harldelos, you seem to argue things two ways. One the one hand you say that “Palin/McCain might be a winning ticket, McCain/Palin much less so” but then you argue that “combining Palin and McCain, you get a good team, but if he’s dead….That’s going to make voters apprehensive about voting for Palin, because they have no idea who Palin’s VPOTUS would be.” Decide what you think here, man.

I think it is ridiculous to think that McCain is punting on this year. I think it ridiculous to think that McCain could be “told” that he couldn’t have Liberman. People have told McCain a lot of things over the years and he does whatever he wants to do. Even not liking some of his positions, you have to admire that part of McCain’s character.

Sarah Palin has done a lot to unite the GOP. I thought it would take Hillary on the Democratic ticket to do that; obviously, I was wrong. But neither party has a majority; it’s the independents who will decide this election, and their response to Palin has been a lot less favorable than the GOP base.

And Chris is right: the more people attack Palin, the better off the GOP is. It’s not just because she’s a woman, but she’s also a representative of “the great flyover”, so people who live in small towns and people who drive battered pickups 45 miles to the nearest supermarket, and people who think it’d be interesting to go moose hunting are going to resent attacks on Governor Palin.

And so are people who think judgment is more important than tenure, when it comes to experience. Unfortunately, THIS segment is likely to be apprehensive about Senator McCain.

I think Palin/McCain might well be a winning ticket, McCain/Palin much less so. The census bureau says a 72-year-old has a 10% chance of dying within 4 years, and most 72-year-olds are retired. Put them in a high-stress job, specify that they’ve already had multiple sieges of cancer, especially skin cancer, and it’s surely a lot higher than 10%.

So they’re going to think, yeah, combining Palin and McCain, you get a good team, but if he’s dead, you lose any semblance of foreign affairs experience, and McCain keeps stressing that it’s an increasingly dangerous world we live in. That’s going to make voters apprehensive about voting for Palin, because they have no idea who Palin’s VPOTUS would be.

There are a lot of reasons to support Palin, and a lot of reasons to support McCain, but they aren’t the same reasons. There’s a good reason why candidates for POTUS always pick a running mate who doesn’t outshine them, and by violating that rule, the whole thing looks like that Saturday Night Live skit for a combination mouthwash AND floor wax.

Maybe he’s decided that 2008 is hopeless. If they play this right, they have a good chance of putting Sarah Palin in the White House in 2012.

But I wonder if perhaps McCain got royally POed when he was told he couldn’t have Lieberman as his running mate, and he nominated Palin as a way to get back at the right-wingers. I’ll teach them, he thought: a woman they will love and everyone else will hate.

And the convention will refuse to accept her, and will take Lieberman, after all.

But Palin didn’t realize that she was supposed to be unacceptable to conservatives, and ended up foiling McCain’s scheme.

Or not. This is certainly turning out to be an interesting election!

My wife and her friends are all buzzing about Sarah Palin’s selection (and McCain’s campaign pledge to keep taxes low — many of her co-workers receive 1099 forms instead of W2s).

Throw in the misogyny exhibited by some on the Democratic side and they’ve gotten fired up in wanting to support a woman who might become the first female president in 2012.

Note to Democrats: keep those letters about how women should stay at home coming into the newspaper!