Mcain-Pain

Yes, I meant to write Pain not Palin. In the first analysis, I have to say the selection of Sarah "Baracuda" Palin as the VP choice is absolutely brilliant, not because she's the best woman for the job but because she's the best candidate to negate Senator Obama's strengths and exploit his weaknesses:

1. The surprise of her announcement has completely, completely wiped the Democratic Convention off the news cycle.
2. She takes away the Democrat's monopoly on making history.
3. She doubles up on the message of being a reformer. She bucked the Alaska GOP to get elected.
4. She helps McCain appropriate Obama's sense of freshness. She even played basketball in high-school like Obama!
5. She furthers McCain's appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters.
6. She neutralizes the argument that McCain isn't one of us--her husband is a commercial fisherman and oil worker.
7. She reels in the conservative vote.
Abortion: she refused to abort her own down-syndrome baby, who was only born in April.
Gun-control: she's been hunting all her life.
8. With her 5 kids, she appeals to working mums.
9. Her eldest son is in Iraq right now, there goes the (conservative) military vote.
10. The Obama camp can't criticize her inexperience without implicitly criticizing their own candidate.
11. Joe Bidden, who is notoriously gaffe-prone, has his work cut out for him not to appear condescending or aggressive during the debates. Furthermore, the expectations for her are going to be pretty low so its going to be hard for her not to overperform.
12. She's certainly the anti-Dick Cheney.
13. Most importantly, she adds excitement to a Republican Party that had had all the appeal of a bingo party at the nursing home.

Now this is how the McCain campaign has defined her; the Obama campaign needs to get to work redefining her if they want to win.

1. Who the hell is Sarah Palin?!!!
2. She has no experience of politics on the national stage, she has never campaigned nationally or dealt with the complexities of the national media attention.
3. Even John McCain had met her only once in person before this.
4. She has no foreign policy or legislative experience.
5. Can she pass the commander-in-chief test? Hillary Clinton didn't get there in one day and Barack is still struggling to get there.
6. Is she a political "trophy-wife"? No offense Cindy, but you often look like a prop beside McCain. Is this the political equivalent?
6. Does she appear to be a pretender to Hillary Clinton's throne?
7. Does she have the gravitas to challenge John McCain when she needs to? No one doubts Biden is prepared to give Obama input.
8. Is she too right-leaning for Independents and centrists?
9. She is involved in a mini-scandal from her office's efforts to get her brother-in-law fired. Ironically, this might work in her favor.People might side with the sister rather than the brother-in-law.
10. Finally, elections are about the number 1 and not the number 2.

Having said that, I still think she's going to be tough to fight and not to be "misunderstimated."