Interesting; I had been assuming it would be the Mitt-man.
At first blush, this seems a lot more clever than Obama's choice of Biden, though you certainly do not pick someone from Alaska because you want Alaska's electoral votes. Picking a complete outsider - you can't get much farther away from DC either literally or figuratively than Alaska - helps negate the "Bush III" line that the Obama campaign is pushing. Picking a woman helps negate the "historic event" aspect of Obama's candidacy; now you get an historic event with either ticket. I don't think McCain will get many disappointed Hilary supporters to switch their votes (as Geraldine Ferraro suggests in the article) given Palin's strong pro-life credentials but maybe more of them will stay home on election day.
I will be curious to see how this plays out.
Hat tip: the marginal revolutionaries
Addendum: I wonder how long it took the reason folks to find this picture, apparently from Palin's days as a beauty contest participant.
Who was my favorite student this term?
7 years ago
