Michelle, I could not agree more - you nailed it and I hope the Obama Campaign and Dems understand this distinction.

Amen Michelle!  I've been saying the same thing for the past three hours.

And here I thought Republicans were against affirmative action.  Someone explain to me why McCain chose Palin over someone like Jindal?  No other reason springs to mind aside from Palin's ovaries.

I'm sure Palin's selection is an energizing factor for pro-life women. Beyond that, I couldn't agree with you more.

In addition to experience, Hillary's education, focused intellect, and broad knowledge of policy qualified her for the Presidency.

Compared to that -- or to the many many more experienced men and pro-life women McCain could have selected -- Palin's selection looks like tokenism.

I wonder how much this is simply about picking the scabs of disunity and how much about finding new routes to attacking Obama's experience. Anybody see this gem from the McCain Campaign:

          "It is pretty audacious for the Obama campaign to say that Governor Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match. Governor Palin has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and actually achieving results — whether it’s taking on corruption, passing ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for president."

Cynical.

that's spot on Michelle except it's not just women Clinton supporters who will be turned off by this pick.  Ridge or even Lieberman pick would have turned a few heads, but this was the nail in McCain's coffin for the large majority of moderate swing voters. I know a lot of former Clinton supporters (myself included). Palin takes the 1% chance any of us would have considered McCain or staying home and made it Zero. It is an amazing pick. It is both offensive and dumb. Oh one other thing. Just imagine that Hillary had beaten Obama in the primaries and that McCain attempted to reach out to the disaffected African American (and other) voters JC Watts or Michael Steele... ugh what an idiot!

Michelle, well said and I agree. However, the bigger (and much less rhetorical) question is "Is the sisterhood of the Pantsuit actually that weak-minded".

It is not that I believe they are weak-minded, but if I am wrong then this will be a problem on November 4. I'm thinking very much of the one weepy Clinton delegate, interviewed by CSPAN, who was consternated because she would not be able to vote for Obama, and could never vote for McCain, and was therefore steeling herself to stay home on November 4th. I wonder, "Can she vote for Palin?". If so, how many others are like her?

Oops. I meant "how many more experienced pro-CHOICE Republican women McCain could have selected"

Doh.

"...but this was the nail in McCain's coffin for the large majority of moderate swing voters."

I hope so, eweiss!

The press likes to say that the running-mate pick is the candidate's first executive decision of consequence.  If that's true, these two picks sure say very different things about the way Obama and McCain would make decisions as president.  Obama's pick was a good one politically, of course, but it was an unassailable one on campaign-neutral grounds too, the main one being readiness to take office.  McCain's pick, on the other hand, is craven and, as conservative but responsible commentator Steve Chapman says today in his Chicago Tribune blog, "inexcusable."  I have called folks like Broder big fat poo-poo heads in the past, because I think they obscure important policy differences in their vacant pleas for bipartisanship and their view of propriety, but this pick should make them go ape-shit and I hope it does.

judging from the traffic over at the Corner, Palin was probably really all about the base. She certainly seems to have fired it up and I guess that was important given their indifference about McCain. Choosing Palin was not about being a maverick or attracting Hillary supporters, but was the safe pick after all. Put this one in Karl Rove's column.

The New Republic AKA as Hillary bashing central, is tenderly offering advice to Hillary supporters. McCain's choice has touched a nerve.

Cottle ignores that not all Hillary Clinton supporters are ideologues or even Democrats.  There are many women who were supporting her in large part because she was a woman and, as Bernand and Maddow asserted (and Olberman and Matthews seconded during the Democratic convention),  many HIllary supporters supported her because women "thought it was there turn" and that they were disappointed by the Obama nomination because it meant they had been in effect skipped in line.  Whether this is logical or not, it's a condition of the moderate voting woman psyche.

As my mother-in-law just said, "This [the choice of Palin] is clearly a political move, but that's fine.  I was going to vote for Obama, but now my vote is back in play."

I think there is an additional point here: Hillary's die-hard supporters, especially the angry ones, want HILLARY to be the first female president/vice president; they might even vote against McCain and Palin for the sole purpose of preserving her chances in 8 years.

ralphnelle,

yes, the die-hard supporters may want that, but those 18 million cracks were not solely created by die-hard supporters.  Many of them were moderates, in some cases Republicans, and in some cases motivated by gender.  Ferraro summed it up nicely, there are three groups that supported Clinton...PUMAs (who will vote for McCain or stay home), yellow dogs (although she didn't use the term...who will vote for Obama), and the remainder that are in play.  The questions are how big is this third group, and how effectively can Obama and McCain court them.

brownjr_97,

I agree with your point about the third group. I'm suggesting that we can expect the # of Puma's to drop significantly now, because many of these women will do whatever they can to protect Clinton's future.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz made just that argument on MSNBC. I think she is right on the merits. That said keep this at the surragate level. I think voters can figure this out on their own. If it becomes an issue it will be an organic result of mistakes Palin makes. Otherwise it won't matter much. Obama and Biden should keep their powder dry on this. They should however attack McCain on national security and the economy.

Michelle is spot-on (as usual), and I think her post and the comments here underscore just how reckless and clueless McCain's pick was. Not just because it objectified a female candidate (which it did) or because it cheapened the idea of a female running for veep or president (which it did), or because it was grossly irresponsible to create the potential for such a spectacularly unqualified person a heartbeat away from the presidency (which it is) or because it defuses the experience issue (which it most assuredly does).

It may also--and this is critical--have the effect of transferring the ire of Hillary "dead-enders" (I hate that term) from Obama (where it doesn't belong) to McCain (who deserves it). That is a lethal dynamic for Johnny Mac.

A colossal blunder, on SO many levels.

Here's the rollout video: McCain/Palin? I can live with that. The more I hear about her, the more I like her. Granted, she was unknown to me before being considered a longshot for the veep spot, but everything...

The anger here is derivative of an absurdly simplistic politcal assumption; that McCain chose Palin in an attempt to court Clinton voters still smarting from the primaries.  Of course liberal Democratic Clinton supporters should be insulted if the McCain camp actually thought these women would jettison their principles in order to elect any woman.    

The real political rationale of picking a woman in addition to a conservative is straight forward enough.  There will be a population of Obama and Obama leaning women voters (I include Clinton voters amongst them), a population of pro-McCain women and certainly, millions of ambivalent women in between who like McCain on certain issues and Obama on others.  Since they are ambivalent, otherwise small things may sway their vote and make all the difference.  

Given all the intangibles inuring to Obama's benefit in this election, I think the McCain campaign understood that the class of ambivalent women were going to otherwise swing heavily for Obama.

The prospect of the first female Vice President in the history of the United States is no small thing and it might very well overwhelm all of those intangibles.      

This is no cause for anger, but cause for apprehension on the part of the Democrats.

I've been mad for the last 48 hours.  I think that this is an insult not only to Hillary supporters, and not only to women, but to the whole country. It's impossible to imagine Palin leading the country competently should something happen to John McCain. It's as if McCain is giving the whole country the finger.  "Ha!  Who cares what happens after I'm gone!  I just need the religious right to get elected, so to hell with you guys!  Good luck with the global warming thing."

A very good friend, who is a lifelong Alaskan and one of the smartest people I know, offers this word