Has anyone considered that this may be a 'just testing the waters' type selection rather like Harriet Miers?

Or a quasi-prank?

I have long thought that Harriet Miers selection was tossed out to get everyone to grow tired of shouting "Boo" and then slip in someone noticeably less desirable but more acceptable to the political insiders. Sort of a 'lets pull a funny one on the girls' type of good-ol-boy joke.

People, people. She is not the candidate. She is not even the nominee yet.

Listening to her speech "Harriet Miers" was the phrase that kept popping up in my mind.

(For what it's worth, I am female.)

Ditto here--it was the first thought I had, too, and I posted it somewhere on here in reply to someone else. Palin's supposed to be McCain's sleight of hand to women---"Eh? Eh? Watch me produce a woman with my right hand! Disregard my left one, which vetoes legislation to benefit you!" Instead, she ends up, to me, as his slight to women. I'm not a Republican, but I know there were other Repub women he could have chosen instead of her. I wonder if he really thought it out before he asked her.

It is certainly true that Palin is as qualified to be VP as Miers was to be a Supreme Court Justice.

However, in that instance, there was an external confirmation process that gave Bush time to see how Miers was being received, and how she would handle the scrutiny.. (not well).. and then replace her as needed without losing the option of being the one to make the selection.

McCain has no such opportunity. If Palin performs as badly on the trail as she has so far in her national interviews and speeches, the Republicans will be stuck with that particular albatross all the way until Obama is sworn in.

Ed Rollins called it a 'brilliant, but risky, move'. Nothing risky is also brilliant, unless you knew in advance it was going to work, in which case it only appeared to be risky..

This was risky, and desperate. It's up to Palin to make it brilliant.

I agree with part of what you wrote.

You can't really take back the VP slot once you announce it. It would be a major disaster and only justified if not doing so would be an even worse one. In that case, it is unlikely to matter (probably losing the election either way).

The only reason I don't think it was brilliant is that picking a woman was obvious. It was certainly desperate, but it significantly raises McCain's chances of winning. To my mind, that gives it a degree if brilliance. This particular woman? Pluses and minuses. It is one thing to have a lightweight VP if no one seriously thinks you might die, but... it is also bad if one of your key points is "the other guy lacks experience."

To my mind, this simply comes down to what McCain HAD to do to win... Too obvious to be brilliant. Risky and desperate, but the situation was desperate already...

I always kinda thought the Bushies sent out Harriet Miers so that when congress rejected her their next appointee would look more appealing, even if they had a conservative bent. Or is that giving Bush too much credit? Anyway, Palin certainly wouldn't fit that mold.

I thought immediately that Palin was the new Clarence Thomas--innoculated against criticism by her gender, but actually espousing positions inimical to the constituency she seems to represent.