Beyond the Palin

I don't quite get it.

As best as I can figure, I can come up with 3 scenarios that would lead to John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, and none of the really make sense.

I've thought for a long time that he would pick a woman. Pretty much as soon as it was clear that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee, I figured McCain would pick a woman. While a lot of people were caught up in the notion that Obama might pick Hillary as his running mate, I knew that wouldn't happen. Despite that fact that her more vocal supports contended (for some other reason that I can't fathom) that the rules that have governed primary campaigns since there have been primary campaigns, and that - despite losing the contest - she had somehow earned and deserved to be named the VP nominee, I was well aware that she would not be the pick. And those vocal supporters went out of their way to make sure we'd all know that they weren't happy about it. Clearly they were ready to be wooed away from voting for Obama. It wasn't like I was particularly psychic in guessing he would pick a woman to that precise end. Here's where it breaks down. Is Sarah Palin the woman you pick to woo disaffected Hillary voters? Did he really think these people would flock to vote for a ticket with an unqualified, untested, anti-choice, anti-equal-pay, pro-drill-every-damn-where candidate who was touted as someone who would appease the social conservatives who are leery of McCain? Is his campaign really that inept? One must admit that quite possibly the answer is a resounding yes. Let's not forget that, on the same day that Barack Obama gave a speech in front of 200,000 cheering, American-flag-waving (and when's the last time we saw that overseas... I mean, without said flags being on fire) people in a public square in Berlin, John McCain held a campaign event in front of what may well have been dozens of people at a sausage restaurant in the German neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. (I am not kidding.)

I suppose it's possible that he thinks she's the best choice for the role. From what I've heard, it appears that he only ever met with her a couple of times before offering her the position last Thursday. She or he apparently said that, at first meeting, they were "soulmates." (That was the word that the radio people kept using today, it seemed like it was a direct quote.) Anyone else have memories of Dubya telling us he looked into Vlad Putin's eyes and saw his soul, saw that he was a good man? Anyone else concerned about having another President who, from all appearances, makes important decisions without the employment of any sort of thought process?

Lastly, I think it might well be the case that he was told by the G.O.P.owers That Be that they know he's not going to win the election, and they didn't want him to "waste" a strong candidate on a losing campaign. The line they're using is that her brief experience as a governor is better preparation than either Obama's or Biden's strictly legislative experience. (If that's true, then she's more qualified than her running mate, though I haven't yet heard a Republican mouthpiece mention that yet.) Now, if that's true, then some of the other people we were hearing about as possible running mates - Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty for example - are much better-qualified than the one-time Miss Alaska Runner-Up. I think it would make sense, if the party powers want to protect either or both for 2012, that they would not want them to be part of what they might be seeing as the inevitable debacle. One thing that would seem to go against that is the fact that, in all the polls I'm hearing about, the race is very close - usually right around 5 percentage points. It doesn't seem like a situation where the Republicans would be throwing in the towel.

So I'm back to where I started. It doesn't make any sense to me. He can't think this is going to help him win.

Can he?