The Dangers of a "Surprise Pick"

Palin is definitely a "surprise pick" by McCain. The McCain campaign is clearly hoping that such an outside-the-box pick will generate a huge amount of media attention, as the press starts to inform viewers about Palin's background for the first time.

But with Palin, there's also the danger that the press quickly settles on a "too inexperienced to be president" narrative, and spends the next few days talking about what a bad choice McCain made. I think a good deal of the time the media spend talking about Palin in the next few days will, in fact, be dedicated to laughing at the Palin pick and discussing why McCain made such a poor decision.