Country First?

John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate calls his judgment into serious question.

Let’s start off by stipulating, as Barack Obama has, that family issues like her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy and her decision to give birth to a Down syndrome baby are personal and should not be open to analysis.

And too much is often made of vice president choices. You have to go back to 1960, when JFK’s pick of LBJ provided the margin of victory by bringing along Texas (that and the shenanigans in Illinois allegedly employed at the behest of the elder Richard Daley). More often, even the lamest picks seem to have little effect on the outcome of the election (think Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle).

But with both candidates competing for the narrow group of voters who somehow have managed to remain undecided their choices may have a more than usual effect this year.

Barack Obama’s choice of Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden leaves little to criticize. McCain backers are asserting that Biden’s long experience in Washington casts doubt on the Democratic ticket’s promise of change. But Obama has already so strongly linked his campaign to change that that dog won’t hunt. Plus Biden promises to bring valuable expertise on many issues, foreign and domestic, that can only give the Obama administration a greater chance of success.

As for McCain’s choice, what can you say? Where do you start?

He apparently wanted to choose his friend, and fellow Iraq War hawk, former Democrat and current Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut but all signs suggested that a messy floor fight, possibly even challenging McCain’s own nomination would ensue. So his fallback was to go with a “fresh face” who would appeal to the social conservative base of the party, never all that comfortable with McCain, and possibly appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters and other women.

The idea that a pro-life, pro-oil industry, pro-NRA female would win over Hillary backers implies a radical feminist demographic that defies logic. Palin’s appeal is to people who weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway.

What’s actually scary is the way this choice suggests that McCain relies on his gut instincts, a tendency that may not always lead to the best results in the Oval Office. Heck, he met Palin a mere two times.

McCain’s slogan is “Country First” but this pick seems to put electoral considerations, however bizarre, ahead of governing priorities.

Perhaps a better McCain slogan would be “WTF?”