I think that McCain has gone soft as a grape in his head. Why else would he pick an unknown from a state that's already securely red? And one who is only going to appeal to people already voting for him?
Governor Sarah Palin has barely begun serving the second year as Alaskan Governor, and before that she was three-term mayor of a town of 6,000 people. She did serve for a time on the Alaskan Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, before quitting because of "ethics". As for leadership experience being governor of Alaska: the state has 670,000 people. I wouldn't say that she has experience with larger, diverse groups of people. In fact, she has had little exposure to a diverse population.
She's primarily known for two things: cleaning up Alaskan politics because of all of the corruption, and getting more taxes against oil profits for the state of Alaska.
However, she has ethics issues of her own. She's involved in an ethics investigation about using her office to get her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, after her sister and he had a messy divorce.
She was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, and later moved to Alaska, both areas having some of the most conservative of people in this country. The ultra-right will be happy with her, but I can't see how she'll appeal to the undecided.
Palin claims her husband is one-quarter native American, but the accuracy of this statement has been disputed [1]. In addition, she's not met with any of the indigenous people in her own state, yet, and in fact has supported groups who don't have the best track record when it comes to the native Americans in Alaska.
As an environmentalist, Palin sucks, big time. Her husband works for BP, she wants to drill for oil everywhere, including ANWR, doesn't believe polar bears should be listed as endangered, and she supported the pulling of wolf cubs from dens to be shot [2], in order to increase moose herds—probably so that the moose could be shot by hunters, like herself. She's a card carrying member of the NRA, though there are few people in Alaska who aren't.
Palin's anti-choice, very conservative socially, and believes in teaching creationism in schools.
There's speculation that McCain picked a woman in order to grab Clinton voters, as if we're interchangeable parts, just swap one out for the other—an opinion I find to be rather offensive, as well as being ludicrous. The only thing Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin share is that they're both women. Everything else, is different. Vastly, different. More than that, Palin has shown herself to be very unfriendly when it comes to issues specific to women, including women's right to choose when it comes to our reproductive systems. Contrary to what the White Haired Dude may think, I and other women don't vote for women just because they are women.
There has to be another reason McCain picked her, other than just her sex. For the life of me, though, I haven't a clue what it is. Except that the man has gotten soft as a grape.
Links:
[1] http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/gop-vp-nominee-sarah-palin-married-to-alaska-native/
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/08/29/DI2008082902052.html