Vacuuming up the cat hair this morning I got to thinking that it may not have been McCain that saddled himself to a loser by chosing Sarah Palin but the reverse or both. Sarah Palin may have put herself into a worse position career-wise by joining John McCain's ticket than McCain did by selecting her. John McCain will still have his Senate seat and a comfortable retirement to look forward to if things don't work out. I'm wondering about Palin.
Journalists are starting to speculate that she may or should be sacked to save the ticket, but no one so far has speculated about her political fate yet and whether she made the right choice or understood the choice. The worst that could happen to her political career is not that the ticket loses. The worst is that the media attention illuminates her shortcomings and actual record in Alaska, she becomes a national laughingstock, she's asked to step aside or McCain loses the election and she has to go back home as damaged goods or even possibly under indictment. If she reveals herself to be unqualified not only for the Vice Presidency but also the Governorship of Alaska and her reformer image is undermined by substantiated corruption charges, she ends up in a worse position than she was before. As a small town mayor and half term governor, Alaskan voters may not have known her that much better than the national electorate and her popularity numbers were not trending up before the national candidacy. And she has made enemies. Talk about Hail Mary passes and gambling: for a chance to be Vice President and possibly President, she's put everything she had on the line. It's may not be just McCain that's nervous about putting her in front of the press, she has a lot to lose back home by showing too much of herself.
I wonder if she weighed the risk before she accepted and how worried she is now about her own fate.
One last thought: if having a border with Canada and being able to glimpse Russian territory from Alaska gives her insight into international relations, what does not having a border with any U.S. state or being able to see any of the "lower 48" from Alaska say about her domestic credentials?