I’m amazed at how shallow and unthinking people can be, and yesterday’s VP announcement by John McCain demonstated it pretty well to me.

I was at work and had the news on when the announcement came accross and within an hour or two at least three people walked in to our lab and said that they were Hillary supporters but now that McCain had selected a woman they were leaning towards McCain.  Two of the folks who said this were women and one was a man.  I can only assume that these folks felt this way because they hadn’t thought anything through because voting for McCain/Palin when you were a Clinton support makes no sense.

If you look at Palin’s experience and her stance on every major issue, the only thing that Gov Palin brings to the ticket that would appeal to Hillary Clinton supporters is a skirt.  Pretty much everything that Gov Palin stands for is diametrically opposite what Hillary Clinton stands for.

I applaud John McCain for selecting a woman, honestly I think it was a bold proactive statement and if nothing else guaranteed that this election was going to lead to either an African-American an a woman elected to the highest US Political office ever.  History is made at every election, but McCain’s selection has guaranteed that this election will have a legacy all it’s own.

From the why we deserve crummy politicians department were a few of the statements I heard on MSNBC after the McCain announcement:

Much was made of the fact that Gov Palin is just a hockey mom.  Not of her politics or anything but that she’s a hockey mom.  There was at least one person that MSNBC spoke to that breathlessly gushed over how she was a hockey mom “just like her.”

Even worse, at least one person whipped out the “we think she’s somebody that we’d like to sit down and have a beer with.”  Because you know THAT reason right there, THAT’s the way to pick a political candidate.  I get that the image a canadidate projects on TV goes a long way towards the success of their campaign, but the whole beer thing - haven’t we learned our lesson on that one?  While yes, the last Presidential candidate who appealed to Americans as somebody who’d drink with them did win the election (twice) he was actually a recovering alcoholic who (in theory at least) won’t sit down to have a drink with anybody.  And I won’t even get in to his frat boy style of relationship management and leadership style.