Today John McCain surprised the pundit panoply by announcing Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Odds on favorite for the Vice Presidential nod was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty along with a bevy of failed contenders from the Republican primary. McCain’s choice of Palin was such a surprise that the NPR correspondents covering the topic today were audibly astounded, sputtering their surprise that the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population: 8,471) would even be considered; I think they hoped that John McCain was just joshin’ around and would let the country in on his little joke after a couple hours. Sorry, but McCain only jokes around about his age and bombing Iran.

Who is Sarah Palin and how does she benefit John McCain’s presidential campaign? These questions are intertwined and so I’ll discuss them in tandem.

1) Sarah Palin is a woman. Voters tend to pull the lever for the candidate with whom they most identify and more than half of those voters are women. Palin’s selection is a transparent bid for female voters who supported Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary. The political buzz during the Democratic National Convention centered on the unknown numbers of Hillary fans who had yet to succumb to Obamamania. Sarah Palin gave a shoutout to those undecided voters by honoring Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton during her acceptance speech. Even if you don’t end up voting for her, how can you help but respect a woman who rides snowmobiles, hunts moose, shoots assault rifles, marries a semi-professional snowmobile racer, raises five children, oh and governs Alaska in her spare time?

2) Sarah Palin’s candidacy was designed to upstage Barack Obama. The news cycle is king in politics (read George Stephanopoulos’s All Too Human sometime). Barack Obama gave an excellent speech in Denver Friday night and the Saturday morning news gave him full coverage. But after only 12 hours of headlines, “Barack Obama Gives Historic Acceptance Speech” gave way to “John McCain Surprises With Alaskan Hockey Mom.” The political wonks have enough new material for discussion to carry them into the Republican National Convention next week. If McCain had chosen a safe candidate like Pawlenty or Romney no one would have been surprised and most of the upstage value would have been lost.

The Obama campaign wanted Americans to connect Obama’s speech at the DNC with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech 45 years before. Obama had received the Civil Rights mantle. So the McCain campaign calls the opening bid and ups the ante by presenting Sarah Palin close to the anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Adding insult to injury, Palin ended her speech co-opting Obama’s slogan: 

If you want change in Washington, if you hope for a better America, then we’re asking for your vote on the 4th of November.

3) Sarah Palin reinforces John McCain’s maverick image. McCain is famous, or infamous depending on your perspective, for bucking the Republican establishment on everything from immigration to campaign finance reform. Palin has caused great consternation among the incumbent Republican legislators in Alaska. She pushed ethics reform and turned whistle-blower on Republican colleagues. She draws a favorable contrast to Obama who ascended the political ladder under the auspices of the Chicago Democratic political machine.

4) Palin’s selection energizes the conservative base. Many leading conservative lights had backed Mitt Romney in the Republican primary and have nursed sore feelings and misgivings ever since McCain’s victory. But the some of the same Republicans who actively opposed McCain, and even proposed voting for Hillary Clinton instead, have found themselves newly excited by a McCain-Palin ticket. She is a social conservative and an evangelical (she used Biblical phraseology during her speech when talking about “blessings” and having “a servant’s heart.”). Conservatives who had been concerned that McCain would choose a pro-choice Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman are relieved. Now James Dobson is on board and even Rush Limbaugh exults over having a conservative “babe on the ticket.”

5) Sarah Palin could energize independent voters. She mentioned in her speech that she took on big oil and special interests in Alaska, populist rhetoric that plays well among independents. She is a former union member herself and is married to a current United Steelworker, perhaps another appeal to working clas Reagan Democrats. 

The buzz about Palin is not all positive. Democrats were quick to pounce on her inexperience. The argument goes like this: “You accuse Barack of being inexperienced because he has only served in the Senate for four years, but then you nominate a candidate who was the mayor of Nowhere, Alaska just two years ago!” I’m sure the McCain campaign is hedging on his surplus of experience to make up for her lack. Still it is worth noting that Palin is the only one of the four campaigners to have any executive experience since McCain, Biden, and Obama are all legislators!

There is also an ongoing investigation of Palin possibly misusing her powers as Governor to fire someone for not firing her brother-in-law. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but I’m sure Democratic operatives will make this a talking point on the Sunday morning news shows.

Now that McCain has already made his choice for VP this weekend how will he be able to keep people interested in the upcoming Republican National Convention? On the first night of the convention former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman will mount the platform and warmly endorse John McCain for President. Three nights later John McCain should stand before his supporters and declare an end to partisan politics by announcing that Joe Lieberman will be the next Secretary of State.