First Rule for picking a VP Candidate: Do No Harm. McCain fails on several fronts.

[yellowcanine]

McCain forgot one of the oldest axioms of presidential politics:

VP choices rarely help a presidential candidate but they damn sure can hurt one's chances. Therefore, risky symbolic choices should be avoided at all costs.

He picked a political lightweight when he is trying to make a case of inexperience against Obama, thus stepping on one of his best arguments against his opponent.

Palin has baggage - lots of it. Serious lack of vetting. The problem with picking a VP who is only known in a small population state is that there are lots of stones unturned - these stones tend to get turned over in the heat of the campaign.

By floating a short list that included Romney and Sen. Hutchison, among others - no one would have argued they were not worthy VP candidates - and then picking a political lightweight over them, he has unnecessarily pissed off potential political allies he absolutely needs on his side to win. They may come around eventually but valuable time will be lost. Particularly in the case of Romney, many of his supporters are just not going to take this lying down.

The tokenism charge will be hard to defend against. And it is such an obvious attempt to capture disgruntled Hilary supporters that it will likely keep most of them from voting for McCain, if not actually voting for Obama.

[ComplimentarySwine]

1. But why not Sen. Hutchison?

If he just wanted a women, it seems like she would have been able to avoid at least some of the problems that are cropping up now. Is Palin more loved by the hard-core right?

[AuntPatsy]

3. perhaps by big foreign oil conglomerates?

[yellowcanine]

4. No Hutchison would have been quite acceptable to the right wing. Palin is not more loved, she is a

cipher - like Harriet Meirs. And that scares the crap out to the RW.

[jefferson_dem]

2. Krauthammer calls this pick "near suicidal" for McCain.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/08/the_palin_puzzle.html?hpid=opinionsbox1