I figured it was best to let the blogger reactions over McCain's VP pick settle down a little bit before I commented, though I did have some fun adding to the list of Sarah Palin's little known facts on Twitter.  Fair warning... this post ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended.

The buzz started almost immediately over her... so much so that I commented on Twitter that "People seem way more exited about Palin as VP than McCain as POTUS. Maybe they need to switch spots."  I hold by that assertion.  When Obama picked Biden, there were comments like "I'll learn to live with it."  When McCain picked Palin, an enterprising entrepreneur went out and registered vpilf.com.  Michael Caughill writing as Elliot Stearns at www.fromwhereisit.org points out this regarding her being picked:

The Palin pick was not about picking off a few Hillary supporters (though it might).

It’s not about highlighting Barack Obama’s own inexperience (which it does).

It’s about galvanizing the base.

The God and Guns crowd is going crazy over Palin. They feel the same way about her that the main stream media feels about Barack Obama: they’re head over heels.

People who said they couldn’t vote for McCain are actually CONTRIBUTING to McCain/Palin.

$3 million in less than 24 hours to be exact.  That, and the polls seem to be even again, with Obama and McCain in a statistical tie... meaning that Obama barely got a convention bounce... or he did have one, it didn't seem to last long.

But the fact of the matter is... Sarah Palin is trying to get a job that was once described as "worth a pitcher of warm piss."  As originally defined in the Constitution, the Vice President's only functions are to become the President if (s)he is somehow unable to execute that office, and be President of the Senate (where his or her only function is to break a tie vote).  Later, Congress took pity on the Vice President and gave the position a permanent seat on the National Security Council (actually it was after Harry Truman was never told about the Atom Bomb).  Other than that, the Vice President is really whatever the President makes the job.  Oh yeah, they get to sit on the board of the Smithsonian, and I'm sure that really makes it worthwhile.  While lately Vice Presidents have been seen to take a larger role in government, that is totally at the discretion of the President.  So based on this, I find all this excitement to be... well... uncalled for.  In fact, I find the spin to be more interesting than her qualifications.

Interestingly enough, she is the only candidate on either ticket to actually have any executive experience.  Of course when you realize that the population of Alaska is the same as the City of Forth Worth, that would seem to diminish in importance.  Although that doesn't prevent people from pointing out that she's "the Commander of Chief of their National Guard".  That's actually a pretty stupid thing to say, since the power of state governors over the National Guard is significantly different than that of the President of the United States, and definitely much less.  In fact, it's hardly noteworthy unless you have trouble finding something else to say about her.

Kathy Carpenter attempted to make the argument that her membership in the PTA gave her more experience than Barack Obama.  With all due respect to mothers everywhere... that's just reaching.  Though it does point out one interesting theme in all of the Palin Buzz.  Everyone is comparing her to Barack... not Biden.  And nobody is comparing Biden to McCain.  What exactly that says about Obama at this point... I don't know... but I don't think it's good.

One unfortunate comparison that has already appeared is the fact that both Palin and Obama have had unfair and ugly smears cast against them.  Many Republicans have continued with the stupid and desperate idea that he's somehow not a citizen of the United States, while some moron at Kos has come up with a conspiracy theory that Palin's youngest child, who has Down's Syndrome, is actually her teenage daughter's child.  To the credit of Democrats, this story is not being repeated much, and there are calls on that post to have it removed.  Most mention I see of it in the blogosphere is actually from people on the right condemning it.  Unfortunately, Republicans didn't have the same sense to not repeat the smears against Obama.  Of course, there is still plenty of time for this ugly rumor against Palin to be spread.  And even if it were true, I don't see it damaging her.  All it shows is that she protected her teenage daughter, and the life of the baby.  Exactly how would Obama's campaign word an attack ad about that, which didn't make Obama look like a heartless asshole?  If anything though, I think we'll soon be seeing ads regarding "Troopergate".

But what has she done in the rather short period of time she has been Governor of Alaska?  David Harsanyi seems to think she's the most libertarian candidate we could have hoped for.  This based off the fact that she killed a major pork project which benefited her state (the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere"), and sued to have keep the polar bear off the Federal endangered species list (after all, they can be made from her stem cells).  She's also a major supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and some think her views on the War on Drugs are reasonable... but that's only in comparison to other Washington candidates, which doesn't say much.  A lot of Republicans are big into the idea of drilling in ANWR, but it should be noted that she also signed into law a windfall profit tax for oil companies.  Combine that with McCain's already hard anti-business rhetoric regarding "Big Oil", and we have a major problem.

So with so little real experience to judge from, how should we judge Sarah Palin?  Glenn Reynolds makes the following comment:

The most important thing about a Vice Presidential candidate -- as with a Presidential candidate -- is fitness to be President. But, since most Vice Presidents never become President, the most significant impact is usually elsewhere: The running mate gets to put a lot of his/her people into political appointments in the new administration. From this perspective, Biden and Palin look really different. Biden is an oldtime Washington insider, with a large network of friends and supporters, meaning that the people he brings in are likely to be familiar faces (as, for that matter, are most of the people Obama is looking to for advice now, and will presumably appoint if elected). So the political appointments under an Obama-Biden administration will probably look a lot like the Clinton administration.

McCain has been in DC for a long time, too, of course. But who would Palin bring in? She doesn't have that kind of a political network, and while she might bring a few people from Alaska, there won't be very many of those. So who will she bring in if elected? My guess is that she'll defer more to McCain than a more established pol would, but my guess is that she'll also favor bringing in more evangelicals and social-conservative types, and she may (I don't know) have more of a network in those circles than she has in the way of a political network. Something to consider, anyway.

This might explain some of the excitement in the Republican base... but I'm not sure what we'll end up with is a good thing.  But then again, there is still a lot of time between now and November.