Barrack Obama, on the other hand, voted “present” numerous times, which means that he passed the buck and was unwililng to make the tough decision. He took up one of the 100 seats and voted when it was expedient.

Now you ask me which of these two has more experience?

But there are downsides to the obvious choices which he felt were too restrictive to make the choice. It also appears as a pandering move designed just to get sympathy votes but I don’t believe it. Palin is Pro Life as you pointed out and is Evangelical which will scare off a lot of Pro Hillary voters and even independents. Also she has some contradictions that, like Biden and Obama, seem interesting most notably her claim to be pro environment but also big time pro drilling among others.

McCain at times though has seem week from the far Right and over the past couple years he has worked hard to move to that extreme, notably aligning himself with far right Evangelical organizations which he previously claimed he would never pander too. Yet still many were skeptical of his commitment so it is possible the nomination of Palin is designed to somehow confirm himself to the Evangelical crowd.

Much like for Obama where Biden was chosen to add an attack dog but more likely in hopes he could deliver Pennsylvania to Obama, which is expected to be the hot state, McCains move seems to have motive for votes.