She Coulda Been a Contender

The Miami Herald's Myriam Marquez takes McCain to task with a surprise VP alternative:

It should have been Linda Lingle.

Now in her second term as Hawaii's governor, Lingle is the first Republican elected to that job in 40 years. She delivered a record state budget surplus, has gone to Iraq to size up the war on terror and set Hawaii on a course of foreign-oil independence.

But Lingle, 55, never made John McCain's veep list. She's pro-choice. And she's Jewish, which would have wowed South Florida but doesn't excite the GOP evangelical base. Twice divorced with no children, she's not valued by the family values crowd.

And dare I? Lingle looks like a boring librarian, a policy wonk -- not a gun-packing, snow-plowing, moose-hunting, 44-year-old beauty queen with five kids, a figure and a hunk of a husband.

Outside the GOP tent they've posted this sign: No Brains, No Moderates, No Jews.⁺

More Marquez:

McCain, 72, was so eager to shock and awe voters that he passed over experienced conservatives like Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. (Forget Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine -- like Lingle, she's a moderate Republican.) In our youth-obsessed political playbook, they didn't fit.

Exactly. McCain may say "Country First" but what he means is "Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."⁺⁺ For this nasty & desperate old troll, adding "pretty" and "youth" to the ticket is his only ticket to the White House.

Next Marquez previews tomorrow nite's VP debate:

So now the hottest governor of the coldest state will debate Joe Biden, the Delaware senator Barack Obama picked to attract blue-collar white voters. This much we can expect Thursday: Palin will stick to memorized talking points as she has in TV interviews with ABC, FOX and CBS. Biden will talk up his foreign experience and likely stick his foot in his mouth.

Nailed it. Biden will inevitably say something stupid. It's the second biggest knock I have on him. (The first is that D-MBNA thang).

The Op-Ed concludes with a reality check:

Americans have had decades to decode McCain and Biden, and two years to check Obama.

We've had all of thirty days and three painful TV interviews to know that Palin is no Margaret Thatcher. If America were not at war and our economy wasn't facing the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, this wouldn't be so scary.

I'll take it one step further. I don't think we're acting nearly scared enough.

-AF

⁺If "progressive" assholes would stoop so low as to Photoshop a Jewish governor into a Wehrmacht uniform (here & here), I cannot imagine the right wing nuts' response to a Jewish GOP VP candidate.
⁺⁺Couldn't resist The Smiths reference.