Sarah Palin...

A couple of months ago, when I first heard Sarah Palin's name mentioned as a possibility for the VP slot with McCain, I did as much reading as I could about her – as I'd never heard of her before. The more I read about her, the firmer my conclusion: that there was no way McCain would choose her as his running mate. It would simply be too risky: she's light on experience (though not as light as The One), she's a solid, traditional conservative (as opposed to whatever the heck McCain is), and she's completely untested on the national stage.

Much of what I read and saw on video clips I really liked. An article written about her last year includes this paragraph, which matches what I've learned:

Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle--especially to transparency and accountability in government--can produce political success. And by the way, Palin is a conservative who only last month vetoed 13 percent of the state's proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, "may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history."

She is the antithesis of the pork barrel politician (a disease shared in a completely bipartisan fashion), a refreshingly direct and honest politician. Being attractive doesn't hurt a darned thing, nor does having a charming family that could have been carved from an All-American novel. She hunts, fishes, works on the family fishing boat on weekends, has five children. She also has a great track record of executive leadership, both in private business and in public service. The lefties are ignoring her roles other than governor and mayor, but the simple truth is that her experience is arguably more relevant to the Presidency than is The One's experiences, which are entirely non-executive. There's a good reason why so many more Presidents have been Governors than have been Congressmen.

Do I have any faults to find? A few, and all of the non-scary variety. She's a fundamentalist Christian, and on many issues I disagree with them. For example, as governor she has indicated a willingness (short of advocacy, though) for creationism to be taught in public schools alongside evolution. I strongly disagree with that, though in terms of importance that issue pales before national security.

In general, though, I am basically charmed by her choice as McCain's running mate. I'm not at all sure that it will play out well for McCain. For instance, how will she do in a debate with Joe Biden? I've seen video of her being interviewed by a hostile journalist, and I was impressed with her speaking and debating skills – but does she have the depth of knowledge at the national and international level that would enable her to hold her own with Joe ("The Mouth") Biden? And of course the rabidly pro-Obama press pirahnas will be all over every little gaffe she makes – real or imagined, relevant or not.

I'm fascinated that McCain would choose the one mentioned candidate that I was almost certain he would not. However he got there, the fact that he's chosen a solidly conservative, relatively young, female, status quo-bucking running mate has got to be shaking up the opposition a bit. And yes, an attractive female, wearing a skirt no less. The fact that the Republicans nominated a woman, and not the Democrats, is already rankling more than a few Hillary supporters (their blogs are full of bitter commentary on the topic).

An already interesting campaign, albeit bereft of interesting Presidential candidates, just got more interesting. And entertaining, I'm sure...