The media has decided to make Sarah Palin into the nation's newest celebrity, and on the surface, this seems like a logical choice of action. She's an attractive, political unknown to most of the world (I, not to toot my own horn, actually predicted she'd be the VP nominee), and is poised to become the first female Vice President.
Though the Palin announcement could still go either way, the reality is that Obama should be nervous. This woman adds something to McCain's camp that had been sorely lacking-excitement. Quite frankly, people could have given a damn about McCain running for President. He was just another of a long line of conservative white males running under the Republican banner. But Palin-there's excitement: a new face, a mother of five, and there's the fact that 18 million people nearly cracked an impossibly high ceiling in the last year, and Palin is going to benefit.
Obama's choice of Joe Biden, on the other hand, makes sense in January 2009. Joe Biden is ready to be President if need be, and works well with Obama. However, he does nothing to add for the next couple of months to get Obama to the White House. Obama had a chance to sew this thing up with a Hillary selection, and he turned it down. Democrats could have coasted for the next couple of months if he'd drafted the Clintons, but he didn't, and as a result we risk a McCain presidency.
While Obama still does well nationally, McCain has slowly but steadily been locking down swing states-Florida, Ohio, and even more frightening, Pennsylvania. Hillary would have stopped that momentum, but Biden won't. Plus, the Democratic Convention is going to receive no bounce-a first for the Democrats. It's starting to look like Obama's campaign, which was always going to be an uphill campaign, isn't climbing fast enough, and now McCain has the big mo.
So, bravo, Sen. McCain, on the smartest pick you could have made here. Let's just hope it isn't enough. And let's hope that Obama starts hitting back.
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