Will it Blend?

From today's NYT:

Ms. Palin said she supported Alaska’s decision to amend its Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But she used her first veto as governor to block a bill that would have prohibited the state from granting health benefits to same-sex partners of public employees. Ms. Palin said she vetoed the bill because it was unconstitutional, but raised the possibility of amending the state Constitution so the ban could pass muster.

“I don’t think a Hillary person would ever move to her, based on the issues,” said Jean Craciun, a strategic research and planning consultant in Alaska who has done political polling for Democrats and Republicans. “I don’t think before today I would have ever heard someone call her a feminist.”

That's kind of how I've been thinking, too. I understand the wedge strategy being played here, but I just have a hard time imagining registered, left-of-center, female Democrats who fought hard for Hilary to now roll over, and just out of petty spite, vote for McCain because he's got someone with a pretty face as his runningmate. She's extremely conservative. Take a poll of every registered Republican in the country, in or out of office, and she's going to be in the 90th percentile of that distribution. But, having said that, there's no denying her political, guttural appeal. She's got a lot of the same kind of thing that Obama has.

“She wouldn’t have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her,” said Andrew Halcro, a Republican turned independent, who along with Tony Knowles, a Democrat, ran against Ms. Palin for governor in 2006. “Tony and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn’t about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people’s most basic instincts: ‘I like you, and you make me feel good.’ ”

“You know,” said Mr. Halcro, invoking the Democratic presidential nominee, “that’s kind of like Obama.”

But, given that at this point, inTrade puts McCain at such a longshot (he's had 40% on his contract, and Obama 60%, the entire time. I think Palin pushed Obama's down from 62 to 60%, but that's speculative, as there's a lot of tiny variation around 60 that I've seen for a while on that contract). So, if you're a longshot, then the right choice is the risky choice, the gamble. The safe choices are predictably not enough to help him with key states and demographics, and right now, even with Palin's liabilities (like her inexperience), this sounds right. I just suspect it won't be enough.