Things just got interesting in a year of almost "firsts"

Barack Hussein Obama would be the first African-American to be president, after defeating Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (if we're going to write out BHO's full name, we must do the same for the others) in the primaries. She would have been the first female president, and she defeated (deafened?) my man New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who would have been the first Hispanic president (the media chose to ignore that in their love fest with Obama and Hillary). 

Now John Sidney McCain III, who would not be the first anything (not first old guy to be president, but maybe the first Vietnam War veteran) has done what Obama wouldn't: he has chosen someone who would be the first female VP and someone not all that far from being the first president (the vice president's sole duties being to step in for the dead or out-of-commission president, break ties in the Senate, and coach the White House youth soccer team).

When I read that, I said "Wow!" to my Mac. My Mac is used to that, since it's a Mac. But this time it had nothing to do with Panther or Apple hardware. 

[above: the happy couple. Pictures like this baffle me. Don't they realize the audience is behind them? Are the Republicans so out of touch with the general public that they can't even see where they are? Maybe Senator McCain is having a senior moment and Governor Palin is just politely going along with it: "No, John, I can't find them either." By the way, for a very disturbing play-by-play of what's going through Senator McCain's head at this moment, see this YouTube video (warning: you may never respect the future leader of the free world ever again).]

According to the Mercury News, he chose Sarah Palin because she's a bit of a maverick, like himself. She's also kinda hot for a politician (though that can work against female politicos, I suppose). In fact, she almost looks like the president in a made-for-TV movie, which is what politics nowadays is, I suppose.

Some people have said picking an unknown from a state with few electoral votes is political suicide. But, hey, when Bush41 picked Robert Redford's stunt double for VP, he still managed to win. Bill Clinton picked a wooden puppet and won twice! Bush43 picked a fat, bald guy from a state with as few votes as Alaska and a serious heart condition, and while he didn't win the election, he still became president!

I'll have to check Sarah Palin out a bit more. So far all I've seen is that she's tough on ethics issues and her husband is one-eighth Eskimo/Inuit. I'll have to see how she feels about security issues in Northeast Asia and free-trade agreements FTA like the one between South Korea and the United States which is awaiting ratification. That issue alone may make me vote for McCain-Palin over Obama-Bi(nla)den (ha! couldn't resist!). 

The only time I have ever voted Republican in a major race was in 2006, when I voted to re-elect The Gubernator™ (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as a reward for him bucking the GOP to bring us Californians environmental goodness.