Sen. John McCain's pick for his vice president running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has led to an outpouring of comments from OffTheBus readers. They have written about everything from her experience to her family values to her ties to the Alaska Independent Party. Here is a selection of their comments:
Beverly Davis -- Palin Pregnancy: Mother Daughter Interrupted
"As a mother of a daughter, I question Palin's decision of jumping into the political fray of the most important campaign in the world, knowing that it would put her daughter through the media meat grinder."
Reny Monk -- Baby Mama Drama: GOP Shot-Gun Weddings, Oh My!
"I'm baffled at the McCain camp and the GOP's promotion of Ms. Palin as a commander in chief when there's no doubt that if this were a revelation from a Democratic candidate -- and particularly a black candidate -- imagine the uproar over what a bad example they set for youth and parents of America."
Tracy Saunders -- McCain's VP Recruitment Strategy Leaves Country at Risk
"What does this rushed decision say about McCain's ethics and business practices? And do I have to be an employee of his company?"
Christine Wicker -- Sarah Palin: Family-Values Feminist?
"I don't know any women like Sarah Palin. Most of the women I know became far less ambitious when they had just one child. That one child caused them to see their role in life quite differently. I know many women -- doctors, lawyers, journalists, business executives -- who've given up or postponed or cut back on their careers because they wanted to care for their children. I know a lot more women who desperately want to cut back but can't because their families need the money."
Robert Silvers -- The Real Sarah Palin Scandal
"We've been told by the McCain camp to overlook Palin's thin resume because she's an insurgent pork-busting reformer in the mold of John McCain. We've been misled. Palin was looking for federal handouts just like every other self-interested politician that John McCain excoriates. Take that card away, and what does she really offer?"
M.S. Bellows, Jr. -- Unpacking Sarah Palin: Own Choice, No Choice, Bad Choices
"The narrative airing on cable news today is tentatively heroic: it's about the woman who chose to keep her Down child and who is choosing to support her daughter, who in turn is choosing to continue her own, unwanted pregnancy and choosing to marry the father.
Another possible narrative, though, tells a very different story: that of a woman who (bravely) kept her Down child but (dictatorially) would force all other women to do the same; of an extremely conservative Christian who favors abstinence-only education of the type that appears to have led to her unwed daughter's pregnancy; of a politician who would obligate all American families to make the same choices, and bear the same consequences, that her family has."
Linda Hansen -- McSame's McVeep: A Token of His Esteem ...
"Sarah Palin is, very likely, a nice enough woman. But she's no Hillary Clinton; she's the anti-Clinton. John McCain has cynically trivialized Ms. Palin as a token candidate. This is an ill-conceived maneuver, pandering to American women he clearly believes are so lame-brained that we can be fooled by tokenism. It's downright abusive. It typifies the mindset of a man who simply doesn't get it. Not about smart women and not about national security."
Lisa Solod Warren -- Any Woman In A Storm
"I wholeheartedly decry violence against women and in fact helped start and worked for more than a dozen years for a battered woman's organization in the town where I formerly lived, but one does not use one's political power to fire a former family member. There are other ways to get justice. Especially now that more progressive laws, including one by Joe Biden, have been enacted. What Palin did was a pure corruption of power. If she pulled that kind of stunt less than two years in office, what would she do with the power of the White House behind her?"
Jamila Price -- Sarah Palin Arrived Too Late to the Party
"Today, Republican presidential nominee John McCain revealed first term Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. My reaction? Interesting, obviously calculated, but not too surprising. The United States will see a woman on the presidential ticket for the first time, and as a woman, I honestly am not too excited by the prospect. That in itself is amazing."
Kris DiGiovanni -- Afraid of Failin', McCain Picks Sarah "Barracuda" Palin as VP
"The problem Palin will have to overcome is that not only is she a Washington outsider, she's practically a political neophyte. She was elected governor in 2006, after just two terms as a city councilwoman, and two terms as mayor of a town with a population of less than 10,000 people."