Finally got around to reading Jane Mayer‘s excellent article in the October 27th issue of The New Yorker in which she reports on how Sarah Palin came to be selected as John McCain‘s running mate. She says that one of the key moments came when one of her backers realized that The Weekly Standard and National Review had scheduled cruises along the Alaska coast, cruises that would bring some of the top conservative pundits to her door (a good offer–as NR‘s publisher noted, “There’s only so much you can do in Juneau.”) Mayer reports that many of the writers got all swoony over her, in their goofy, wonkish way. Writes Mayer, “Fred Barnes recalled being `struck by how smart Palin was, and how unusually confident’. . . .It didn’t escape his notice that she was `exceptionally pretty.”’ Mayer says her `most ardent promoter” became William Kristol, who predicted on Fox News on June 29th that McCain would pick her, describing Palin as `fantastic’, and capable of going one-on-one against Obama in basketball as well as siphoning off Hillary supporters (which seems to illustrate his ignorance of both basketball and Hillary’s appeal.) He said she’d be an “effective president,” called her “my heartthrob”, and said “I don’t know if I can make it through the enxt three months without her on the ticket.” After the Biden-Palin debate, Kristol called it “a liberating experience,” and volunteered to moderate a rematch. I wonder what other fantasies he has about her.
