A Heartbeat Away

The original maverick's campaign was trying to frame the election as McCain's experience vs. Obama's inexperience while the Obama campaign was responding by saying the election is more about "judgement" rather than experience.

The first decision of leadership by both presidential candidates from the major political parties is choosing who will be a heart beat away from the presidency and since neither McCain or Obama have any experience the issue must be defined by the "judgement" exercised by each in making this decision.

Barak Obama's "judgement" resulted in selecting Joe Biden as his running mate because of his experience in foreign policy while John McCain's "judgement" was used to choose the least qualified candidate among all the potential candidates in his party. In essence 72 year old John McCain chose to have someone with no experience be one heart beat away from the presidency while claiming his opponent didn't have any experience.

Indeed the choice of Sarah Palin was disingenous at best and the transparancy of his choice was exposed during her first speech as Vice Presidential candidate when she mentioned the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling that voted for Hillary Clinton implying that Hillary's supporters now have a woman to vote for as if all women were the same.

At the end of the day John McCain's judgement was influenced by the most narrow of partisan politics and exposed the empty rhetoric of the "country first" placard hanging in the background of his VP choice media event while the live audience chanted "USA! USA! USA!" as if that's all it takes to prove the Republican nominee has a vision of the future by selecting Sarah Palin because she is a woman.

Turns out that John McCain's first experience with making an executive decision shows an absolute lack of judgement that this country can no longer afford. For her part, Sarah Palin reflected the usual Republican arrogance by assuming just because she is a woman all women now have a chance to have a woman one heart beat away from the presidency while the substantive difference on the issues which will define our future has no importance.

I guess the thinking goes that if people voted for George W Bush because he seemed to be the kind of guy to have a beer with they'll vote for John McCain because a woman is a heart beat away from the presidency if anything should happen to the original maverick.