Over the past few days we have been deluged with evidence that Sarah Palin was a hasty, ill-considered choice for Vice-President of the U.S.  However, it is also undeniable that she has revitalized the Republican base, a fact that is confirmed by McCain’s fundraising spike since she was named.  The rightwing evangelicals, as evidenced by James Dobson’s statement, love her.  

What Palin’s reception by the loony right means is that wedge politics have returned big-time to an election that, in spite of Republican diversionary tactics, seemed as if it might actually touch on issues of importance to the welfare of the U.S.  As the Politico observes:

The culture wars are making a sudden and unexpected encore in American politics, turning more ferocious virtually by the hour as activists on both sides of the ideological divide react to the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket.

The New York Times‘ Bob Herbert argues that the emphasis on wedge politics attendant on the choice of Palin is an effort to, in Barack Obama’s words, “make a big election be about small things”:

Here’s the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction. She’s meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign – the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign.

Palin herself is all too familiar with wedge politics. As William Yardly wrote in yesterday’s New York Times:

… Ms. Palin and her passion for Republican ideology and religious faith overtook a town known for a wide libertarian streak and for helping start the Iditarod sled dog race.

“Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” said Mr. Stein, who lost the election. “But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. …

Although it is appropriate and even necessary to make sure that people know abut Palin’s–and McCain’s–extreme positions, which the Obama campaign is not shying away from doing, a more telling way of “framing” her is to take advantage of the ways she undermines McCain’s perceived strengths, and not allow ourselves to be distracted by the personal detritus swirling in her wake.

In the past, McCain has successfully sold himself as a “maverick,” and a man of integrity.  For this election he has attempted to equate his experience to superior judgment.  Finally, he has to distance himself from the corruption of the Bush years and paint himself as a reformer.

But the Palin choice offers solid evidence that McCain lacks the requisite judgment to lead.  According to the Washington Post, Palin was very poorly vetted. Given that McCain is 72 years old with a spotty health record, the role of Vice-President is especially important.  Yet, as observed in the New York Times’ yesterday’s editorial:

If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has more independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he made a bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Further, the choice undercuts his maverick image:

Mr. McCain’s supporters are valiantly trying to argue that the selection was a bold stroke that shows their candidate is a risk-taking maverick who – we can believe – will change Washington. (Mr. Obama’s call for change – now “the change we need” – has become all the rage in St. Paul.)

To us, it says the opposite. Mr. McCain’s snap choice of Ms. Palin reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after conservative activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party if he chose who he really wanted – Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

Of course this is pandering as well as impulsive and reckless.  How’s that much-vaunted integrity looking now?

Most importantly, by now, it is widely known that Palin is not a reformer in any terms except perhaps those current in Alaska, where, we are often told,  corruption has been practiced somewhat more flagrantly than in the lower 48.  Even McCain’s campaign now realize that–which is why they are going to stonewall the troopergate investigation. The Times summarizes much of her politics-as-usual record:

Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and others also claim that Ms. Palin is a fearless reformer who is committed to fighting waste, fraud and earmarks. Ms. Palin did show courage taking on some of the Alaska Republican Party’s most sleazy politicians. But she also was an eager recipient of earmarked money as a mayor and governor.

Mayor Palin gathered up $27 million in subsidies from Washington, $15 million of it for a railroad from her town to the ski resort hometown of Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for failing to report gifts.

The Republicans are presenting Ms. Palin as a crusader against Mr. Stevens’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” The record says otherwise; she initially supported Mr. Stevens’s boondoggle, diverting the money to other projects when the bridge became a political disaster. In her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was “God’s will” that the federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants built in Alaska.

Today on Fresh Air, host Terry Gross noted that instead of plowing the tax revenue that Palin wrested from the oil companies back into Alaska’s many infrastructure needs, she returned the money to Alaskans in the form of a rebate. Couple this fact with her efforts to secure earmarks to finance those infrastructure needs, and it becomes very clear that Palin was not above using U.S. tax dollars to underwrite the rebate she gave to Alaskan citizens.  “Alaska First” is not the best motto for the United States’ Vice-President, whether she was ever a member of the Alaska Independence Party or not.

There is lots more fuel to add to the fire. Instead of harping on Palin’s daugher’s pregancy and what that may or may not mean about the candidate, we must be sure that everyone we talk to knows that the choice of Sarah Palin means McCain is more of the same. And more of the same cannot fix our infrastructure, our broken healthcare system, our educational system, our sinking economy, our tarnished international prestige, and all the evils eight years of untrammeled rightwing ideology has visited upon on us.

Never talk about Palin without talking about McCain first and foremost, and how he cannot fix what ails us.  Palin equals McCain’s first big failure. If he becomes president there will be many more. Practice saying this to everybody you know.