With his campaign sagging, John McCain made the bold choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin, a pretty, new face on the GOP scene, soon stole the show and was the focus of media attention for two months, exciting conservatives and late night comics. First, we learned about Palin’s unwed, pregnant teenage daughter, Bristol. Then Palin seemed to lack knowledge of world issues as we learned that she only recently applied for her first passport, had never met a foreign leader, and was seen in strange YouTube videos in her Pentacostal church. She muffed TV interviews and was ridiculed on Saturday Night Live as she cited her foreign policy experience as “you can see Russia from Alaska.” Palin was a hit at the convention, with a joke:
When Obama made a reference to “lipstick on a pig” the Republicans feigned outrage that Obama would call Palin a “pig.” We learned that the GOP spent $150,000 on clothes for Palin and her children. Palin was dogged by a scandal in Alaska,“Troopergate,” where she fired an official who wouldn’t fire her ex-brother-in-law, who was involved in a messy divorce with her sister. After the election, a McCain staffer described the Palins as “Alaska hillbillies.” With Palin’s crazy family and one gaffe after another, she was a treasure for cartoonists.
