Sarah Palin

Well, I promised this about 5 minutes ago... and so now I will fully analyze the Vice Presidential pick of John McCain.

It must first be said that Sarah Palin is a woman, and so she will appeal to the women that supported Hillary Clinton simply because she was a woman... and there are MANY of them, just like there are many people who will vote for Obama simply because he's black. Those Clinton supporters who actually thought about what Hillary stood for will not give a second thought to Palin though. However, it must be said that the pick is at least a mild play at gaining Hillary supporters.

However, this is not the primary reason she was chosen. The choice is a reinforcement of the values that McCain expressed at Saddleback, as well as a means to remove many of the issues that Barrack Obama believes are solely his domain.

The primary issues that she reinforces are energy independence through drilling for oil, a female pro-life voice, and a lower taxes/reduced spending stance. As governor of ALASKA, she has voiced the opinion of the state at large, namely that they want to drill for oil in ALASKA. She has also begun the project for a natural gas pipeline through Canada, making her more than a single-issue candidate. She has worked for and accomplished measures to increase energy independence.

In her personal life, she had a down-syndrome baby only a few months ago, knowing that the child would be special needs. This is being treated as though she "chose" to have the child, and other women should have the choice not to have it. This is a spin that should not actually play. There was no choice made. She had the child because the child deserved to live. There was no alternative there. The fetus was a child and all children deserve life. This position is strengthened by the fact that she is a woman. When John McCain promotes pro-life positions, it is attacked as "oppressive to women." But when she will promote it, the argument is taken away.

She is a fiscal conservative as well, promoting lower taxes and lower spending, the problem that the Bush administration is facing now. Bush could not curb spending, primarily because of disasters that occurred throughout his term -- NOT primarily because of the war in Iraq. Katrina cost a lot of money to the federal government, despite the fact that most of the people who were affected by the hurricane were widely ignored (I'm talking Mississippi people, not the ingrates in New Orleans). Don't get me wrong, what happened in New Orleans was bad, but it was primarily the result of the local leadership and corruption. George Bush did not have any responsibility for what happened there, nor did FEMA (because it was a reactive agency). The Mayor of New Orleans was supposed to declare a state of emergency and ask for National Guard assistance before they are able to do anything. Through these issues, she should pull together support from the conservative base of the Republican Party.

However, more important than suring up the base, she removes a number of issues and sets traps for Obama to use. First and foremost, is the experience issue. She has more experience both as an elected official and as an executive than Obama can possibly claim. However, she has a small enough resume that he will (and has) tried to strike out on that front. Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt and say that he has equal experience to Palin. He appointed Joe Biden in order to have experience on his ticket. Therefore, he will have a "Cheney-esque" administration run by a shadow president, despite how upset people are about Dick Cheney being as powerful as he is. However, Palin will be the Vice President under a very experienced President, learning on-the-job, while she does not have the full responsibility of being the Chief Executive of the US. Barrack will be learning on-the-job as President. Therefore, even if they have an equally low amount of experience, she still has the safety net of time to gain experience without having the burden of making tough decisions early on.

However, she does not have an equal amount of experience. She has more. Obama has been a state senator, where he voted present more than half the time, and he has a single term as a national official, where he has been absent campaigning for 99% of his time there. He is the chair of a subcommittee of which he has never called a meeting. How is that "experience" at all?

The next issue that she removes from Obama is the "feel-good" issue of an historical campaign. With her inclusion, all those people that add points to a candidate solely because they want to be a part of making history will again have a large choice to make. And the "due" that comes from a culture of oppression is also removed from the forefront, because women have been societally oppressed the same amount if not more than black men historically. And the history of female oppression is quite a bit older, going back to the first civilization on the planet, not merely to the age of African slavery. I don't mean to degrade the suffering of a culture, but one can only apologize for the past so many times before the time comes when forgiveness and forgetting is necessary to move forward.

Another issue she removes is her apppeal to blue-collar people. Obama seems intent on ignoring the fact that McCain's wife owns most of the houses that are part of the "McCain Estate," as well as the fact that he and his wife make more money in a year than some people make in a decade, so that he can claim that he is a "man of the people" who knows what middle class is. Sarah Palin is a blue-collar woman, hunting, snow-mobiling, and serving as a "hockey-mom."

She is the epitomy of feminist values, "doing it all," with a family, career in politics (which she didn't receive from her husband, like Hillary), and responsibilities outside the career, like coaching basketball and participating in the PTA. She is unlimited in her accomplishments for the cause of feminism, and she did it with conservative values. However, Obama will probably try to diminish these accomplishments, and it will hurt his campaign.

The Obama campaign has to tread carefully now because if they attack experience, they will be attacked harder. If they attack her as a blue-collar person, or as a woman, they lose huge ground with huge constituencies. There are more than double the number of blue-collar workers than there are white-collar in the country, so alienating a huge amount of people like that would be a terrible mistake. I think Palin is one of the most effective VP choices ever, and we've yet to see just how great this choice will be. However, when the commentators on MSNBC and CNN look as depressed as they do now, you know that the Republicans have made a good move.