The weak bench of Republican female politicians may prove to have been John McCain’s undoing.
At some point over the past week, McCain realized that there was not a single politically moderate female politician in the Republican party who also had substantial gravitas and foreign policy experience—AND who was acceptable to the James Dobson wing of his party.
Not a single one.
But the temptation to try to pick-off “Hillary voters” from Obama was too great—and McCain thus decided to choose from among the female options before him anyway.
The result?
Sarah Palin.
In other words, he ended up with a fundamentally unserious, far-right person, with zip foreign policy experience, apparently figuring that people wouldn’t notice that he is 72 years old and, if elected, had just put the country’s security at serious risk if he were to die in office.
Thus McCain may find himself dispatched into the political wilderness by the electorate for the sin of not putting the country’s best interest first.
An ironic, sad, and tragic fate for John McCain.
Prometheus Unbound 