Palin? Really?

Pick Strengths:

Sarah Palin is blatantly pandering to women. But it is not pandering to liberal women, it is pandering to undecided women. Unfortunately - and I say this with no ill will towards the undecideds - undecided voters tend to not critically think about propaganda. The better the propaganda, the more likely the undecided voter will go towards the less blasted candidate. I cannot tell you how many individuals I happened upon that were undecided that believed the John Kerry Swiftboat attacks. But it was all of them. That's a significant number.

It also almost guarantees a mistake by Biden that allows Republicans to paint the Democrats as sexist. And it's going to work, and he's going to make a mistake.

Pick Weaknesses:

She's not a good candidate. She's too good looking. She has no experience but, unlike Obama, does not even appear as though she is going to have experience. It would be like choosing my downstairs neighbor, if my downstairs neighbor was a hot mom. Also, the "VPILF" jokes (Vice President I'd Like to F-) Are going to be out in full force. She's really just... not good. If Bush was the president one would like to have a beer with, Palin is the Vice President that people want to buy a drink for.

Overall Thoughts On How This Will Effect the Election:

The effect of picks like this are measured by the amount of voters it convinces to go make a decision on who to vote for. How many will it convince? Not many. For every woman it gains it will lose a man, and for every woman proud to see a woman on the ticket, another will see it for what it is: the idea that picking a woman - any woman - is enough to convince women to vote for McCain, which is sexist, condescending and bullshit.

So the net gain will be roughly 0. However, what it won't measure but what will likely happen is that more Republican conservative women are guaranteed to go to the voting booths. And that sucks for the Democrats. You won't hear about it much, but Republicans always show up in force, and now that more Republican women have a reason to go vote, this pick looks bad for the Democrats.