C'mon, she was selected for the depth of executive experience that she brings to the McCain ticket - more than any other Prez/VP candidate - she's perfect!

Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!

Important point-- vice presidential running mates don't have much time to prepare so finding someone already well-versed in national politics makes sense. Moreover, whenever vice presidents are asked to assume the presidency, it is invariably in a time of national crisis. The VP needs to be able to make the nation feel confident that we have a new leader who is competent and can hit the ground running. How long will Palin need before she is that person?

And how exactly should we expect Maverick to use her executive experience? I guarantee he will want a Chief of Staff with more than Palin has, even if not as high profile.

Part of it is statistics

There are twice as many Senators.

Then there's the power and impact involved.
A governor has twice as much power as a Senator in his or her state since there's only one of him who can vote (or veto) on their constituents behalf.

Add to it that 99 other Senators dilute the impact you can have on laws affecting your citizens.

Governors don't have to travel so much and have a btter chance of getting personal with thei constituents for that reason (outse of Maryland and VA which may have reasonable commutes.

Given influence, benefits and smaller numbers we would expect governors to pass up the warm bucket of spit.

A congressman at 500:1 power dilution and handling the influence of as little as 1/50th that of a senator from the same state, the veep jump is far more easily seen as a promotion. Even running for VP raises the profile so one can get a shot at being senator in their state if unsuccessful. Serious free press involved.

Sorry if all this is bleedin' obvious to most of you. Maybe I just like hearing myself talk?

Predicton...

Palin's appearances are going to be controlled and access denied for some unspecified time. The Mc/P campaign and surrogates will make all kinds of justifications -- and then, one day they'll give someone access. It'll be someone carefully chosen who'll ask the questions the campaign wants her to answer. And she'll come off brilliant And all the time when access was denied will be forgotten.

They're setting low expectations for her to succeed, again.

Of course, my attempts to be as devious as the Right are laughable at best, so I could be wrong.

Minor correction: Agnew was the incumbent VP in '72, having originally joined Nixon on the ticket in 1968. So it's actually been 40 years since a governor was chosen to serve as a running mate.

I had noticed this same thing the day the pick was announced, and went back to do some research, not just on when governors were selected as running mates, but when anyone who was not a senator or congressman was picked as a running mate. In addition to the two you've mentioned, we have Sargent Shriver in 1972 (ambassador) and Henry A Wallace in 1940 (Secretary of Agriculture). Shriver was, as we know, not McGovern's first choice. And while Wallace might seem an odd pick for a veep, we have to keep in mind that at the time of his selection, domestic policy had pretty much been FDR's exclusive focus, the country was decidely anti-war and anti-foreign interventionist, and Pearl Harbor was over 18 months into the future.

Compare and contrast that with the party that has been shrieking "WAR, WAR, WAR!!!!" for the past 7 years selecting an absolute neophyte on foreign affairs to be the first-runner-up to a 72-year-old presidential candidate in "these dangerous times".

These guys think this is all some big freakin' joke. That alone ought to cost them the election.

But Jennifer, Palin actually has negotiated with the Russians -- what other Governor can claim that? Of course, it was over fishing rights...

We all remember Spiro with nostalgia. I do not remember if he was the first of the Tricky Dick inner circle to resign in disgrace. I wish that I still had the Times issue, or was it Newsweek or US News, that printed the article naming the Nixon Republicans indicted, serving time or resigning in disgrace. The Reagan crew also had a distinguished record of political malfeasance. The elegy of the Bush gang is still to be determined.

idlemind - next you'll be telling me that she's an expert on Russia because it's just a few miles across the Bering Strait....no, wait, that's what the McCain campaign has been telling us already...

Great point Jennifer. We're in the middle of 2 wars and on January 21st, Palin could be our President. Wow. A chilling thought. It is scary the risk that they have put this country in by making such a reckless, uninformed decision.

Likewise, what understanding of macro/national/international economics does she have if that fateful day arrives and she has to make the decisions? She is woefully unprepared for this role.

Amazingly stupid post!

When governors are the presidential nominees, they pick senators or Washington insiders to balance them (and in the last thirty years, this has been a common theme - Clinton/Gore, Reagan/Bush, Bush/Cheney, Dukakis/Bentsen, Carter/Mondale). In other words, during modern times, we have preferred governors to senators for president - meaning we have been happier with Washington "outsiders" who have no foreign policy experience in the top spot - and this meant that these outsiders, thought it was good to provide them with some "insider ballast" with their vp pick.

Given that we've got two senators in the top positions this time around, it is not at all weird/strange/bizarre that one of them would have picked a governor to balance their "insider" experience. It isn't like the country is SO enamoured with Washington that the only legitimate pick would have been another insider for the position! Further, Sen. Obama considered a whole host of governors for his running mate - and when one thinks about it - neither Warner nor Kaine would have had much more foreign policy experience than Palin, yet they were considered perfectly legitimate choices for Sen. Obama.

So please - stop making this ill-considered analysis. It really is quite insulting to anyone who has ANY sense of modern history.

So when will the dems use this line from McCain (about Palin):

“I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington, D.C., and the pork barrelers and the lobbyists,� he said.

So he knows these guys?

She's incompetent. She has no experience. She is a disaster.

