Ms. Alaska, ready for the big job?

John McCain announced yesterday his choice of Alaska's Governor, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. Really, though, the surprising choice of a woman with about 20 months of gubernatorial experience and a few years under her belt as mayor of Wasilia (pop. 7,000), not to mention her distinguished reign as Ms. Wasilia in the mid-1980s, is entirely within character for Senator McCain, who hates to be anywhere without a good-looking (or rich) woman on his arm.

I, for one, think that Ms. Palin will make an excellent running mate for the gentleman from Arizona. After all, she's a wonderful conservative who understands how the needs of her 4 month-old Down's syndrome baby will be best served by a run for the vice-presidency. She rightly sees no conflict of interest in appointing former oil lobbyists like TransCanada's Mary Rutherford to be Deputy Commissioner of Natural Resources, especially when her biggest piece of legislation is a $500 million oil pipeline to the lower 48. And like all Republicans hoping for national office, she is not above abusing her powers for good, which makes it all the more unfair that Mrs. Palin is currently under investigation for attempting to fire her sister's husband, a state trooper, while the pair were in divorce proceedings.

Yes, Sarah Palin represents a change from the usual Republican model of governance. She opposes earmarks and federal pork so much that, as mayor of Wasilia, she began making yearly trips to Washington to get a piece of the action that brought a $400 million Bridge to Nowhere to the city of Ketchikan. Certainly, she is popular, something Republicans have been looking for since 2005. A recent poll shows that Governor Palin has an 80% approval rating in Alaska. But then, Rasputin could get poll numbers that high if he'd managed to rangle $1,200 checks for each Russian household out of an oil contract renegotiation.

One of the best parts of Governor Palin's appeal to conservatives is her family. Like all real Americans, Mr. Palin is a champion snowmobile racer with a fishing business and a job at British Petroleum. That job poses no ethical issues for the governor because it isn't in management. Sure. But enough about him. The former Ms. Wasilia has five children; my two favorites are the two sons who have nice, wholesome, American names, not like the foreign-sounding, celebrity-ish Malia and Sasha. I mean, of course, Track and Trig Palin. It takes a real commitment to education to name your children after an after-school activity and a branch of mathematics. I plan to do the same with my future sons, Al-Gebra and Javelin.

As president of the Wasilia PTA, I'm sure that Mrs. Palin gained the kind of experience it takes to lead the country in times of war and natural disaster; certainly she must at least know how to deal with blizzards. Between that, and her stint as governor in a state with fewer citizens than South Dakota (and the territory of Puerto Rico), it's clear that Sarah Palin will have the experience necessary to act as an emissary of American interests around the world, even in places like Russia, where she and Mr. Putin will no doubt find common ground as they commiserate about the cold things found in Russia and its former North American territory and laugh about all the fun you can have with oil kickbacks.

Some people might think that this choice undercuts John McThuselah's efforts to paint his opponent as an inexperienced political dilettante. After all, Governor Palin is exactly that. I think the Arizona Senator is worried that people might see him as TOO experienced for the job. Taking that into consideration, putting a novice just one heartbeat from the presidency is a brilliant move by a candidate who would be the oldest person ever elected to the office. It's just another example of the political savvy that led the McCain campaign into bankruptcy last summer.

Now let's not forget that Sarah Palin brings something to the table besides her good looks and only slightly tarnished reputation: Governor Palin is a woman! That's right, John McCain respects women so much that he's asked a political whippersnapper to be his running mate assuming, of course, that she will be too overwhelmed to defy him. Certainly this will bring legions of women, disaffected by Hillary Clinton's defeat, into the ranks of Republican voters this year. Because a "gun-toting, hockey playing" former beauty queen opponent of abortion rights is exactly the person Hillary supporters want to see in the White House. John McCain seems to think that those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling were about the fact that a woman was running for president. They weren't. Those votes were about Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is a woman with unparalleled experience in politics who would make an excellent president. There is zero common ground between her and Governor Palin. Sure, millions of women are disappointed that Senator Clinton lost. That doesn't mean they'll vote Republican now that John McThuselah has been spotted with the young starlet Ms. Wasilia.

Senator McCain is clever. The machinations that led to this choice show a spark of ingenuity. But Senator McCain cannot seem to think things through. Otherwise, he wouldn't have shot himself in the foot by choosing the weakest running mate since Dan Quayle, who reminded us that "one word sums up the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'." Sarah Palin is not prepared to lead this country, not at all. But given McCain's age, she may have to do just that.