McCain’s VP – Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

McCain just announced his VP pick – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Two reasons this is a smart move by McCain.

1. Picked her right after the Dem convention. Take away some of the thunder of Obama’s speech last night.
2. He picked a woman. This was done to get some of the Hillary supporters to vote Republican. While policy wise that would be a weird decision – many people vote with emotion or on character. This might bring record numbers of women dems to vote republican this election.

After the numerous gaffes all summer by the McCain camp – is this indicative of a turnaround?

On the other hand, there are some potential issues.

1. How will he look standing next to her? Aren’t we just going to be constantly reminded how old he is?
2. Experience. One of the main themes of his campaign has been experience. How does she stand up against that criteria?

I will say, Obama did a similar move in that he has been claiming change, only to pick a very experienced Biden to balance the ticket, so they did make similar moves there.