Gyanifying on the palin' buzz

Let me catch my breath.

Astonished and flabberghasted that McCain has the temerity to select such an inexperienced person to be a heartbeat (or lack thereof) away from the Presidency, I have gone a bit overboard with tracking the revelations.

The revelation of how short and last minute the vetting process was probably has been the most astonishing. Apparently, she was only interviewed once on the the day before she was selected. I believe most companies spend more time interviewing most of their candidates than she spent to get the VP post, that too for a Presidential candidate who actuarially has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in the next 8 years leaving her in charge. This of course says little about Sarah Palin and volumes about McCain.

The incredulity about the choice is apparently shared by many senior Republican commentators too, except that they are murmering it in private. There are even bookies offering 8-1 odds that she will be asked to step aside.

Notwithstanding the hoopla though, I think the predictions of her demise may be premature.

I watched her in a number of speeches, and she is actually quite a good speaker, so the speech tonight may surprise people. She has only to memorize it, not to actually develop the content. She is also a pretty effective debator, expecially when the responses are required in short soundbites on tried and tested issues, which the campaign should provide her with the ammunation for.

Her Achilles' heel is likely to be that she has so much to familiarize herself with, that there are probably some less popular issues that she may need to deprioritize learning about. So, I'd say, if there is an embarrassing stumble, then it will be at a town hall somewhere or when being grilled by some reporters, where an unexpected question yields an unexpected answer.

I could be mistaken, but my guess is that given the low expectations of her, she may surprise people to a point where there will be a rise, before the fall. If she's very lucky, the fall may come too late to have any influence on the election.