"Is Palin Ready to be Vice President (President)"

Video poster included this commentary:

Is Palin ready to lead?

John McCain's surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate raises two obvious questions: What does she do for McCain's chances of winning? And, more important, what would she do for America if elected?

As for the first question, most of the instant analysis focused on Palin's potential to attract votes from Hillary Clinton's disaffected core. But Palin's staunchly conservative views on abortion, gun control and teaching creationism in schools make her an unlikely fit for those voters.

More plausibly, McCain saw Palin as a way to energize evangelical Christians in the Republican base while appealing to white female independents, a key voting bloc that makes up about 14% of the electorate and has been evenly divided in polls between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. As a fresh face from outside Washington with a reputation as a reformer, Palin helps burnish McCain's credentials as a maverick in a year when voters want change.

As for the second question, which goes to the heart of whether Palin is qualified to take over the presidency, the available evidence gives us significant pause.

McCain and his supporters point to Palin's "executive experience" as a small-city mayor and, for the past two years, governor of Alaska. But the type of experience that matters most in the White House is the deep knowledge that can inform key decisions and responses to crises.

Here, Palin faces a steep learning curve. As governor, she has had little reason to involve herself with many domestic policy issues apart from energy. She has had no reason to become versed in foreign policy and national security issues. She will have to take a crash course in these subjects while enduring the baptism by fire that a condensed presidential election season will present. Monday's disclosure that her unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant is an example of the intense scrutiny the process generates.

The argument that Palin's résumé is as strong as, if not stronger than, Obama's is not particularly reassuring. The two are different shades of green.

Obama served eight years in the Illinois Senate and has been in the U.S. Senate for less than four. Unlike Palin, though, he spent the past year and a half answering the question about his fitness by immersing himself in issues and winning a grueling series of primary contests that involved dozens of debates, months of negative campaigning and numerous controversies about his background and associations.

Palin might still be able to establish her big-league credentials, but the window of opportunity is small and closing fast. The election is just nine weeks from today. In that time, she will have to introduce herself to the voters — and to McCain, whom she met only twice before Friday's announcement.

Given that McCain has described his Democratic opponent as unready to lead and called the fight against Islamic extremism as "the transcendent challenge of our time," his choice of Palin is puzzling.

At this week's GOP convention and in the weeks that follow, Palin will face a barrage of additional questions about her ability to grasp the issues and perform under trying circumstances. How she answers them will help determine whether her selection was a stroke of brilliance or a reckless gamble.
Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, September 02, 2008 in Election 2008 - Editorial, People - Editorial, USA TODAY

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/09/is-palin-ready.html