However, let's not mince words here. Obama was not picked by one person to be his party's candidate unlike Palin. Obama was chosen after a rigorous and long primary season. You may not be happy with the whay that primary was conducted, and you may even dispute its results. What you cannot claim though is that Obama was chosen by one person which you can claim for Palin. yes, McCain had staffers giving him advice, but it was his choice alone. If you want to argue that Obama was selected by millions of democratic voters because he is black, then go ahead and believe it, but don't waste your time trying to convince me. I've seen enough of your screeds on these pages, and find you to pretty unbalanced when it comes to objectively looking at how Clinton lost the nomination.

Also, language is potent, and I don't use the word token lightly in defining Palin. Tokenism refers to a policy or practice of limited inclusion of members of a minority group, usually creating a false appearance of inclusive practices, intentional or not. I think his selection of Palin mirros that definition. McCain met her once. Spoke to her once. He virtually knows nothing about the woman he chose to be his running mate. He's called his wife a "c**t. He's never worked with her, met her at party functions or probably even knew who she was up until someone brought her up to him.

I think she is actually more of a token pick to satisfy evangelicals than as a nod to Clinton voters. McCain has had a hard time getting the religious right on board. So he chooses a rabidly dogmatic Christian who opposed a woman's right to choose under any circumstances, opposes benefits for gay couples, denies human involvement in global warming, and shares the views of the hard core right. I think the pick was smart on his part, because that part of America has shown they'll get up and vote if their being heard. It's unfortunate, but true.

McCain's choice of Palin plays to an Obama weakness, having passed over Hillary. She's the only one who can effectively take on--or out--Palin. She needs to do make her move quickly and decisively. If she doesn't, her absence will have "2012" written all over it.

Palin is newsworthy and everyone is talking about it.

Salon bashing = shooting the messenger? The Republicans scooped the Democrats, once again, with their VP choice. Who cares about the spectacular DNC convention? That's yesterday's news. Salon endorsed Obama very early in the primary race. Why bash it for not getting over Hillary? Stupidity of posters here, I guess.

Palin can't be Vice President because she's a mother. This is the 21st Century, right? Women have been working and succeeding "out in the real world" for several decades while also being mothers. Ever heard of Nancy Pelosi? She did not start her political career after her children were raised.

Hillary lost the primary. BULLSHIT! Who got the most votes from the people? Hillary! I'm so, so tired of reading about Hillary's loss of the primary and how horribly she ran her campaign. She won.

The Democrats lost the votes of all the women and men who supported her when they crowned Obama the presumptuous nominee long before it was fact. The DNC lost the support of women and men who are aware that Ted Kennedy went to his convention 600 delegates short and NO ONE wanted him to get out of the race.

The youth vote that is going to put Obama over the top? It's one percentage point higher than the youth vote in 2004! That turned out well, didn't it. Already some of today's youths are learning that politics is a dirty game when their hero Obama voted to protect the telecoms with his FISA vote.

Biden is better? He worked for the Credit Card companies and against the little guys in the bankruptcy legislation? How Democratic of him.

Obama supporters need to stop with the PUMA thing. It makes no sense. But then, claiming that Obama won the hearts and minds of the majority of Democrats doesn't either.

No. She slimed him repeatedly, her luggage includes Bill (who needs that?), and if a lot of Americans have trouble voting for a black man then those same folks would certainly have trouble voting for a black man and a white woman on the same ticket. Biden is more qualified than Clinton and plays better on the stump as well. Clear choice, and a good one.

If America was so in love with and wanted Hilliary and had that much confident in her, then they should have picked her instead of attempting to place their inabilities of whether they were ready for a woman president on Obama. This election is not about the candidate, it is about us. Therefore, Ms. Palin entered this freely, so should she be spared tough questions? No! This is about our lives, and I do care about my family and myself and that 3 am call. Mitchell sounds as if she is from the good old boys school or the keeper of the hearth mentality and delicatecy of women by asserting that women should be handled with kid gloves. Putin et al. will be playing for keeps, so Palin needs to woman up!

I wasn't a supporter of Hillary during the primaries, but I'm genuinely horrified that this vapid tokenism is what we've ended up with after her historic run. It's disgusting and insulting. I have a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton and I recently came to feel that she should have been selected to be on Obama's ticket. I was originally very against the idea. I'm not sure Palin will make a difference with women voters like myself, especially disgruntled ones, but I'm thoroughly appalled at what this race has become.

True, Palin was something everybody was talking about this morning, although all the cable news channels were by noon focused on Gustav (not being a fundamentalist Christian, I don't believe that God pre-empted McCain's big news cycle as a favor to Obama, but it is sometimes amusing to contemplate the absurd). The trouble isn't the quantity of discussion, but the context of it -- which has been more of the Who's She? and WTF? variety. Those are not necessarily promising themes for a candidate who the previous night had his judgment challenged by a major opponent. A bold pick? Yes. Craven exploitation of gender politics? A condescending bone to disaffected Hillary supporters? A woefully under-vetted political short-timer who's never had to garner more than 123,000 votes to win an office? Let voters decide.

But lest we think its just the so-called "liberal" media and blogosphere, I can tell you that the talk in the coffee shop in my small Bible Belt Missouri town was along the lines of "She seems like a nice girl, but Vice President?" (I should point out that the coffee shop crowd tends to be even older than my 50+ years; I personally don't call women "girls," my female boss of many years would have my hide) and "Poor John, I think he must have plumb lost his mind." What I didn't hear from these Heartland Americans was endorsement of the decision. One can argue that there were better choices for Obama than Biden, but one didn't have to dig too deep to make sense of it.