The Time of the Sexy Librarian

I mean, look at her. She would definitely be a VPILF.

Yesterday I compared Sarah Palin to Dan Quaye and Spiro Agnew, and the more I think about this the more I realize that that is exactly what she is. She is not there to steal the PUMAs or some of Barack's younger voters. She may be able to do that--a few former Hilary supporters have come out saying that they are voting for McCain because of Palin. But the real reason she is there is for the Republican's conservative base.

She really is Dan Quayle. Quayle was put on the ticket with Bush 41 because he was a darling of the conservatives, who didn't really trust George HW Bush and were not expected to back him in droves they way they had the republican in the previous two elections. Sound familiar? Similarly, Agnew was put on the ticket to shore up conservative support for Nixon (who is still referred to as "the last liberal president"). In both cases they were little known outside conservative circles but hugely popular within them and they were easy to ridicule among liberals. Sound familliar? Oh yeah: in both cases it worked. They got the conservatives on board and they got Bush and Nixon elected. John McCain may have made an historic pic for VP, but it was also with a good sense of history.

Sarah Palin is absolutely adored by conservatives. Talk Radio has been touting her as THE rising star of the conservative movement for months now. She is not just pro life, anti gay, and prof family, but rabidly so, out there with James Dobson. She has a son who is about to ship out to Iraq (though so does Biden, so that may be moot). She wants to drill in Anwar. She is a hard-core member of the NRA (ok, she gets props from me for that). The fact that she is a relatrively young and beautifl woman is only a very nice fringe benefit (and what does it say about John McCain that both his wife and his runningmate are former beauty queens?).

One of Obama's big hopes was that Conservatives would be tepid toward McCain and stay home from the polls. Fat chance. The conservatives will come out in droves to support McCain now. They will open up their checkbooks, man the phones, hit the streets, and drive the little old ladies to the polls. McCain's organization just doubled in size and his fundraising probably went up by 50%. And a lot of those conservatives will be doing this in the hopes that McCain will die in office (let's face it, a real possibility), and that their darling will become the new George W. Bush: an inexperienced, extremely popular governor who is a staunch conservative, who will enact faith-based policies at home and abroad, and who will appoint enough strict constructionists to the bench to finally get rid of row v. wade.

And wouldn't it be ironic if, after all Hilary Clinton went through these past two years, this shameless ploy worked, McCain were to die, and the first woman to be president of the United States turned out to be this republican barbie doll with no experience, no credentials, and a virulent anti-female record?