There’s a bit of a debate going on (in the comments on this post, for instance, where it’s obviously among those pulling for Sarah Palin) as to whether John McCain should name his running mate before Barack Obama or wait until after Sen. Obama has made his pick. Personally, I don’t see the advantage to waiting. I stand by what I wrote earlier in my open letter to Sen. McCain, that I think he needs to act and force Sen. Obama to react; he needs to set the agenda, the standard and the tempo so that Sen. Obama needs to play catch-up, rather than dancing to Sen. Obama’s tune. Given the dynamics of this election, I do not believe Sen. McCain can afford to be seen as secondary, an “anything you can do I can do better” candidate with no ideas or initiative of his own; he can’t let Sen. Obama drive the bus, he needs to take the wheel and drive it himself.This is not an election for the conventional approach. That’s one of the reasons why I think Sen. McCain needs to name Gov. Palin as his running mate, and why I argued in my open letter that he should take an unusual approach to selecting his cabinet team: if Sen. McCain is going to win, he needs to shake up the conventional wisdom and cross up people’s expectations. Fortunately for him, he’s good at that.
Palin has stated that she has gay friends, and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.
Palin’s first veto was used on legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples.
And your point is . . . ?