The "Maverick"

Piece on Huffington Post about McCain's selection of Sarah "One-Heartbeat-Away" Palin:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-bergthold/the-vp-choice-that-lost-t_b_122381.html

The piece, by Linda Bergthold, focuses on just how incredibly cynical this selection was.

McCain campaign (to the PUMAs): Oh, disillusioned and confused Hillary supporters, don't fret. Want a women on the ticket? No prob!! Coming up, one laughably inexperienced, rabidly anti-choice and otherwise hyper-conservative trophy VP candidate. That her policy positions resemble Clinton's, uh, not at all, shouldn't be an issue...should it?

I loved this dig at McCain's carefully cultivated maverick image (cuts both ways?) by a commenter named chinshihtang:

"For McCain, it is a crazy risk, and it totally undermines two areas where he had made substantial progress in recent weeks: 1) moderates of all stripes; and 2) national security voters. I have great respect for group 2)--it is the way people should evaluate Presidential candidates. This pick shows that McCain is a maverick, indeed, in the sense of the old TV show--a riverboat gambler..." (my emphasis).

Should be fun to watch this one play out over the next few days (although it's annoying how, predictbaly, 100% of media attention has been diverted from an overall succesful DNC).