John McCain (and his associated policies, beliefs and inclinations) is running for President against Barack Obama (and his associated policies, beliefs and inclinations). The person we should elect is the one who is "best" in two areas... the known and the unknown.
On the known side we have things like the economy, health care, energy and the environment and the unknown side we have things like foreign policy (the big events and concerns) and domestic disasters.
When I look at the known issues, I think Obama to be the candidate with the much more detailed plans and when I look at the unknown, I'm also much more comfortable with Obama due to his very measured approach (which I don't think McCain as a noted "Hawk" shares).
It appears that the McCain camp appears to also feel their candidate would come out on the losing side should the race be solely about the issues, hence the entrance of "personality"... defined by Sarah Palin (and all of the fictitious slights against her allegedly perpetuated by the Obama camp and members of the media).
There's a fascinating article from the San Francisco Chronicle titled "About Sarah Palin" which both prints and goes into depth about an extremely detailed e-mail written about Palin by a fellow Wasilla resident. My feeling about Palin after reading it is close to what it was before... she seems to have a very good political sense for backing the positions that will be popular and... she is in no way shape or form qualified to be President as soon as this coming January.
I touched on this pick a bit in a prior post about McCain (and of course not at all in a post focused on Obama), but my feeling is that Palin is both not qualified and should not be a relevant asset to McCain's campaign.
When people vote for the Presidency, they are voting for who they feel will be the best in that position (again, best being defined by how they would be in the known and unknown). They (hopefully) are not voting for the personality brought in by the VP candidate.
Hopefully the Obama camp can help steer the conversation in this very important direction. If not, I'm concerned.