Next week will be more fun. Because, boys and girls, next week is going to be Adultery Week. We are gonna learn more about Sarah the Christian Friend Fucker than we thought possible.

"It is scary the risk that they have put this country in by making such a reckless, uninformed decision."

The scary part, in reality, is that so many reckless, uninformed VOTERS will make the decision to continue our headlong descent into hell.

Minor correction: Agnew was the incumbent VP in '72, having originally joined Nixon on the ticket in 1968.

Good catch, hawkhill. I've updated the post.

lbrown:

Who cares if the ticket leader is from congress?

What people seem to be ignoring, ignoramuses like you in particular, is that the ticket leaders were selected by the voters. The second banana is selected by the ticket leader.

Comparing the POTUS candidate with the VPOTUS is simply stupid. The POTUS candidates are showing us what their judgement is.

And what we have learned is that John McCain's judgement is very bad indeed. He selected a remarkably stupid woman, with huge amounts of crappy decisions, fascist behavior and crazy crazy ideas on her background.

Joe Biden might have won the nomination, if Chris Dodd was not there to dilute the vote for "experienced senators". But Palin? Not in a MILLION years would she have CONCEIVABLY won even an Alaska primary.

Further, Sen. Obama considered a whole host of governors for his running mate - and when one thinks about it - neither Warner nor Kaine would have had much more foreign policy experience than Palin, yet they were considered perfectly legitimate choices for Sen. Obama.

Notice that Obama didn't pick them - he picked a guy known to be prepared on day one. McCain didn't. Otherwise they wouldn't need to follow the Cheney tradition and keep their veep candidate squirreled away in an undisclosed location while she tries to cram for the final. Any way you spin it, this reflects poorly on John McCain.

LBrown, I think you misread the post, or didn't get the point of it. He didn't say, it didn't make sense to pick a governor, he said we hadn't seen one in the VP position, so the governor doesn't have the lengthy campaign to become conversant in non-state issues that someone campaigning for the Prez position has.

Don't be a dick.

"Sarah the Christian Friend Fucker"

TSG has already debunked the 'divorce decree coverup'.

And she may have even more to hide. Check out this link.

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-%E2%80%9Cracist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean%E2%80%9D/

I have no knowledge of this source, but it seems that story is based on real reporting. Confirmation?

Further, Sen. Obama considered a whole host of governors for his running mate - and when one thinks about it - neither Warner nor Kaine would have had much more foreign policy experience than Palin, yet they were considered perfectly legitimate choices for Sen. Obama.

Well yes, because, unlike Palin, they're not functional morons who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, they're not engaged in a wide-ranging cover-up to suppress an investigation into their abuse of power, and they don't believe their states should secede from the United States.

Perhaps one of America's fine journalists would like to pose the question to McCain "If Sarah Palin isn't ready to take on the media yet, how is she ready to take on the leaders of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran etc., etc.?"

Ah well. I suppose she has to learn to find them on the map first.

To answer lbrown's point, yes there's nothing wrong with having a governor on the ticket. Just make sure it's the right governor. A woman with a bare 20 months experience, whose budget is subsidized by big oil (Palin has tripled oil production taxes and oil tax monies now account for 85% of Alaska's budget) is hardly someone in touch with either national fiscal or political realities.

This is a woman who's being brought out to smile occasionally and spit at her opponents, while her knowledge and beliefs go unquestioned. When examining Palin, it's not something as amorphous as a sense of modern history that's required, it's a sense of what required of a modern veep.

If you think Palin's up to it, good luck to you. God help the rest of us.

also to consider - not all governors are created equal.

true, Clinton and Dukakis were governors - but each had been active on the national political scene meaning both that we knew a bit about them and that they had reason to have studied national (not merely in-state parochial) issues. Both had, for example, chaired the National Governors Association.

Reagan was unique in that his single state has the diveristy, population, and economy that most entire countries cannot match.

Bush the Lesser was much more like Palin - short tenure, no real national involvement to prepare him for national and international issues, no national leadership. . . and look how that turned out.

I would also note that Dukakis and Clinton had ample proof in their background of the kind of intellectual firepower it takes to handle numerous highly complex issues at once. Again, Palin and Bush have a lot in common in that Bush was a disinterested C-average student and Palin took 6 years and 4 schools to get a BA.

Preisdent is not an easy or average job. We shouldn't be looking for John or Jill Average. We should want someone with above average intellectual capacity. Palin would be Bush in a Skirt - a wingnut making fun of the educated elites while serving as a pretty faced puppet for a bunch of malicious, secretive educated elites like Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc.

What Palin learned as governor, and mayor before that, was how to latch onto the federal teat and have a good feast at public expense. That makes her perfect for this ticket: what more, after all, does Republican governance consist of?

Palin would be Bush in a Skirt -- Zeitgeist, @12:22

Which makes her an ideal partner for the "Bush in Depends", who's on top of that perfect ticket.

*Crash* course (from Rovian handlers BTW) indeed!

Along that line, this strikes me as relevant: McCain didn't only choose to bring light gubernatorial experience onto his ticket, he did so with the shortest-ever amount of time between the convention and the election.

A cynical (or just rational) person might conclude that he fully intended to bring in a token VP who would be exposed only to tightly controlled, supportive audiences.

Alaska is a different kind of place and when you combine that with a fundie Repub you get Sarah Palin.