The more you realize she's an emppty pants-suit.

Fourteen U. S. Vice Presidents became President. Five were elected in their own right; four inherited the office through the natural death of the incumbent, four by assassination, and one by resignation.

good odds or bad on palin taking over for mccain?

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm

Very well done.

This is interesting at a macrocosmic level too, of course ... no matter who wins it will be historic.

"It was Nixon who said the first woman in the white house would be a conservative as a VP on the republican ticket."

Yeah, by linking Palin with Nixon's "foresight," I'm sure that will get a lot of women to vote for McCain-Palin ticket! 'Cause we know how popular Nixon is with women nowadays! We practically worship him! It's all over the news media! Not.

Ridiculous!

Knocking her for her mentally handicapped child is just poor manners, and plays right into McCain's hands.

From the little I've read since waking up to this story, Palin is an effective administrator who walks the talk of ethics reforms and tax cuts. Her social conservative views can help to galvanize the evangelical base that is wary about McCain. Turnout will be a big issue, and this initially seems like it will help on that front.

She also happens to be a woman - which is all the excuse some Hillary supporters need to switch to McCain.

Her youth and attractivenesss seem to me to have as many pluses as minuses.

For the record, I disagree with her politically on pretty well everything, and feel she's a poor choice for the country - lacking both big ideas and foreign policy experience. The idea that someone who's just turned 72 has chosen a VP with such a narrow range of experiences again highlights the quality of McCain's judgement.

I don't want McCain to win, but this has the potential to be a masterstroke for McCain.

After what most would acknowledge as a masterful Democratic convention, what are people talking about this morning? Sarah Palin. McCain seizes control of the narrative.

This is no Harriet Myers. I think the wisest thing we can do is take this choice very, very seriously and learn as much as we can about both her and the psychology of the party that nominated her.

Even McCain released an ad that congratulated Obama on his achievements. You're not reading your party-hack memos!

I live in Texas, and the only thing Hutchison has experience doing is following the reich-wing party line to the letter, and running dirty campaigns against her opponents.

If any of the "Hillary supporters" are actually going to be influenced by this pick, that just makes me laugh. Even if McCain/Palin somehow gets elected, do you actually think she'll have a voice in governing? They may still use Cheney's undisclosed location, but it won't be to keep her safe, it'll be to get her out of the room so Johnny can feel comfortable droppinbg the c-word into his "jokes."

Obama spokespeople should come out on message (Get rid of the guy on CNN who ridiculed Palin's inexperience, btw), saying what NYL just said--that McCain is obviously playing defense, that his choice is a sign he's in trouble, that he's reactive, that he wants to interrupt the cycle of positive news after the excellent DNC convention, that he probably made the choice late last night in response to the wild success of Obama's wrapup, and that those are altogether not thoughtful reasons to choose a VP.

As an aside, I'm appalled to learn that Palin's Down's baby is merely one year old. Quite honestly, I wonder if she knows what she's in for.

It's so perfect, I wonder why didn't I think of that?

It's an opportunity for the GOP to prevent Joe Biden from "beating up" on a sweet little woman candidate. In other words, he'll have to treat her with kid gloves at the debate. So the republic party now has a woman and a POW they can "protect" from tough questions and campaign fights. A purely defensive move for McCain's campaign that has nothing going for it except stunts like this. I can just see McCain on the hustings touting that he has a girl on the ticket. I wonder if he'll encourage her to go topless at some campaign event, like he did his wife? Maybe he'll get mad and call her a filthy name, like he did when he got short-tempered with his wife in 1992.

I hope Hillary's supporters aren't sucked in by this faux-momentous occasion.

Wow. Glee in Republican land. A true conservative who can lead the US! After a 1-term McCain presidency, she'll go up against Hillary in 2012 and can't be out identity politicked!

Wow, what an implosion for the Democrats (again)!

Now that would be an entertaining choice, at least.

Will McCain give Palin the same respect he shows his wife, calling her the "c" word and saying she should be in a biker rally's beauty pagent?

They'd better hope they let the Libertarian candidate into the VP debate or they'll be talking about Palin in the same breath as Admiral Stockdale. Hell, they'll be doing that either way, but a third person in the debate will distract from her a little bit.

First he betrayed every principled stand he had ever taken in order to gain the support of the far right. Then he betrayed his promise to run a positive, issues oriented campaign.

And now, he transparently seeks to capture disenchanted Clinton supporters by choosing a woman as his VP. Of course, the problem is that she is as diametrically opposed to Clinton as possible. If anything, this will bring the Clinton supporters running back to Obama.

He could have chosen an experienced and tested female politician; instead he went for the former beauty queen with all of 2 years experience as governor of Alaska. I can't wait to see the VP debate - Biden will graciously reduce her to a puddle of regret.