[quote author="Nude" date=1220049653]Bad choice. He tossed out his best issue and made a blatant attempt to get Democratic women voters, who weren't going to vote for him anyway. The issue with the PSD won't pan out to be anything but that won't stop Dems from using it for the next 60 days. So he's added a liability, mitigated his strongest argument, and alienated every social conservative in the party. Either he's betting that he can beat Obama straight up and the Veeps won't matter, or he knows he can't win and is making a symbolic move for the future of the party.
Gov. Palin has a lot going for her as a politician, but this isn't her time. This isn't as bad a choice as Dan Quayle, but it's close.</blockquote>
Okay, I have to retract my comment about alienating every social conservative; it's clear she will shore up support for the ticket in that area. It still leaves the Republicans with very little time to sell her as a valid candidate and there isn't a strong argument to be made by/for her inclusion on the ticket. Having thought about it for a bit longer, I do think this was a brilliant choice by McCain in the short-term. He's locked up the pro-life vote, the gov/social/fiscal conservative vote, the Republican women's vote, and practically erased any talk of Obama's incredible speech from the national media. From a purely politcal point of view, that's stunning.