by Michael Cook

Created on: December 16, 2010   Last Updated: December 21, 2010

Not only is Sarah Palin not qualified to be president, she was never qualified to be vice president.

Those dual realities beg the question; "Why did John McCain choose her as his running mate in 2008?"

The answer to that question, I believe, is twofold.

One answer is John McCain's support among the far right, overwhelmingly white, xenophobic, and fundamentalist Christian base of the GOP, what we now refer to as the "Tea Party" movement, was never solid.

The other is John McCain  thought,  by picking a woman, any woman, he would automatically gain the support of moderate and independent women who were disappointed, and even angry, that Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee rather than Hillary Clinton. 

McCain, I believe, truly believed that by picking Palin he would gain the support of the GOP's most extreme right wing members, along with all those moderate and independent women voters angry over what they viewed as Hillary getting the short end of the stick on the Democratic side.

Had he focused more on those angry and disappointed moderate and independent women, and less on the Tea Partying, bible thumping types, and chosen a woman with stellar conservative credentials like Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, or a more moderate GOP woman like former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman, or Maine's Senator Olympia Snowe, I suspect election night 2008 would have dragged on into the wee hours of the morning, not unlike election night 1960.

Instead, by choosing a right wing extremist, completely unqualified, loose cannon, albeit of the female gender, like Sarah Palin, McCain doomed his presidential campaign to failure.

Now, to be sure, Sarah Palin, whether on her own or with the help of highly sophisticated publicists, has proven herself to be a diva of self promotion - not unlike Kate Gosselin and Kim Kardashian.

But that skill does not, in any way, shape, or form make her qualified to be President of the United States.

Sarah Palin loves the limelight, which is fine.

I hope she can cash in to the fullest extent on John McCain's mistake that brought her to national public attention. After all, getting rich is the American dream.

But I also hope that, once she and her "Beverly Hillbillies" clan have burned through the "fifteen minutes of fame" Andy Warhol spoke of, and intelligent Americans, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, will realize just what a laughing stock the United States would be if the "Clampetts" of Alaska became the nation's First Family. 

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