john, what have you done?

Having slept on it, I think this was a poor decision. Maybe even a disastrous one. I'm sure I'm not the only one. In fact I know I'm not. More than a few Republican commentators are feeling pretty queasy about the Palin pick. After the initial euphoria (she's a woman! And an outsider! And young! You crazy maverick, John!) dies down I think a consensus will develop that this was a mistake.

First of all, it's a patently desperate pick. By that I mean, he clearly made up his mind on this in the last few days as a response to Obama choosing Biden. Suddenly, Romney and Pawlenty looked like bad choices. He was told he couldn't pick a pro-choicer like Lieberman. So he ended up casting around for someone else with only a few days to go and came up with Palin. Evidence? He'd only met her once. In February. If you're going to pick someone to work as your partner in running the country, surely you'd want to know them a little better than that. This is not the behaviour of a potential president; a man serious about governing. It's the behaviour of a politician with his back against the wall.

Second, the inexperience thing makes it much harder to attack Obama for not being ready. Every time they do so they'll have to persuade us that she's more ready to be C-i-C than he is (one heartbeat away, remember?). How on earth do they do that? Well, the truth is they can't. I mean, one thing you can't say about Palin is that she has thin foreign policy experience. This is because she has no foreign policy experience. Nada. As far as anyone can tell she's never made a statement regarding any country other than America. And we're meant to believe she's ready to be president?

Third, and connected to the first, McCain and Palin don't look good together, because they don't know each other. Obama and Biden look entirely comfortable side by side. They've known each other for years. It shows. McCain and Palin looked so ill-at-ease with each other yesterday. He just didn't look happy. I have a feeling he feels like he got forced into this and is regretting it already.

Fourth, McCain and his team just have no idea what she'll be like in a national campaign. There's huge potential for gaffes, for cringe-making demonstrations of her lack of Washington experience. We're a long way from Anchorage now.

It all comes back to this. They've picked someone that neither the candidate, nor his staff, know very well. That's a huge risk. But it's worse that that: in the most important decision of his campaign, McCain has shown himself to be a tactical, short-term trimmer, buffeted by events rather than shaping them.

This choice has diminished him.

Comments

[peter]

So McCain thinks that Gov. Palin would be a better VP than Liddy Dole, or Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or Condy Rice, or any one of a number of experienced, competent Republican women? It must be very galling for them to learn this.

The selection of Palin has definitely revealed McCain to be either someone unable to think through the consequences of a potential decision, or a performance artist engaged in a subtle critique of presidential election campaigns from within. Her selection makes a mockery of his persistent claim to put the nation first.

I think this choice also reveals the inherent sexism of the 72-year-old McCain. I imagine he's told this former beauty queen that she does not need to worry her pretty little head about national security or about foreign policy, as he'll take care of those issues.

[BadPxy]

Peter -- I hadn't even thought about Condy. That's a truly excellent point -- if McCain wanted a woman, I can't believe he didn't pick her. (Woman! Black! Foreign policy!)

p.s. you may of course be right about the sexism, but I'm not sure we have any evidence of that.