John McCain's Pick for Vice President: What It Reveals About the Man

By selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain has revealed several things about his character. Is he brilliant? Has seen proven that he is now a listener to his partisans? Or McCain has shown something not so flattering about this man?

By choosing Mrs. Palin, Senator McCain has done the following, for better or for worse:

Senator McCain has destroyed his most persistent attack on Barack Obama as lacking the experience to be commander-in-chief. This 44-year-old first-term governor of two years is hardly the one with the experience to take over as president should anything happen to John McCain. How can experience be such a big deal for Obama but not for McCain's running mate?

The senator has lost credibility on the national security issue, which he says is the most important issue in this presidential election. How can he, with a straight face, say that Sarah Palin is ready to serve as national security champion, especially with reference to international affairs, when he at the same time alleges that Obama is not qualified to play that role? With all due respect, Mrs. Pilan is a close to zero international experience as Senator McCain could have come. The whole experience attack is now off the table; it no longer has credibility on the McCain side.

Mr. McCain has certainly lost his maverick credentials. It's a pathetic joke to say that McCain's choice of Palin is a "maverick" move, because the governor has been a maverick change agent in Alaska just as McCain has been in Washington. McCain chickened out of his original leaning to have picked a pro-choice running mate. Remember that McCain floated the idea of a pro-abortion VP in some of his town hall meetings, until Republican partisans began to shoot down the notion. Whatever happened to Maverick McCain? Poof, he's vanished! We are left with this new McCain who bends over backwards to kiss the feet of die-hard right wingers, who insisted on a prolife running mate for the senator.

Senator McCain proves he is a desperate man. He is desperate to win this election at all costs and by all means. His selection of Palin is for one reason alone: get those Hillary Clinton female voters, who just can't get over the defeat of Mrs. Clinton. But wait! Didn't 27% of Mrs. Clinton's supporters already say they'd vote for McCain anyway? Perhaps the senator did not want to take any chances by taking those Clintonites at their word. Mr. McCain seems to be admitting that there is no way he can become president of the United States with those precious female voters of Clinton's.

Age seems to have played a major role in driving Mr. McCain to this desperate end. The senator, who turns 72 today (August 29, 2008), realizes that age is not on his side. This is probably his one last shot at the presidency, and this sense of desperation has driven the man to pick this virtually unknown governor. Simply put, McCain picked Palin, a woman, because Obama did not pick Hillary Clinton, a woman. McCain wants to outdo Obama on the female twist. And with that, we are supposed to start looking at McCain as the history maker, attempting to give America its first female vice president? Boy, are we impressed?!

Furthermore, rather than take initiative like a true leader with years of that important "experience", Mr. McCain has chosen to be purely reactionary in his choice of VP. He waited for Obama to make the first move in picking a running mate. Then McCain reacted to Obama's choice. There is no rule on the books that says McCain had to wait for Obama before he could pick his own running mate. Is that the kind of leadership America needs or wants ~ someone who will be reactive rather than proactive?

What a pitiful move on Senator McCain's part after the Democrats had such a blast of a convention this week! Let's hope the Republican convention to start on Monday, September 1^st, will help to rescue John McCain from the impact of this poor choice for a running mate.

If Senator McCain's VP choice proves anything at all, it is the deserved cynicism that politics is anything but a game. And in this case, the political game for John McCain was to change the subject. That, we must admit, he has done in such a crafty way here. Tell you who's going to be one of the happiest men in these weeks leading up to the November elections: Rush Limbaugh ~ that's who, that was the conservative heavyweight that McCain chose to please by placing the nationally unknown Mrs. Sarah Pilan on the Republican ticket.

Good play, John McCain, good game. That only makes Senators McCain and Obama little more than typical politicians fully devoted to the game of politics, which means almost nothing will change after the elections. Don't hold your breath, people, there will be no meaningful change in the daunting challenges that America faces. Come January 2009 and it will be same old same old in the United States of America. Oh, how I wish to be proven wrong by either President McCain or President Obama.