Republicans from all walks are starting to come home after Senator John McCain's announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's as his vice presidential running mate.  This element of surprise was a brilliant and a bold move by McCain.  Not only did the McCain team give the media a good head fake, they also outflanked the Obama-Biden team with Gov. Palin's pick.  


With today's announcement, McCain beat the Obama-Biden team on multiple fronts, at least for now at the start of the 3rd quarter.  First, Palin's announcement just sucks the air out of any high that the Obama-Biden team has built up with last night's strong acceptance speech by Obama.  Instead of talking about Obama's oratory brilliance this morning, the media has to quickly jump to McCain's VP pick coverage.  Although the announcement time was known beforehand, major newsrooms were likely to have stock footages, tapes and scripts ready to roll had McCain's selection been someone like a Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman or event Tim Pawlenty.  So, any possible air time this morning to replay Obama's acceptance speech the night before was used to run "who is Sarah Palin" interviews, while newsrooms reporters frantically research her backgrounds.  Bottom line is - the McCain camp has probably achieved its intended goal in cutting any post Obama convention speech bounce in the polls down by half.

Further with Palin's selection, it must have also caught the Obama-Biden crowd by surprise, as they probably don't have much of a file on Palin in its opposition research. They must be careful in their shoot-from-the-hip responses, because no matter how they put it, any move that is too aggressive can be perceived as an attack on a woman. That's always a danger zone.  With Biden's loose lips tendency, Team Obama-Biden is only one gaffe away from losing the election.  

The bigger message here is of course, McCain's targeting of the women voting segment.  Today's elections are about which candidate who is able to earn more of the undecided votes or the "swing votes."  Clearly, McCain is taking the opportunity to go after the disenchanted women voters who had hoped to make presidential history by voting for Hillary Clinton - these disaffected 45 and over women voting block is the "swing votes" in this election cycle.  Obama's self-importance in making his own history, missed that opportunity to put Hillary on the ticket - but Obama has his reasons for not doing so, as Hillary comes along with baggage.  (However, Obama could have picked another woman instead of Hillary.)  

Without a woman on his ticket, Obama now must work much harder to earn the undecided older women's votes and to also be cautious so not to lose any of those women supports he already has.  Obama has tried over the past year-and-a-half to discredit the 18 million voters in preventing Hillary to get into the White House, now again has to campaign to stop another woman in getting there.  An already sensitive political issue is now becoming even more critical to both campaigns.  McCain seems to have made the right strategic move with Palin's selection and now has the upper hand in his pursuit to earn "the vote early and often" older women's votes.  Obama-Biden now has to walk a fine line, as whatever that they shoot from the hip can potentially backfire.