While the Obama campaign doubtless still harbors dreams of a Montana upset, the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska should shatter them and cause them to move on to truly battleground states. We now better understand why the McCain campaign, in spite of the polls, has elected not to spend precious resources in Montana -- they have known for some time (unless Obama had surprised the world by choosing Sen. Clinton for his Veep) that the presence of Gov. Sarah Palin on the ticket would seal the deal in Montana.
Gov. Palin is from the northwest, hunts moose, yet probably knows better than to carry live ammunition around in her pocket as an attention-getting prop, has a husband who is a member of a steelworkers' union, hates pork-barrel spending, loves developing natural energy resources (i.e. oil) in an environmentally-sensitive way (and unlike our own governor, actually got infinitely more done in less than half the time,) and is in general a libertarian-minded conservative with a soft touch.
All we have to do is get Palin to Montana a time or two, and this state will be out-of-reach for Obama. She probably doesn't even need to show up. Although we want her to!
Yes, we realize that there are those who are concerned about putting a first-term governor "a heartbeat away from the Oval Office." And yet Dems. had serious talk about Gov. Kaine of Virginia, and even the Montana governor (first-termers, both) as legitimate VP contenders. Is the problem that Palin is a woman, while they are men? (We saw that ugly sexism rearing its head in the Obama campaign against Hillary, and it came pretty naturally to them, much to the dismay of many women.)
But more to the point, if one wants to fault McCain for choosing to put a first-term governor in the backup slot, then what on earth are we to think about the Dems putting someone of Obama's paper-thin qualifications in their first position? The election of McCain-Palin would indeed raise the theoretical possibility of McCain dying shortly after arriving in office, and having a relatively inexperienced person rise to the Presidency.
The election of Obama-Biden would bring the certainty of an immediate elevation to the Presidency of a man with neither the executive experience that Gov. Palin has nor the real Senate experience that McCain has (and, to be fair, that Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and even Mike Gravel had.) It will make certain putting a man into the Oval Office who won an essentially uncontested U.S. Senate election in an overwhelmingly blue state less than 4 years ago -- and who has spent all of those last 4 years running for President rather than tending to the business of learning how to be a good Senator.
As Kirsten Powers notes regarding those who are shrieking about McCain choosing a running mate who has been governor for two years:
Where were they when Obama, two years into the Senate, announced his candidacy for president?
Indeed. If we are to fear inexperience, then we should run, screaming in terror, from the thought of an Obama presidency. Obama's election would mean the election of a man who has neither extensive Washington experience as a Senator (such as McCain has) has nor executive experience at the state level (such as Palin has.)
This whole "experience" thing that Democrats are desperately trying to make stick will only backfire, since ultimately, people vote for the top of the ticket -- the more the Obama team highlights the issue of experience, the worse it is for them.
We believe that Montanans will take to heart the words of Sen. Hillary Clinton herself, waxing eloquent, " I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
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Addendum: For those who haven't gotten enough of photos of Gov. Palin and her beautiful family, click through the Post's photo gallery.
