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This was a push of the "fundamentalist Christian" wing of the Republican party. When McCain was sewing up the nomination in February, they wanted to at least make sure that they had a true Christian conservative on the ticket. They quickly settled on Sarah Palin. She had all the right check marks in the right boxes: Strong Christian, rabidly pro-life, pro-gun, pushed to teach creationism in the public schools, and was a strong believer in Abstinence Only education. (Here daughter must have been asleep in class that day! Sorry, couldn't help myself).
Those of us who closely watch the Internet have seen the background talk about Ms. Palin coming up for the last six months. McCain even met her, at the insistence of several right wing Republicans and seems to have left pretty much unimpressed since he did not ask his staff to vet her at that time.
The main criticisms at that time included a total lack of experience. She did win a tough election in Alaska, but that's a state with less people than Charlotte, North Carolina, and probably not as diverse. Alaska also has no income tax or sales tax getting almost its entire state budget through oil concessions. It has so much money that Alaska actually returned to its residents over $1700 last year to each resident over 18 years of age. The governor's office in Alaska is not exactly a position that has to make hard budgetary decisions.
She also has done very little campaigning of fund raising outside of her own campaigns. She never spoke at Republican clubs, traveled very little outside of Alaska as governor, and was simply not considered any sort of rising star in the Republican party. Back in March, a few peopel compared the possibility of Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for Veep to Dan Quayle. Yet, despite the misgivings of McCain's campaign, the so-called Christian wing of the party kept pushing her as a true conservative who would be an asset in getting the Republican Base out.
It is hard to say why McCain decided to pick this woman. Maybe the polling numbers were getting to his head, and that he thought maybe the support of "the Republican base" would be enough to help his election. Maybe he started to believe all the blog talk of millions of women who were still mad that Clinton didn't get the nomination and who might vote for McCain if he did choose a woman as veep. But, it is absolutely obvious that this person was not vetted by the time McCain made his announcement.
Mrs. Palin is currently under investigation for abusing her power as governor. This investigation, no matter how you think it may go, simply won't be completed by November 4, so people will be going to the polls with the Ms. Palin still under investigation for abusing power. People have lost out to the vetting process over more minor issues. The Matanuska Maid Dairy incident was already well known. And, they certainly should have known that she campaigned for Gravina Island Bridge when they announced that she was actually against it.
Now, her husband's DWI arrest, her daughter's pregnancy, and her association with the Alaska Independence Party has come to light. All of this could have been discovered in a single day of the standard vetting process.
She was picked because the "Christian right" wanted her. They wanted her because she had all the right answers on all their big issues. It is apparent that this wing won't let such things as experience and competence get in the way of their ideology. They loved her because they loved the idea of Sarah Palin, and now McCain's campaign has to live with it.
