Democrats Should Keep a Low Profile Around Governor Palin

John McCain has made a surprising choice for his running mate; in so doing he eliminated one of his primary arguments against the Democrats, has managed to lose any chance of picking up votes from disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters and may well have eliminated his chances to be the 44^th president of the United States. It has been a test of the greatest creativity among the GOP stalwarts to dream up reasons why the Alaska Governor should be taken seriously.

In the face of all that, Democrats should simply shut up and allow the absurdity of Governor Palin as a serious "next in line to be president" after a cancer survivor in his 70's sink in.

Let's get a few things out of the way. Just a short month or so ago, the Alaska Governor acknowledged that her familiarity with her proposed job was sparse:

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?"

Governor's foreign policy experience has been summed us, believe it or not, as resulting from Russia's proximity to Alaska; her military experience, it is said, flows from her position as Commander of the Alaska National Guard. Next to her, Senators Obama and Biden, are combinations of U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, George Washington, and so forth and so on! Osama bin Ladin must be shaking in his sandals.

Senator McCain, in the words of Mike Allen in Politico.com, suggests that the selection of Governor Palin shows the Senator has a humorous side:

Senator McCain is asking voters to assume he was just kidding about a basic premise of his campaign, both in the primaries and the general -- that national-security experience matters when the country is at war.

True, Governor Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population of about six or seven thousand. The mayor's official duties are rather limited. According to the Municipal Code of the city, the Mayor's principal duties are to

1. Preside at council meetings. The mayor may take part in the discussion of matters before the council, but may not vote, except that the mayor may vote in the case of a tie;

2. Act as ceremonial head of the city;

3. Sign documents on behalf of the city.

The choice is surprising for another reason. The evangelical social conservatives which make up the McCain base had nowhere to go other than to the Arizona Senator. That base may have been unhappy, but it was certainly not voting Democratic. In choosing a person who is stridently anti-abortion with exceptions for saving the pregnant woman's life, believes that creationism should be taught in the public schools, dismisses man-influenced global warming as a myth,

Senator McCain solidified his support from the base that wasn't going anywhere.

Alaska GOP leaders are no less critical of their Governor and her sketchy background. According to the Anchorage Daily News: State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her the news.

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Green, who has feuded with Palin, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that's far from guaranteed.

House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez, was also astonished at the news. He didn't want to get into the issue of her qualifications.

"She's old enough," Harris said. "She's a U.S. citizen."

Now back to the desire to pick up Hillary Clinton's 18 million supporters. Michelle Cottle, writing in the New Republic, remarks:

"We're all assuming that McCain picked Palin in an attempt to exacerbate friction between Obama and all those heart-broken Hillary dead-enders--maybe even picking off a few thousand of the really bitter gals looking for any excuse to vote against O.

So maybe Team Obama should go on the offensive, having some of its female surrogates express their disgust and dismay that McCain apparently considers women candidates to be interchangeable, regardless of their experience or policy views. (This was, after all, a common gripe among Hillary voters whenever it was suggested that Obama might tap Kathleen Sebelius as his number 2.)

"EMILY's list has already hinted in this direction with its dispatch on Palin, which concludes: "McCain clearly sees the power of women voters in this election but has just as clearly failed to support any of the issues that they care about. His choice for vice president only reinforces that failure."

"But one could, if so inclined, get much more pointed, along the lines of: How insulting, how condescending, how downright patronizing of Senator McCain to attempt such ham-fisted identity politics. Does he really think women are so pathetic, so irrational, so weak-minded that a former supporter of the proudly pro-choice, feminist, progressive, grand and glorious Senator Clinton will now look at this staunchly conservative, possibly promising but currently totally unqualified woman from Alaska and think, She was born with ovaries! I was born with ovaries! Hell yeah! You go girl!"

Any woman who seriously supported Hillary in this race should be embarrassed by McCain's pick

Having said all of that, the Democrats need to tread very gently. One of the sillier, but more effective, attacks by Republicans is that Senator Obama is an elitist and somehow "different" An overly harsh attack on a woman would gain her sympathy. In 2000, Democrats patronized and ridiculed Bush. Karl Rove went to the bars and told the "Regular Guys those Democrat elitists are attacking a guy who can't speak well - he's a regular guy just like you - wouldn't you want to have a beer with him?

If you criticize Governor Palin too harshly, Democrats would be accused of attacking mom of five, a former union worker: wouldn't you let her watch your kids? There would be more press about the Down's syndrome of her youngest child, her baking of cookies and nothing of the ongoing police scandal in which she is involved.

It would be far easier and cleaner and less dangerous to smile, gently point out her policy positions and allow the American people to come to the obvious: the GOP choice of the Governor of Alaska to be the Vice-President nominee was an absurd and cynical and destructive decision.