McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate has already had a number of effects on the campaign.

• Mainly, I won't need to be stinking drunk to pull the lever for McCain.
• The base, which has been pretty cheesed off at McCain, is now enthused.
• Donations in the 24 hours after Palin joined the ticket exceeded seven million dollars. In one day. Seven.  Million.  Dollars. That includes the contribution I made. I never thought I'd give a dime.
• Early results indicate a dampening of Obama's expected post-convention bounce in the polls.

There are losers a-plenty after this.

• Hillary!, who wasn't even vetted by the Obama campaign, and who, if either Obama or McCain win two terms, will be 70 years old come Election Day 2016. She's hard enough to look at now; eight more years won't do her any favors.
• Joe "his mouth runneth over" Biden. He's about to have his ass handed to him by a woman who was in grade school when he first went to the Senate.
• Mitt Romney. I actually feel a bit sorry for the guy, but he still has a future in politics, or in any other endeavor he chooses. He's a remarkable guy; any Republican who can win a race in Massachussetts can probably take care of himself.

However, the biggest loser to come out of the Palin candidacy is none other than our former North Carolina senator, John Edwards.

• He can no longer claim to be the prettiest VP candidate in our history.
• In fact, he was never the prettiest — that honor used to go to Garret Hobart. Just try to tell me I'm wrong.
• He can, however, still claim to have the poofiest hair of any VP candidate.
• That claim, though, would also be inaccurate. The honors go to Richard M. Johnson.

One claim he can make, accurately, would be to having the thinnest resumé of any VP candidate in recent history. Six years as our NC junior senator, with one of the highest absenteeism rates ever recorded, is nothing compared to Palin's record of leadership and accomplishment.

He certainly was of no help to the Kerry '04 campaign, which won neither Edwards' adopted home state of North Carolina, nor his actual home state, South Carolina. Not so much "favorite son" as "favorite SOB."

Plus, of course, had he not been the VP candidate, polling indicated that he would almost certainly have lost a 2004 senatorial reelection bid.

But I don't think he's quite dumb enough to brag about any of that.

Yaaarrrr.... it's the Pirate's Cove linkfest.

Posted by Russ at 09:05 AM, August 31, 2008 in Politics