Lot's of emotion on the Palin VP pick by McCain, if you've been following my twitter stream you know I think it was a fantastic pick. I'll do my best to explain it in a non-partisan way. (I do, however, hold a conservative view of the role of gov't.. it doesn't really factor into this though). I'm also talking strictly strategy -- I'm positive Sarah Palin has a lot of credentials that justify her amazing, though fairly short, political career. I'm just not familiar enough with them to build a case on it. So, forgive me for strictly talking about the gender/outsider aspects to all this.

McCain needed to go bold. A traditional pick would have left a boring ticket vs. an exciting ticket and played right into the narrative the democrats have created -- change from the status quo. There were only a couple people who had picked Palin, a few more that suggested KB Hutchinson. Past that, the thinking really was that it'd be Pawlenty or Romney or Huckabee or some sort of "obvious" choice. A 'safe' choice, but certainly not exciting.

There are obvious questions/concerns with the Sarah Palin pick. Experience is the obvious one -- if McCain kicks the bucket, is she ready to take over? And will women feel this was a contrived pick and that they're being pandered to?

The experience argument is an interesting one. It may invalidate McCain's attacks on Obama, or at the same time, it may highlight the fact that the inexperienced candidate on the Democrat ticket is the one on the top, not the bottom. In this way, it could be a trap for the DNC. We'll have to wait and see.

The bigger trap though, is the female vote within a democrat party desperately trying to move past the primary. The first aspect to this is regarding the contrived/pandering points. I hear ya, but let's be real. If John Kerry can pander to southerner's by picking an inexperienced John Edwards, and Obama can pander to the working class by picking Biden, why can't someone pander to women? Politics is about appealing to the widest amount of supporters possible, and frankly, women are a demographic that have largely been ignored. Shouldn't they be allowed to be pandered to, when every other group is? Heck, George Bush was sold as a guy's guy constantly.

The second aspect to this is the more deadly trap the DNC could fall into. When you really dig down into the HRC hold outs, there are a lot of lingering feelings of sexism within the party. A inexperienced male was able to beat the "proven" female candidate, but only because the party itself threw out two of the biggest states "won" by the female candidate.

If Democrats attack Palin for inexperience, after justifying Obama's inexperience -- whats the difference between the two candidates? Once again, it's gender. One's a male, one's a female. The sexism argument doesn't just go away, it moves to the forefront.

A lot of my democrat friends have pointed out that HRC supporters won't support a pro-life female. That might be true on the whole, but it's not about winning over the majority of HRC supporters. It's about winning over Hillary supporters in states like Pennsylvania, where Obama was beaten handedly.

Females from working class, catholic, families.

In other words, females from working class, pro-life, families.

The stage has been set. The DNC is busy running off a script prewritten for any republican opponent -- bush, bush, bush, bush, no bush iii, bush. Fairly quickly, McCain is separating himself from the way the GOP brand is currently perceived.

It's a risky pick, but given the nature of the race, I think it's truly brilliant. I'll be busy trying to read up on her background to see if she can hold her own politically outside of the strategy aspects. Hopefully I'll like what I see.