Quick notes on Palin

Sorry to my readers, if there are indeed still readers, for being so remiss about updates. Just got back from traveling in Croatia, and will resume daily updates.

Just wanted to highlight a couple points about Palin, some of which ratify the core contentions of BerlinerBlog:

- she is a marathon runner

- she is rabidly pro-life but somewhat gay-friendly, giving the lie to the phony notion of "culture wars". Republican hostility to gays will continue to recede with the next generation of conservatives (young evangelicals are far more homophilic than their parents), but the abortion issue isn't going anywhere

- she isn't really that much of a surpise: she's been on the shortlist all along, and I've been saying for weeks that she was arguably the strongest choice on the list. Miles ahead of the radically unpleasant Carly Fiorina.

- her children are named Track, Willow, Bristol, Piper, and Trig Paxson Van.

- there are real dangers for the Obama campaign in criticizing her inexperience. It's tempting to use Palin to neutralize McCain's argument about Obama's inexperience, but it will take a lot of political art to make this line work without inviting unflattering comparisons to Obama.

- Palin is sexy, and this is a liability for her. Like Obama, she is not simply young, she carries with her a whiff of sexuality. It will look awkward for McCain--a man who left his first wife for a much younger woman--to be on the trail, arm in arm, with a MILF.

- the "pre-packaged scandal" that comes with Palin won't hurt her. Palin seems to have gotten her sister's ex-husband fired from some government job. Nobody will care, particularly since the guy sounds like an asshole.

- in the end--it really is true--no one votes for VP. Palin is a strong pick for McCain, I think, but not one that really 'changes the game' in any significant way.