Trap, Metatrap, or Stupidity?

It’s been 40 hours since I first heard of Sarah Palin and I’m still shocked by McCain’s choice of a running mate. She has such an underwhelming resume that there is surely some hidden strategy here. First, maybe it’s a trap: McCain figures that the scorn that the Democrats will heap on her will lead to a huge backlash and her gathering a large sympathy vote from women voters. Second possibility: it’s a trap at a much higher level. McCain isn’t making a play for the disaffected Clintonistas at all, rather it’s a play for the hardcore rightwing fundamentalists. Indeed, this marks abandoning any pretense that this election is about policy at all, instead it will continue the metaphysical debate brought to the fore in the past two elections about pluralism versus fundamentalism in this society. (See LithiumCola’s excellent post today on DKos about this theme.) Third possibility — it’s simply stupidity on McCain’s part. His legendary rashness finally comes to the fore. Seeing that the Democratic Convention was turning out to be a spectacular success, McCain panics, backtracks on his plan to select Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was apparently his choice earlier in the week, and finally settles on Palin at 11 AM on Thursday, needing a game-changer at this point.

It’s bizarre. But as they say, no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people, and that is the scary thing about this choice. There are plenty of people out there who think “oh cool, this women has five kids and got to be governor, and now she might be V.P.!”, only less coherently than that. People vote for who they identify with, and low-information voters are a trouble spot for Obama.

But I have a lot of faith in the strategic mastery of Obama’s campaign team, and think they will turn this campaign twist to their advantage. Put another way, Obama is playing go while McCain can only master craps.