Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor for fewer than two years, was announced yesterday as presidential hopeful John McCain’s running mate. The announcement sent shock waves across the country, through Republicans and Democrats alike. Democrats were thrilled to see someone younger and even less experienced than Obama, as her presence on the ticket quickly takes the wind out of the sails of the argument that he isn’t ready to be commander in chief.

Republicans are seemingly unsure what to think of her. On one hand, a young, new face brings an element of excitement to the campaign. Surely she will shore up the support of the hard-line conservatives. She is a gun-toting, oil drilling, mother of five, anti-abortionist, wife of a union member. On the other hand, she has no foreign policy experience. She has no Washington experience, is being investigated for a scandal in her governmental office in Alaska, and her major accomplishment (that the press keeps toting) is that she was known as “barracuda” on her high school basketball team.

(insert eye roll here - are we really ready to put a woman whose most recent accomplishment is that she was a high school basketball star in the oval office?)

Palin comes across as your next door neighbor. And while I’m sure your neighbors are often quite pleasant people, the world is going to fall apart if she approaches foreign dictators in the same manner that your neighbors approach you about moving your car, turning down the stereo, or cutting down that trouble-some tree.

In McCain’s first test of ability to make a big decision, by choosing Palin, I believe he has failed. And while the standard party line might temporarily be one of support, I’d be surprised if she doesn’t resign before November 4. And then I will wonder if this was all a rouse, a game to put a stop-gap in the excitement following the Democratic National Convention, and a PR stunt to entice female voters away from Obama. If his intention was to build attention for his campaign, he certainly got it! But I’m not convinced it was the kind of attention he was aiming for....

As a former Hillary supporter, I am insulted that the McCain campaign thinks that I will automatically switch my allegiance from one female candidate to another. I resent the idea that I place my gender above my ideals. I’m a fan of my uterus and ovaries - and I’d love to see someone in office with the same anatomy. But I value my right to decide what to do with that anatomy more than I care about the tokenism of placing a woman in the oval office. A woman who doesn’t trust another woman to decide what to do with her own body? A woman who is so staunchly against abortion that even in instances of rape and incest, she would outlaw the procedure. That’s no leader. That’s a dictator.

Everyone knows it, but no one is willing to say it. Sarah Palin was chosen because she is a woman. And that is sexist. And THAT is insulting. In an election that America continues to boast as its most progressive, history-making, and barrier-breaking, McCain’s nomination of Palin just took us back 30 years.