for those who are completely closed off to the world around you, let me announce to you that yesterday, john mccain announced that alaska governor sarah palin would be his vice presidential running mate. no, you aren’t the only one…i don’t know who that is either…

let me establish a few things before i go any further. first, as you all well know, i am a big supporter of barack obama. that said, i am deeply respectful of john mccain and by all means, i think he could make a fine president. i absolutely want obama to win, but it wouldn’t be devastating to me if mccain became our next president. second, i think it’s great that mccain picked a female running mate. for republicans, this is a refreshing change. third (and this is an important clarification for my blog, in general), i am absolutely not a democrat. of course, i am definitely not a republican, either. in politics, analogous to my approach to theology and life in general, i consider myself a very bipartisan person. (as a matter of full disclosure, i will tell you that i voted for gore in 2000 and bush in ’04.) with that said, i hope you will notice on my blog (or in conversation in real life), i will and have never attacked mccain and don’t plan to do that here. that’s the lowest form of discourse and i can’t stand it when politicians stoop to that level.

alright, on to the show…

much like the media and the blogosphere, i am very confused about mccain’s selection of palin. now, obviously, mccain, for political reasons, chose palin to try to steal away some of the hillary voters. but, i think it’s already pretty clear that hillary supporters are finding it somewhat laughable that they think this selection will do it. i talked in a recent blog about the fact that i’m always a little put off when people pick vice presidents for strictly political reasons, and i think it’s pretty obvious that the palin choice was strictly political. to think that she’s going to step in and really make an impact as a vice president is highly doubtful.

the strangest thing, as many others have pointed out, is that the mccain camp (much like the clinton machine…), consistently, has harped upon obama’s perceived lack of experience. that argument is now unusable given the fact that palin is a first-term governor who was previously the mayor of a city of 8,500. i never really thought the inexperience argument was very effective, but it’s the consistent drum that’s been beaten against obama for almost 2 years now. with palin, they’re forced to change their tactics.

so, by all means, let me clearly say that i personally think palin is a fine choice and i’ll trust mccain’s judgment (although he only met her once prior to his selection). honestly, i guess i’m just indifferent about the selection. i wasn’t going to vote for mccain either way, but i’m just confused about it. i’m sure governor palin has some good things to bring to the table, but i’m afraid she wasn’t selected for those reasons.

we’ll see. maybe my suspicions (and others’) are wrong. (and i’ll wish her good luck on october 2nd when she goes head-to-head with joe biden in the vice presidential election…that could be scary…)