When John McCain announced that his running mate would be Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska, almost every American was shocked beyond belief. Immediately the first reaction was that he was playing the gender card, trying to win over the women voters. With Hillary Clinton out of the race, many women voters and Hillary supporters were at a loss of who to choose as President; many Democrats do not want to vote for Obama because of the fierce primary and their loyalty toward Hillary. With a woman now in the Presidential campaign, many of the former Clinton supporters changed positions, crossed party lines, and are now in favor of Governor Palin. But most people who are choosing Palin (and McCain) are not looking at the candidate at all; they are just choosing McCain because he has a female on the ticket.

All of America needs to take a careful look at the candidates; not who they are, but what they stand for. McCain’s argument against Obama is that he is not experienced enough to take over the President’s office. But when you look at McCain’s first official choice as a leader of the free world, he failed miserably, and he seems to be the candidate with no experience.

Sarah Palin is a true Republican who only cares about oil and big words. In her first one-on-one interview after becoming the VP nominee with ABC News, she failed with flying colors. In the segment of the interview that I saw, I did not understand a word that she said. When Gibson, the interviewer, would try to clear things up for the viewers with asking for a simple yes or no, she would just start rambling on again, saying the exact, same words that she had just said. I learned little about what she stands for, and made me think, “Wow, anybody can run for the vice-presidency”.

She even made me laugh at some of her answers. When asked about the current war with Georgia and Russia, her answer was, “You can see Russia from here, you know, Charlie.” When asked what this had to do with the war between the two countries, she said “It’s a small world.” Now while some argue that this makes sense and she means that we should get involved with the Georgian conflict too, I disagree with this statement strongly (may I remind everyone that we are involved with two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Almost all Americans are upset with the War in Iraq and want our troops home, and getting involved with the Russia/Georgia conflict would be stepping into even deeper water. The war with Russia would make three, and also in the interview, she suggested at least one other war with Iran, if Israel so desired to attack the nuclear powerful country.

Now you might be asking why all of the hype about Palin; she is just the vice presidential candidate. Well, if McCain and Palin are elected to office, Palin will be second in line to the presidency. While McCain’s doctors say that he is healthy and in great shape to be the next president, people also have to be reminded about his age (72, he could be the oldest president elected into office), and his past history (1 heart attack, and 2 different cases of melanoma, skin cancer). While he may be healthy now, he has had a troublesome past, and the presidency is definitely not just a normal, everyday job.

So, Palin, I believe, has a moderate chance of being put into the Oval Office. Now you must ask yourself, do we really want that? Sure, she is a woman, and we want to make history. But are we so desperate to put a woman in office that we will just pick a random girl from Alaska who has as much experience as the mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas? (Little Rock, Arkansas actually has more citizens than the entire population of Alaska!)

The question about Palin and whether or not she was the right choice has become so highly debated that the race does not even focus on Obama or McCain, the two men actually running for office. Joe Biden has not been in the news since the Democratic Convention. This could be good news for Democrats, who may ‘ride out the storm’ and let Americans really focus on who Palin is and what she believes in. But when Americans are ready to pull that lever in less than 50 days, they need to make sure they know the facts about everyone, and not be choosing their candidate for what color or gender they are, because if we, as Americans, make the wrong choice, we may be in for 4 more years of the past 8.