Ken Berwitz

What a gutsy move!!!

She is a former beauty queen, basketball player, TV sports anchor and commercial fisherman.  She is married with five children.

Politically she came to prominence by whistle-blowing on members of her own Republican party for their ethical violations.  She was a two time city mayor before becoming the Governor of Alaska.  Her approval ratings are hovering in the 90% range.  She is strongly conservative on many issues -- but also signed gay rights legislation into law and created a sub-cabinet post regarding climate change. 

But, y'know what?  I'll show you the value of Sarah Palin to the McCain ticket by pasting the analysis of someone who desperately wants Mr. McCain to lose:  Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, better known as "Kos" of www.dailykos.com:

Sarah Palin: She's a very popular (80-90% approval rating), attractive, governor of Alaska. She has kind of an older Tina Faye thing going on. In 1984, Palin competed in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality. Gov. Palin is known in her state as a Maverick, and has a reputation for being very anti-corruption. You know the stuff John McCain pretends to be. Sarah Palin is very popular having seemed come out of nowhere to completely destroy her rival, Republican Governor Frank Murkowski in their Primary!

The upside for us? She's a little inexperienced for the job since she's only been governor of Alaska since 2006. Other than that, theres not much. She's good on the Environment and good on Gay issues (though her hand was forced) she is however firmly "pro-life" which doesn't help McCain's case with woman at all.

The downside? Out of all of the VP choices for McCain she is the one who could really help McCain the most in my view. This woman is destined for higher office and McCain may be her ticket to the top. Hopefully she's smart enough to realize McCain's campaign is already dead in the water and will simply sit this one out. If so we will have dodged a bullet but one way or another we will have to face off with this woman someday. She's a rising star. Theres no getting around that.

Now you may think she's from Alaska which is about as Red of a state as you can get and McCain doesn't need her help. However, drafting her is about as safe as you can get simply because there is no way a Democrat is going to replace her. On top of that she's the first Woman ever elected as Governor of Alaska and she would be the first Woman ever elected as Vice President. Which despite her views on abortion; her charm and her potential to break glass ceilings could siphon off a good deal of female voters.

Also, unlike McCain her Maverick reputation is real. She signed Gay Marriage into law (though via Supreme Court Mandate) and vetoed legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. She also appointed a new sub-cabinet to address Climate Change in her state. You know what; let me just put it this way. If she were in virtually any other state she would be a Democrat. Shes even more progressive than some of our Democratic Senators.

Now while those things would be of some concern to Republicans the fact of the matter is they're virtually untouchable. Drawing attention to her left leaning record would simply re-enforce her Maverick Meme thus granting the media permission to re-proclaim McCain a Maverick for picking such a Maverick as his VP. And the last thing we want is to bring back that Maverick bullshit.

Bottom line is she's one to watch out for and one of my picks for worst case scenario simply because she should probably be on our side.

That description, more than anything else, tells you why John McCain made this pick. 

Wow, and double wow.