[HWBL]

Source: Real Clear Politics ()
Article from JUNE 2008!

June 04, 2008
McCain Should Pick Sarah Palin for VP
By Jack Kelly

Who? When?

Republicans including, I imagine, Sen. McCain himself are asking these
questions about his selection of a vice presidential candidate.

Ideally, a presidential candidate wants a running mate who will
help him or her win the election, and (maybe) to govern afterwards.
But most will settle for a veep who isn't a drag on the ticket, as Dan
Quayle was for the first President Bush.

Traditionally, a presidential nominee has chosen a running mate to
balance the ticket geographically, or to appease a faction of the party.
The most successful example of this was when John F. Kennedy picked
Lyndon Johnson, though neither liked the other, and LBJ joined the ticket
only because he thought Kennedy would lose.

Bill Clinton broke with this tradition when he chose another young
(purported) moderate from a neighboring southern state. By picking Al
Gore, he hoped to reinforce his campaign theme of generational change.

Which way will Sen. McCain go? The potential running mates most often
discussed have downsides nearly as great as their upsides. Gov. Tim
Pawlenty helps only in Minnesota, and not enough, according to current
polls, to make a difference there. Sen. McCain's friend Sen. Joe Lieberman
would bring in some moderate Democrats, but could further antagonize
conservatives already suspicious of Sen. McCain. Gov. Romney would have
little appeal to working class whites unhappy with Sen. Obama, and
evangelicals fret about that Mormon thing. A Huckabee nomination would
irritate economic and foreign policy conservatives as much as it would please
evangelicals.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is a rising star. But he's only 36, and he's been
governor for less than a year.
There is one potential running mate who has virtually no down side.
Those conservatives who've heard of her were delighted to learn that
McCain advance man Arthur Culvahouse was in Alaska recently, because
they surmised he could only be there to discuss the vice presidential
nomination with Gov. Sarah Palin.
At 44, Sarah Louise Heath Palin is both the youngest and the first female
governor in Alaska's relatively brief history as a state. She's also the most
popular governor in America, with an approval rating that has bounced
around 90 percent.

This is due partly to her personal qualities. When she was leading her
underdog Wasilla high school basketball team to the state championship
in 1982, her teammates called her "Sarah Barracuda" because of
her fierce competitiveness.

Two years later, when she won the "Miss Wasilla" beauty pageant, she
was also voted "Miss Congeniality" by the other contestants.

Sarah Barracuda. Miss Congeniality. Fire and nice. A happily married
mother of five who is still drop dead gorgeous. And smart to boot.

But it's mostly because she's been a crackerjack governor, a strong fiscal
conservative and a ferocious fighter of corruption, especially in her own party.

Ms. Palin touches other conservative bases, some of which Sen. McCain has
been accused of rounding. Track, her eldest son, enlisted in the Army last
Sept. 11. She's a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association who
hunts, fishes and runs marathons. A regular churchgoer, she's staunchly
pro-life.
Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal said Sen. McCain should run
against a corrupt, do-nothing Congress, a la Harry Truman. If he should
choose to do so, Gov. Palin would make an excellent partner "The landscape
is littered with the bodies of those who have crossed Sarah," pollster Dave
Dittman told the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes.

Sen. Barack Obama's support has plunged recently among white women.
Many Hillary Clinton supporters accuse him -- I think unfairly -- of being
sexist. Having Sarah Palin on the ticket could help Sen. McCain appeal to
these disgruntled Democrats.

Running mates usually aren't named until the convention. But if Sen. McCain
should name Gov. Palin earlier, it would give America more time to get to
know this extraordinary woman. And because she's at least a dozen feature
stories waiting to be written, she could help him dominate the news between
now and the conventions.

Another reason for selecting Sarah Palin early would be to force Barack
Obama to make a mistake. He'd have to rule out choosing someone like
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb as his running mate, for fear of exacerbating charges
of sexism. And if he chose a woman other than Hillary, the impression
Democrats are wimpy would be intensified.

And, after the Repug VP pick:
Source: The Huffington Post

Linda Bergthold

The VP Choice that Lost the Presidency for McCain

I think we will look back at today as the day when the Republicans most
certainly lost the Presidency. In choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska for Vice
President, the Republicans have made a cynical but clever choice. At least
they think it is clever. She is a woman, young (44 years old), a Governor
(only two years), a mother (five children), pro-life, and pro-gun. But what
is she not? She is NOT pro-choice. She has NO national experience. She
has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign. She is
under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal.
She has no international experience. Her experience governing is in a very
small state, famous for its "Bridge to Nowhere" kind of political graft. Her
Republican colleague in that state, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted
for corruption.

When Republicans and independents go into the voting booth, will they
have the confidence to vote for a McCain-Palin ticket, knowing that John
McCain has had several recurrences of his skin cancer, and will be the
oldest President ever? Can they imagine Sarah Palin stepping into the
Oval Office and dealing with all the problems we face right now? The
Russians and the terrorists must be quaking in their boots.

It's a slap in the face of other Republican women like Kay Bailey Hutchison,
bless her heart, who was forced to stumble through an interview on TV
trying to make the case for Palin whom she has never met. There are
certainly women in the Republican party who were "in line" for this before
Palin. Did the Rovian type advisors to McCain just cynically think that
throwing a young attractive inexperienced woman into the mix would satisfy
women who long to see a woman president? Women, and Republican women,
are not so stupid as to fall for that! It is reminiscent of the Republicans
putting up Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate
just because he was black. Voters saw through that pretty quickly.

It's also a slap in the face of Democratic women voters. They don't get
Hillary but they get Sarah as the first potential woman President? In fact,
I can just hear Biden saying, "Sarah Palin, you are NO Hillary Clinton!" I
would imagine that the few remaining Clinton supporters who are wondering
if they should support John McCain are even more leery now. There is
absolutely no overlap between the positions Hillary Clinton has fought her
entire life for and Sarah Palin. The two women are not remotely
substitutable. They are as different as they can be.

How will this cynicism play with American voters? It is insulting to women
to suggest that just "any" woman will do!

Palin on Charlie Rose (Oct.12, 2007):

YouTube Video