The conventional wisdom, at least in some corners, is that John McCain may pick a woman to run on the ticket, in order to peel off Democratic women who supported Hillary in the primaries. Fair enough. But the same conventional wisdom suggests that Barack Obama should not pick woman, because that would be an insult to Hillary supporters, who he is trying to keep in the fold. My question to you, wise readers, is this: WTF?
Three women have been discussed extensively as possible VP picks. For Barack Obama, we have Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas. There are several pros and cons here.
pros:
-Sebelius is a governor. CW suggests that executive experience is important, if not at the top of the ticket, in the #2 spot.
-Sebelius is a progressive. Excellent record and positions on choice, education, environment, etc.
-Sebelius fits the "Change" theme, as she is not a Washington insider and she is seen as not overly partisan, since she has high approvals in red Kansas.
cons:
-CW: too much change with Obama for the independents
-CW: angering Clinton supporters, as mentioned above
Then there are two on the Republican side, Carly Fiorina and Sarah Palin. The Moonie Times puts it thusly:
"If McCain picked a woman, it would certainly get the attention and perhaps votes of some Democrats and a number of independents who supported Hillary Clinton," said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh.
[snip]
There are 18 million women across the country who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Shortly before she dropped out of the Democratic race in June, nearly 30 percent of her supporters said they would shift to Mr. McCain before they would vote for the first-term senator from Illinois.
I'm not going to detail the pros and many, many cons (for McCain) of these two, since that's not the point of this diary. The point is that the CW states that a non-Clinton woman picked by Obama would be a negative somehow, seen as a slap in the face:
Picking Sebelius wouldn't be an olive branch, says Black; it would be an insult: "If Senator Obama has a problem with women, putting a woman on a ticket is not going to get him their votes."
But a woman VP pick by McCain would appeal to some of the same women? It would be less of a slap in the face to have a regressive conservative like Palin or a failed fat-cat CEO like Fiorina as the first woman to break that particular glass-ceiling than someone who is an actual progressive? Or put even more simply, for the minority of Democrats who backed Clinton in the primary and who won't back Obama in the general, Clinton as VP would be great, a conservative Republican would be fine, but a progressive Democrat would not--she would be a slap in the face?!?
WTF???
{For the record, my preference for VP is 1) Clark, 2) Sebelius, 3) Biden}