[Cross-posted at Why We Need Obama]

I am starting to fear that the voting public (and the media) may not fully appreciate the most damning aspect of the Sarah Palin pick as John McCain's running mate: the fact that he didn't vet her in the slightest and the resulting indictment of McCain's "shoot-from-the-hip" impulsiveness and lack of judgment.

Assuming this comes to pass, I wonder if McCain's pick of Palin was a shrewd "cover your ass" move, designed to shield himself from the full brunt of his party's anger if he loses the election.

This is my thinking: After Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and lost the election, a large amount of the scorn levied against the ticket, rightly or wrongly, was that Ferraro and her unearthed scandals and lack of qualifications sank whatever chance he had of winning.  Consider the following conventional wisdom that emerged after the dust settled on the 1984 campaign -- the parallels to the McCain/Palin ticket are uncanny:

"At the outset the "Ferraro factor" brought glamour and energy to Mondale's rather staged, lacklustre image and plodding campaign. Shortly after the convention, however, controversy erupted about her personal finances. Her reputation was damaged by revelations of tax avoidance, shady business dealings, and possible Mafia connections of her husband, John Zaccaro. There were also allegations that Ferraro herself had been involved in financial impropriety in respect of her 1978 campaign funds. The ensuing scandal doomed the Mondale -- Ferraro ticket." (emphasis mine)

If McCain ends up losing and people don't register the fact that the full blame lies on McCain for thrusting such an unknown and unqualified running mate onto the ticket, I wonder if much of the blame will come to rest on Sarah Palin and all of the various reasons that make her phenomenally unqualified for the job.

Is this a move that McCain caculated to save some of his reputation after the election?

I wonder...

There's more...

As the furor over all of the new revelations about how little Sarah Palin was vetted by the McCain campaign builds, I just heard Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on MSNBC offer the latest potential lame excuse for why McCain didn't vet her properly:

Any of us as public figures have a public record and a public life.  So, the fact is, she's been vetted by the people of Alaska and is walking around with 80% approval ratings...  So there's been a lot of vetting going on but maybe not in the sense you're talking about.

You've got to be kidding me, right?  What he's basically saying is that McCain doesn't have to vet Sarah Palin thoroughly because she has high approval ratings?  Really?

[Cross-Posted at Why We Need Obama]

Earlier: Why Not Vetting Sarah Palin Matters; McCain Didn't Vet VP Sarah Palin.  Period.

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There are so many intentional leaks, misdirections, headfakes going on here that I have no idea what to make of it.

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf and Jennifer Parker reports: As Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was leaving his house in Wilmington this afternoon, he slowed down and said to the gathered news reporters outside his home: "Hey guys, I'm not the guy. See ya."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/ 2008/08/biden-on-obamas.html

If this is true and it's not Biden than that leaves Clinton, Sebelius or Kaine (Sweet God, anyone but him).

I hope that it's Hillary, but given how much Obama loves him, I won't be shocked to see him pick Kaine.

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Thanks to QTG's comment in another thread, I just typed in the following web addresses:

www.obamakaine08.com

www.obamasibelius08.com

www.obamaclinton08.com

www.obamabayh08.com

. . . and sure enough, only one of them links directly to the Democratic Party's website.

Meaningful?  Meaningless?  Discuss.

(If it's true, color me disappointed.)

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So right now, the veepstakes are going on, the names are floating, and Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas is a commonly floated one around. She's got all the makings of a non-VP. Lets explore them:

1. She has no constituency or any type of one outside Kansas. All politics is local. The fact that she got elected as a Democrat in perpetually red Kansas is no accomplishment and testament to that. She played the politics game, being against abortion and gay rights to get where she is. The region she is from, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma are not areas from where we are likely to receive electoral votes. The fact her dad was governor of Ohio is not gonna help there, as he wasn't terribly popular there, getting defeated for a second term in both his house and governor bids, and being there a long time ago without even the Sebelius namesake.

2. She has very little experience being involved with big time politics, being governor since 2003, being gov only 2 years longer than Obama has been a senator, and shorter than Hillary has been a senator, or Evan Bayh has been a senator. Experience is Obama's weak point, and Sebelius would emphasize this perceived shortcoming.

3. She is boring and uncharismatic, and inspires no energy in the party. Her SOTU response exemplified this. It wasn't some long convention speech that happened 4 years prior to the election year, this only happened 8 months ago. Her speaking style is bland in the mold of John Kerry, and she even looks like John Kerry, and this hurt a lot on the stump. She stops all of Obama's energy.

4. She does not bring any demographic group with her, as she has not shown any popularity with working class whites, or older voters that would be in swing states Dems can carry. Sure, she won in Kansas, but did so by being essentially a Republican with a D next to her name. But if she were on the Obama ticket, she'd have to become a real D who supports gay rights and abortion. As a real Democrat, she has no base with older voters or working class white ones, whereas Kaine, Clinton, Bayh have been elected in states that can vote Democrat, and ran as Democrats.

5. Being that she is not a known name or entity, the headline would be "a black and a woman." That does not sound good, considering how hard a time Obama may have because of his color, and how hard a time he has ahead. Of course, if he had a name brand woman everyone knows, it would be OK as it would be "Obama and (a woman everyone knows)." Sebelius is pretty unknown right now, and would be in the former camp.

6. Putting her on the ticket would be perceived to be only putting her on the ticket to put a woman on the ticket, and seen possibly as an attempt to get Hillary Clinton and Hillary type voters, which yells out "you Hillary voters only voted for her because she was a woman, which is why you'll LOVE Sebelius." This would be amplified by the fact that she brings nothing real to the ticket for the reasons I listed above. She is much less qualified in experience being that Hillary has been involved with politics since being on the Watergate hearing in the '70s, being an active first lady for 12 years while being a high powered lawyer and headed Arkansas's education revitalization effort with great political risk and eventual success, and as First Lady of the US, Hillary attempted to fix one of the US' biggest problems in spite of politics risks and powerful lobbyists and Republicans, lobbyed hard for SCHIP, and was exposed to the day-to-day workings of the White House, living with a President as an active first lady for 8 years, and has been Senator since 2001, being on the Armed Services Committee, all of this in contast to Sebelius has been Governor of Kansas since 2003. 30 years vs. 5 years. That is why putting Sebelius would be seen as  a politically expedient snub, that would open the door to Republicans putting Fiorina or someone like that on the ticket.

She is not a contender, and would be a disaster on the ticket. I think its time to put Sebelius as VP speculation to an end.

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