alaska governor replaces foot-tapping senator as my alma mater's most famous alum...

larry craig is out (no, not that, although... ), and sarah palin is in.

alaska governor sarah palin will be republican john mccain's vice-presidential running mate, cnn confirms.

interestingly (at least to me), she and i were students at the university of idaho at the same time. i edited the campus paper while she would have been a sophomore; perhaps it was my leftist rag which drove her into the arms of the nra. and even though she majored in journalism, i don't recall her at all (the paper wasn't part of the department, but a stand-alone entity; most of the staff were not journalism folks).

really? no, really?

as seen in the age:

just before the convention a gallup/usa today poll showed that only 47 per cent of clinton supporters would definitely vote for obama. a further 23 per cent said they supported him but may change their minds and 30 per cent say they will either vote for mccain or stay home.

really? well then i have but one question: what the fuck, people?

what about john mccain's candidacy makes him the natural choice for a supporter of hillary clinton? please, somebody tell me. i'm dying to know. is it his stance on health care? education? interventionism? 100 years in iraq? abortion? george w. bush?

i can only think of two reasons a supporter of hillary clinton would not vote for barack obama:

a fit of pique childish enough to make ralph nader smile, or

racism.

oh wait. there is another possibility:

dementia.

i know i run the risk of alienating an anyone-but-obama clinton supporter or two with my response, but i have yet to have one explain to me the rationale for jumping from clinton to mccain (or staying home, effectively the same thing). your candidate didn't win? fuck, folks, the candidate i voted for for president has won exactly twice in my history of voting for president (three times, if you count al gore's victory in'00, when florida, which he won, was stolen; four, if you believe ohio in '04 was a repeat of '00). the point is, my candidate almost never wins. but does that mean i should start voting republican to up the chances of a better batting average? how preposterous. or perhaps i should stay home so as to not have my tender feelings bruised by the mean ol' electorate. yeah, right.

so, please—please—if there's a logical, politically-defensible and rational reason for hop-scotching from hillary clinton to john mccain, please explain it to me.