Palin pick helps McCain

The thesis of the latest Russ Stewart column. Some of what he said well is likely common knowledge these days (see my earlier post on this subject here). I'm referring to how a presidential nominee chooses his/her running mate.

The pundits will spend a lot of time haggling over experience. Unfortunately politics trumps history more and in the history of the Presidency there are some Presidents who succeeded to the office who didn't belong there. One example would be Andrew Johnson who succeeded President Lincoln. His selection was purely about politics, but I could have only wondered if anyone could have foreseen Lincoln's untimely demise.

I like what he said about Palin:

The current knock on Palin is that she is inexperienced. She doesn't have the resume of Biden, Cheney, Gore, Kemp, Lieberman, Mondale, Dole, Muskie, Humphrey, Johnson, Lodge or Nixon.

She has been governor of Alaska since January of 2007, and she was the mayor of Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage, for 6 years, and a city council member for 4 years. That gives her just shy of 8 years of administrative experience and 4 years of legislative experience. That's more than Agnew, who was the governor of Maryland for 2 years and a county executive for 4 years. That's more than John Edwards (2004), who was a senator for 6 years. That's more than Sargent Shriver (1972), who was the Peace Corps director and the ambassador to France.

His basic conclusion he reaches is that this election features two astute and calculating VP nominees and that the outcome will show which selection was the shrewdest.