Palin Politics: High Risk, High Reward

There's lot of talk about social conservatives rallying around Sarah Palin and defending her and her family from the evil media, but the pick, for John McCain, was supposed to be about what Palin did... not what her family has done... the risk is that people begin to see Palin's Alaska as like Clinton's Little Rock.  The McCain campaign can't let Palin's public image be defined by the media.

Many Republicans were already nervous about McCain. On Friday, the Palin pick soothed one set of Republicans -- the grass roots activists. But the Palin pick unnerved another group of Republicans: the Hagels, the Lugars, the Krauthammers, the Powells -- the realist foreign policy crowd. (Think Lugar was thrilled by Charlie Black's interpretation of the vice-presidency as a four-year tutelage at the feet of the master?).

Set aside the content matter of today's news: what we've really learned today is how little we know about Sarah Palin. And that makes for more nervous Republicans. Karl Rove this morning, before the news broke, told the Maine delegation that Sarah Palin was a risky choice for vice president.

If McCain's pick was about reducing uncertainty by soothing the base, today's news suggests that McCain's dark horse pick increases uncertainty in, well, unpredictable ways. And the road ahead is rocky. Troopergate and an investigation with all of its vagaries is scheduled to roll out in the heat of the campaign. There's the Alaska Independence Party. Most significant: Palin will soon have to articulate views across the thicket of foreign policy issues without the grace or time for do-overs.

High risk, high reward.