I'm Starting to Worry About McCain

I've made no secret that I used to like McCain. In fact, early during the primary season some of my friends on Myspace began to question me about why I had Obama, Paul, and McCain as friends. Well, I hadn't made up my mind yet. I mean, I might have voted for him in 2000 if he'd run against Gore in the general election (really).

But this isn't the McCain that I saw back then; this is the McCain that I saw in primary whose campaign spiraled out of control and who didn't seem to have a handle on anything that was going on. He pulled it together then based in part on the idiocy of Guliani, the weirdness of Paul, and the...Romney-ness...of Romney. He won't have that luxury against Obama who's slooooooowly regaining some momentum.

It's starting to leak out that maybe the McCain campaign didn't vet their VP very thoroughly (how long, by the way, until "V-PILF" becomes an accepted term if McCain-Palin win the election?). I don't understand how this can happen. It's not like McCain is in the same situation Bush was in when he trotted out the vastly unqualified Hariet Myers for the SCOTUS position. Bush really had as many chances as he wanted to get someone in there; it's not like after 3 someone else gets to choose. McCain got one choice. One. And he chose Palin. There are some reasons for his choice, but haven't heard a lot of compelling ones from the McCain camp yet. They've had a long weekend to introduce her to America, and all most of us know is that she has a pregnant, unwed daughter; that she is Pro-Life and favors abstinence-only sex-ed (and we know this because her daughter--with whom I would never want to trade places and for whom I genuinely feel sympathy for her peculiar situation--is pregnant); that she was governor of Alaska for 1.5 years, was mayor of Wasilla, AK, and was involved in the PTA; that she's being investigated for alleged ethic violations; and that she's kinda purty.

There's more to know. There's much more positive to know. Where is it? Even the McCain spokespeople haven't given the media anything with which to work, and we know from the 2000 election with Al Gore that if you don't give the media something, they will make something: as James Carville once said, "if you want reporters to write about hamburger, you give them hamburger. You don't give them French fries and ice cream."

It just worries me that the McCain camp is letting news cycle after news cycle of negative stories about Palin go without providing anything positive about her. Combine that with the lack of vetting (or poor, poor decision--whichever, it doesn't matter), and it seems that maybe McCain's the only one who really cares whether he wins or not. Obviously these dickheads don't.

UPDATE: It seems McCain-Palin is getting a bit of a bump (maybe not the best word choice there) out of this pregnancy thing with the evangelical crowd, which is good for them but could not have been planned by the campaign. But there's also this: it's been alleged that Palin and her husband once belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party, which seeks a vote for the secession of Alaska from the US. That, if true, would be more important than her pregnant daughter and the seemingly-silly Troopergate. It would call into question her patriotism, which ain't good (as Obama can attest to).