Alaska?

Via Jake Tapper at Political Punch, I came across this hilarious little ditty from, well, Diddy! Diddy certainly has a unique presentation for his vlog (isn't he dizzy spinning around like that!?!) but he actually hits a number of salient points. Look, I've never been to Alaska. However, the pictures I've seen of it are spectacular. I'm sure Alaska is an absolutely lovely state and an amazing place to call your home. That being said, does the governor of Alaska really have a good grip of the complex social issues that ordinary Americans deal with on a regular basis? Diddy is right to ask, are there any black people in Alaska? Now, I'm sure there are, and it shold be noted that Alaska has a history of racial conflict between whites and Native Americans. However, Sarah Palin just does not look like a woman that would be comfortable campaigning in Detroit or Philadelphia.

Michael Tomasky's excellent post on Palin directed me to this revealing article by the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller. It turns out that Palin essentially was not vetted at all. McCain really wanted either Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge but his aides shot them down because they were pro-choice. A pro-choice running mate would be DOA on the convention floor. So in recognition that he wouldn't get what he wanted, he shot from the hip and picked Sarah Palin. My theory behind this is that the McCain campaign thinks that women are stupid. No really, that's my theory. Let me elaborate. I'm theorizing that McCain is betting everything on disaffected Hillary voters. Without carefully thinking it through, McCain believes that if he puts a woman on the GOP ticket as his running mate, women won't be able to help themselves and they'll vote for him. Why else would Sarah Palin be praising Hillary Clinton with every opportunity? Also, this prevents the Democrats from monopolizing the "history making" market, by having a woman on the ticket. Nevermind the fact that Palin's beliefs are completely anithetical to those of most of Hillary Clinton's supporters. Palin believes that Creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools and she opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest. In other words, McCain thinks women, and Hillary Clinton supporters in particular, are stupid.