo and works at an oil field on the North Slope. She calls herself a hockey mom. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. My guess is that outside of Alaska maybe less than 1% of the people in the United States have ever heard of her.
Why did McCain make such a choice? To begin with, he believes that she is the best one for the job, representing a different generation of leadership with executive background, both as governor and as a former mayor and city councilwoman. There is no question that the McCain Campaign knows that the biggest weakness the Obama Campaign has is with women. The polls have shown that the majority of the undecided voters are women. Many of these undecided women supported Hillary Clinton and were disappointed when she did not get the nomination. The Obama Campaign tried to heal this rift at the Democratic Convention and did an adequate job of same.
There is of course no guaranty that Palin will attract these undecided female voters. There is probably another reason the McCain Campaign decided to make this selection rather than a safer choice of Romney, Pawlenty, or Ridge. That is the polls. My guess is the polls are going to show that the Obama Campaign got a dramatic “bump” out of the convention and that McCain in some polls will be over 10 points behind. They probably figured that “business as usual”, i.e. Romney, Ridge, was not going to do it. In one sense they were forced to make this selection, which is both unexpected and dramatic. As I said, “WOW.” I should have listened to my own words when I kept telling everyone that McCain could surprise us all, and he certainly did.
This is either the best choice of a vice presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1960 or the worst one. My guess is it is the best one and will keep the race close.
WOW
