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   4. McCain's VP Choice

from The Blogs: LightBookproductions.com
April 2008

As we wrote back in April of this year for the LBP Blogs page, obviously we believe Senator McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin for his Vice Presidential running mate today is not only a good choice unto itself, it is also, within the campaign landscape, strategically a very smart choice.

from the April Blogs
Regarding the issue of a McCain VP selection...

We wrote...
"Conservative leaning Democrats or Independents seen as potential votes for the conservative in a Presidential race are not going to need McCain to select a liberal Vice President.
The point: Why waste strategic resources on a repeatedly proven miscalculation (keeping in mind 1996) when you have an opportunity to exercise a vital move forward without compromising the right principles.
I still believe that it was a mistake and a sign of uptight weakness for the Republican machine to have attacked and then virtually destroy Pat Buchanan's surge back in 1996 when he won the South Carolina primary. To be realistic, looking back at that time I do not think any politically active Republican would have defeated former President Clinton running for his second term, but I believe going left the way the Republican Party did in that election showed the Dems that the Republicans can be pressured and fooled into an unnecessary compromising political position.

So far this website has had several conservative leaders in mind, Mitt Romney being one, that we believe to be excellent Vice Presidential choices since Senator McCain secured the Republican nomination.
We would also add to a short list Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin, recently highlighted at Human Events Online.
We agree with her strong views on social issues. We like that she is against civil unions, meaning she probably understands that government sanctioned civil unions would provide gay people with logistical legal ammunition to promote gay marriage via the MSM and the courts.
And we like her practical aggressiveness regarding the vital issue of drilling for additional oil in Alaska. She even has a somewhat radical eye-opening slant to her support in challenging what she correctly views as a Congressional absurdity and pathetic lack of foresight in blocking the vote for drilling for oil in Alaska all these years.  In addition, she is pushing the idea that it is Alaska's state right to drill for the oil."

We were referring to a John Grizzi piece on possible VP candidates for John McCain back in April.
Mr. Grizzi posted this comment today (8-29-08). 
"Author's note 8/29/2008: When veteran Massachusetts political consultant Holly Robichaud returned from the Alaska Republican convention back in April, she strongly urged me to interview Gov. Sarah Palin and predicted the governor would be a political superstar. Thus, my first “veepstake” feature was done. But never did I expect the interview Holly so kindly arranged would prove prophetic ...."

On Saturday, following Friday's announcement of McCain's VP selection, a New York Times editorial said: "Governor Palin (who was on almost no one's short list)..." 
I guess the New York Times didn't read Human Events Online, or this website.  (Almost just kidding). 

McCain taps
Alaska governor
for VP
By LIZ SIDOTI and BETH FOUHY,
Associated Press Writers
1 minute ago

John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a conservative who shares his maverick streak, as his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

At a raucous rally in the swing state of Ohio, McCain said he made his pick after looking for a political partner "who can best help me shake up Washington and make it start working again for the people who are counting on us."

McCain said that Palin was "exactly who I need. She's exactly who this country needs to help us fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second."

Political commentators and web bloggers had a lot to say about Mr. McCain's selection of Ms Palin for his VP running mate.
When Obama criticized McCain for criticizing Obama's lack of experience and then turning around and selecting Ms Palin (who in fact has more real-time governing experience than Obama), all Obama was doing was admitting that it's true, he doesn't have enough experience while at the same time trying to justify his selection of Senator Biden for that reason.  Under the circumstances, Obama's justification-style comment reveals a degree of inexperience itself.   Where are all those communication gurus when you need them?

This from The Politico.com..."Minutes after the McCain campaign confirmed that Palin would be the Republican’s VP pick, Obama spokesman Bill Burton dismissed the Alaska governor as a lightweight."

McCain, he said, had put "the former mayor of a town of 9,000, with zero foreign policy experience, a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Martin Sieff, Defense Editor for UPI posted at Human Events Online..."Obviously, McCain's choice of Palin does not decide this presidential election any more than Obama’s good but far from soaring speech to close the Democratic National Convention in Denver Thursday night did. But this choice is by far and away the best one John McCain could have made, and it proved perfectly timed to blunt the otherwise insurmountable lead Obama was poised to gain for the nomination. It was a perfect preemptive political strike."

Roger Stone at StoneZone.com..."Some will argue that Palin is light on experience but two years as Governor affords you more experience than three terms in the Illinois State Senate.  Obama has no accomplishments whatsoever to point to in his two years in the U.S. Senate."

The McCain campaign response... to an AP story about presidential "scholars" who were critical of Governor Palin's "credentials" to the Vice President.
Scholars:
“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history...The fact that he would have to go to somebody who is clearly unqualified to be president makes Obama look like an elder statesman,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek.
“If she had been around for two terms as governor — or been a senator — it would have been an incredible choice,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
“The first thing that hits me,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, "is that it suggests that John McCain is a gambler. This is a high-roller decision.”
McCain campaign response:
Associated Press UPDATE: After reading this article, the McCain campaign issued the following statement:
"The authors quote four scholars attacking Gov. Palin's fitness for the office of vice president. Among them, David Kennedy is a maxed-out Obama donor, Joel Goldstein is also an Obama donor, and Doris Kearns Goodwin has donated exclusively to Democrats this cycle. Finally, Matthew Dallek is a former speech writer for Dick Gephardt. This is not a story about scholars questioning Gov. Palin's credentials so much as partisan Democrats who would find a reason to disqualify or discount any nominee put forward by Sen. McCain."