If Sen. John McCain was a looking for a vice president pick to energize the GOP conservative base, he couldn't have done much better than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Whether that turns out to be the correct decision for the GOP and the Arizona senator will continue to play out as Palin is vetted by the national media.
Palin is pro-life, a member of the National Rifle Association, a hockey mom and the mother of five children, a government reformer, anti-gay marriage, and has stood up to oil companies at the same time she pushed them to produce more oil and natural gas; and, she backs teaching creationism and intelligent design in public schools.
In addition, in choosing a woman as his running mate -- only the second time that's happened -- McCain has made a move to capture disaffected Hillary Clinton backers. Palin's age, 44, also is a plus for McCain, who at 72, needs someone to appeal to younger voters.
Palin's husband, Todd, is a blue collar worker, and they have a son who is about to be deployed to Iraq, giving her and her family another way to connect with voters.
For those backing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid, McCain's choice hardly could have been better.
With the selection of Palin, McCain is seen by some as having removed the experience issue -- McCain has plenty, Obama almost none -- from discussion, and thus his advantage. Palin has been governor of Alaska for less than two years and before that was mayor of a town of just 8,500.
And then, she's anti-gay marriage, pro-life, pro-drilling for more oil and ... well, you get the idea: One person's glowing conservative is another's right-wing nutjob.
Then there's the news that Palin's hired a private attorney to handle allegations that she abused the authority of her office. An Alaskan government official she fired said he was sacked because he wouldn't fire a state trooper. In this case, the trooper had been married to Palin's sister.
And now we find out that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant, giving Palin something else in common with a lot of other American families, and giving the Democrats another target.
The view from here is that Palin was a bold choice, and one that McCain had to make to energize the conservative GOP base and to keep from being seen as just another tired, old (72), moderate white male.
Whether it pays off with voters will depend in part on what lies beneath the veneer of Palin's public persona.
-- Ben Wearing, Executive Editor member of the Editorial Board
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