And so it ends…
The VP search ‘n’ speculation spinorama has finally come to an end, at last. Senator John McCain has selected a surprising dark horse candidate, in the person of Sarah Heath Palin, the current Governor of Alaska, to be his Vice President candidate for GOP, a historic first (and the second woman since Geraldine Ferraro, who ran as the running mate for Walter Mondale in 1984). Largely unknown, she is the first female Governor of Alaska, only 44 years old, an attractive mother of five children (one son is now with the U.S. Army), a former runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, a NRA and pro-life supporter, a former mayor and a known maverick for standing up to the powerful Republican Party of Alaska, which proved that she has grits and a backbone. More details about her can be founded here. She is known as the Barracuda.
She’s not the perfect choice or the alternative-to-Hillary choice to be McCain’s running mate. In fact, she’s the smart choice for McCain: he needs an outsider who would not only challenge McCain’s conventional wisdom and outlook but challenge and shake up the status quo of the GOP, the Beltway establishment, the politics of the federal government and everything else in between. I hope she’s bringing the whip this time.
This morning, a good friend, Danny B., was driving me to work (my car was being serviced at the time) and I told him that McCain would be in Dayton at noon to make an annoucement for his VP pick. We’d discussed about who is going to be – that Romney’s out, Pawlenty’s out, Lieberman’s out, and I suggested to Danny, on a firm hunch, that McCain is going to pick a woman to be VP but didn’t name this woman.
Few hours later at work, my hunch turned out to be correct as soon as I glanced up the Drudge Report website for the announcement of McCain’s VP pick.
The thing is, from my personal perspective, that the McCain-Palin team is just a perfect opposition to the Obama-Biden team: it is the insider-outsider vs. the outsider-insider, the political match of the century. Obama needs an experienced insider in Biden to compensate some of his political shortcomings; on the other hand, McCain needs someone fresh-face and non-conventional to rebuild and restore the GOP and conservative bases from scratch, all the while McCain may concentrate all of his energies as the next President, should he wins.
Before noon, I contacted my other friend about Palin and he thought Palin is a wet-behind-the-ears politician but assumed that McCain is just “shifting gears” to set up a long-term plan to win Congress for GOP in 2010 and the White House in 2012, dumping Pawlenty for Palin, purportedly seeing her as the key to win bids from women and independent voters for McCain, specifically the supporters of Hillary Clinton who are still not satisfied with Obama. Which is why I said Palin’s a smart choice for McCain.
Even better, she’s from Alaska, where there is the largest concentration of proven oil field located in the most desolate, uninhabitable area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee Park. Although, it has been reported that she stood up to the oil business and indifferent lawmakers for the benefit of the people of Alaska already financially crippled by high gas taxes and heating costs. She understands the energy policy issues, pointedly stressed the current energy policy is “nonsensical”.
Even best, Palin stands for ethics. She took down or fired corrupted GOP officials in Alaska and publicly demanded Sen. Ted Stevens be ousted. However, there are some questions about her inexperience in foreign policy, the direction of the U.S. economy, the political affair over her brother-in-law and a disgruntled government official in Alaska. Importantly, she has to step in for McCain, should something happens to him while in the White House.
Nevertheless, it will be a very interesting time between now and Nov. 4th for the McCain-Palin ticket against the Obama-Biden ticket. I watched Obama’s speech last night and I thought it was rousing, only offered full of lofty expectations and idealistic aspirations but short on the specifics and the details. I look forward to the debates between Obama and McCain. Who will win?
