Who?

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP clearly indicates a desire to gain the vote of my friend Java, who grew up in Alaska and who worked on a commercial fishing boat for two summers (Palin's husband is/was a commercial fisherman). I think that's really the only vote he was looking to pick up here.

That's not true, of course. McCain clearly wanted to accomplish three things with this pick: First, mollify the right. Palin (reportedly) has solid conservative credentials, both socially and economically. Second, he wanted to cement his own position as a maverick. Palin is definitely a non-traditional pick that gives the Republican ticket its own claim on history (but only if they win). Third, McCain wanted to go after disgruntled Hilary voters. Pawlently and Romney don't help McCain with two of those three.

It's a risky move. McCain has essentially sacrificed his ability to make the experience argument against Obama by nominating someone who's younger and has less foreign policy experience. She could get destroyed by Biden in the debates. And I don't buy the argument I heard on CNN about injecting energy and excitement into the convention next week. Curiosity I buy, but not excitement. She's also under investigation for the firing of an official who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. I have to assume that the McCain vetters looked into that enough to be satisfied that there's nothing actionable there, but the possibility remains of the press corps digging up something on her.

It could pay off, of course. It gives the ticket more outside-the-beltway cred to push the change message, and after watching her speech this morning it's obvious the campaign was looking for her to play the family card. It's kind of funny (but makes a certain amount of sense) that the candidates essentially picked their own party's version of their opponents as running mates.

Overall it seems like McCain has decided the experience argument wouldn't work, and has decided to change the game a bit. Whether or not it works depends on how effective Palin is at bringing in the support McCain needs from her.