My thoughts on Sarah Palin as Repub. VP candidate:Pros:
- She is young and vibrant with a baby, defusing the McCain-Is-Old issue.
- Her elder son joined the army on Sept. 11th, 2007.
- She is a woman who is clearly strong. This (1) will draw women who loved the idea of voting for Hilary because she was a woman and (2) defuse the "If you don't vote for Obama, you are closed minded" issue.
- She is from outside Washington. Alaska is about as far out of Washington as you can get.
- She has experience with energy, business and the environment (yes, I disagree with her but she has the experience).
- More conservative than McCain on many issues. Great for the base.
- She looks a bit like Tina Fey, especially with the glasses.
- A fairly hardcore reformer background, helping McCain regain his reformer/ethics image.
Con:
- Potentially the extremely conservative right might wince at a mother of a 4 month old baby with Down syndrome running for the Whitehouse.
- People are going to look a lot closer at the firing of commissioner for not firing ex-brother-in-law issue (although it looks like it has been pretty cleared up)
- Might make McCain look even older when standing next to him.
- Extreme lack of experience.
- I have a hard time trusting the judgment of someone who named her boys Track and Trig.
Don't get me wrong. I am still a bleeding heart liberal who is passionately for Obama. But I am also glad everything got more interesting.
