Panic in McCainland...
How else do you explain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate?
He just took Obama's 'inexperience' off the table - when you stack Obama's resume up against Palin's (former mayor of an Alaskan town with a population of 6,400, 19 months as governor of Alaska), Barack starts to look like, well, Joe Biden.
Sure, she's pro-life, which will help McCain hold on to the Wingnut Base. But he should have had that constituency locked up on Day One. That he's still pandering to the Loon Contingent suggests that he needed to pick a staunch pro-lifer to keep them from staying home.
Palin faced scandal charges in Alaska (an alleged revenge firing of an official who refused to fire Palin's estranged brother-in-law), a situation that some said could have ended in impeachment for abuse of power. I'm sure there are quite a few Alaskans that will be ready to speak out about that in the coming days.
The Shrieking Heads are going to declare that this pick will de-fang Joe Biden as an attack dog (MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell has already made the ludicrous comparison of Biden to Rick Lazio when he ran against Hillary Clinton), but these people should remember just how charming Biden can be. He won't man-handle Palin in a debate, he doesn't have to. All he needs to do is remind people of his resume in public service - he doesn't even need to mention Palin's - and then look past her and attack John McCain and George W. Bush. He could do that while being nice to Palin and still make his point. Attacking Palin isn't even on Biden's to-do list. He can treat her as a nice lady from Alaska who represents who he's really after - John McCain.
Sure, this is going to dominate the news cycle going into the weekend, and it will somewhat blunt the effect of Obama's rousing acceptance speech last night. But when the dust settles, McCain will be in a worse position than he was even last night - he's still running against a formidable ticket, and he's given up one of his best attack lines against Obama due to bringing a running mate on board with zero experience on the federal level, zero foreign policy experience, a controversial tenure in her short time as a governor, and a pro-life position that won't help him among women. This is, in short, a panic move.
The more panic-stricken among us will no doubt be very, very concerned. I'm thinking that Obama's team already has lines of attack mapped out. Let the games begin.