More reactions....
Let's start with Ambinder, who is as always doing some real reporting:
I cannot overestimate the degree to which Republican political strategists were stunned by the pick.
A few I spoke with or e-mailed were optimistic, using phrases like "brilliant" and "game-changing." One GOP strategist who has worked with Palin says she's coated with Teflon -- "attack at your peril." She "renews McCain's maverick credentials." One person close to Romney said she "looks like a real reformer. She's done what Obama's talked about."A few are cautiously optimistic that it'll turn out OK, but most of the strategists and consultants I've spoken to, e-mailed with, or read/watched are struggling with it. They expect her to have a good week... and then to crash and burn when she hits the campaign trail as scrutiny catches up with her.
That is exactly, precisely right. She may do great in the short term, but who cares? The election isn't until November.
And it's not just Republican political strategists who don't know her. Even McCain and his people have no idea who she is:
Gotta disagree with Chuck Todd on this one. As I was explaining to the guy sitting next to me on the plane today, Cheney changed the way people in the country see the VP. I don't care what the old rules were for this, because thanks to him they just don't apply anymore.
More from Sullivan:
John McCain first met Palin in February of this year and had a telephone conversation with her. That is the full extent of his familiarity with Palin until he spent time with her last week. That's how seriously he is taking the presidency of the United States. It's simply unbelievable recklessness. It's Bush-level recklessness.
Putting country first? This is a reckless act of egotism and politics. The more you think about it, and the more you consider how many charges he has leveled against Obama's alleged inexperience in a time of peril, the more outrageous it is that she he picks an unknown local politician he has only met once before to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.Palin isn't the issue here. McCain's judgment is. It's completely off the wall. Is there something wrong with him?
He's on a roll, here. More Sullivan:
So one tenth of her campaign financing in 2002 was from oil company bosses, she's being investigated by her own legislature for a scandal where she appointed a sexual harasser, she vetoed wind and clean coal energy projects, and wanted to impose Christianist censorship on public libraries. I mean: did anyone even vet her?
Meanwhile, Steven Benen catches her first flub:
Palin's speech was rather routine, but there was a paragraph that stood out for me:
"...I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress -- I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves."The McCain campaign has been flagging this pretty aggressively this afternoon. It's a shame, then, that Palin wasn't exactly telling the truth. As TNR's Brad Plumer explained, Palin actually supported the funding for the much-derided bridge project.
That's not a good start for her very first public appearance as the Republicans' VP candidate.
I'd add, by the way, that her reference to earmark spending is itself problematic. For all of McCain's alleged disgust for pork, Palin's Alaska receives more earmarks than any other state.
And as it turns out, she even kept the money and spent it on something else. How's that for your opposition to earmarks.
Another fun fact: Not only does she support Obama's windfall profits tax proposal, she's already enacted it in Alaska!
More as it comes in...
