McCain chose Sarah Palin, a former Miss Alaska runner-up, as his running mate. (McCain's current wife, Cindy McCain, is a former beauty queen. At the recent Sturgis Rally 2008, he suggested she participate in the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. His first wife, Carol Shepp, was also a model. Do I detect a trend here?) Palin's supporters in the media include New York Times columnist and Fox News contributor Bill Kristol, along with Rush Limbaugh. That says a lot. The Raw Story reported on this, and a lot more regarding McCain's choice, in an article that can be found here.
His choice is paradoxical because the McCain camp has often attacked Barack Obama for lacking experience, yet he chooses someone, who is "a heart beat away from the presidency," whose experience consists of being a mayor of a town with a population of 7,000 and as governor of Alaska since 2006.
But McCain has his calculations in mind with regards to his choice. He is trying to use Palin to appeal to disaffected Clinton supporters. Palin herself appealed to these supporters in Dayton, Ohio, when she praised Clinton early in her speech there. This is the same Clinton that McCain and his team disparaged as a "bitch." This is the same Palin that said, while at the NEWSWEEK Women & Leadership Event in Los Angeles last March, she couldn't support Clinton because she didn't like Clinton's whining. This pair-up has so many contradictions it makes one's head spin trying to make sense of any of it.
McCain has also thrown insults in the direction of Chelsea Clinton: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." (Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.) Nice sense of humor for a potential president. Perhaps he and Bush went to the same clown college.
The Associated Press reports that Palin has come under investigation by the Republican-controlled legislator in Alaska over whether she had Alaska's public safety commissioner fire her ex-brother-in-law after he divorced her sister. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a Democratic official said Palin was facing possible impeachment. The article can be found here. Palin has denied any wrongdoing.
