The McCain campaign has been hitting Obama about his lack of experience, and has also been making insinuations about his patriotism. And this is his choice to be VP?

Maybe he secretly wants to lose.

Mavericks make snap decisions, often when they're angry.

Mavericks pull last-minute choices out of their asses when the hoop-de-hoodles threaten a floor fight over their preferred choices:

As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates. >[link]

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He's also hired the very person who slandered his family during the 2000 election.

Might as well get the best?

I just don't get how a large political campaign with an army of supposedly savvy PR people all got together and said, "Hey, let's hire the pretty lady with the intelligent design and the stupid!"

Seriously? I mean, you're running for president, you've hired assloads of handlers and such. And this happened? Seriously?

Or that Maverick McCain wanted everyone chattering about inane crap instead of actual policy.

There's the inane-crap chatter angle, which is valid. Also, *if* McCain knew about Bristol's pregnancy before he picked Palin, he probably thought that they could use the "SEE? NO ABORTION FOR US NO WAY NO HOW!!!" angle. And it sounds like some Republicans are echoing that.

Mostly -- and I do think this was a consideration by McCain -- Palin's inexperience works for the campaign. [NOTE: I did *not* say it works for her qualifications as a VP.] Here's why.

When McCain picked Palin, Obama immediately said that the issue of inexperience was now "off the table." Fine. However, there are a lot of people raising the (IMO) valid concern that because McCain is older than dirt and has had cancer 4 times, he might kick off while in office, and does the Republican party really want Palin to be POTUS should that happen? Because she is far more inexperienced than Obama is.

That's a valid concern, IMO.

But in order for the Democrats (not necessarily official Obama statements) to address the fact that a grossly inexperienced politician would be a heartbeat away from being POTUS in a situation where McCain kicking off is plausible, then they have to be willing to accept Republican attacks on Obama's perceived inexperience.

(Does that make sense?)

It's actually, when I stop to think about it, really fucking devious and clever.

But in order for the Democrats (not necessarily official Obama statements) to address the fact that a grossly inexperienced politician would be a heartbeat away from being POTUS in a situation where McCain kicking off is plausible, then they have to be willing to accept Republican attacks on Obama's perceived inexperience.

Which is why the Obama camp has to frame this as criticizing inexperience because she tries to substitute being morally upright for having the chops to study/make policy decisions.

But too complex for soundbite politics.

I've got no worries, and now I'm really really ordering a whole tanker truck full o' popcorn for the debates.

It's going to be like Best of Fandom_wank, only in an actually affects my life dire circumstances kind of way.

The more Republican spokespeople keep citing the PTA and being close to Russia as elements of her qualifications, the easier it gets to make the (legitimate, IMO) argument that her inexperience isn't in the same ballpark as Obama's.

(What I'd also like to see more of a focus on - not just that she has no foreign policy experience but that she has demonstrated not even the slightest interest in it. I think that's more troubling than her actual background in some ways.)

Considering she didn't get her passport until last year, when she went to Kuwait and Iraq (with a layover in Ireland that she's claiming counts for a visit to a third country), they can definitely hammer her on foreign policy experience.

It appears that Palin still wants Alaska to secede from the United States. Recapping Palin's Secession Scandal

# In 2007, the Vice Chairman of the AIP, Dexter Clark, not only referenced Palin's membership [in the GOP], but also said that since she joined the GOP, "she is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership." Clark also goes on to discuss the need to "infiltrate" the major parties.

# In 2008, Palin recorded a message for the AIP's annual convention, stating that Alaska has "a great promise to be a self-sufficient state" and encouraging them to "keep up the good work."