Isn’t it interesting that Republicans, far more than Democrats, offer the second spot on the national ticket to pink-cheeked newcomers? In my lifetime, the Republicans have nominated as vice-president Richard Nixon, a national figure, but a mere six years out of the navy; the former senator Henry Cabot Lodge; the obscure New York congressman William Miller; the little known first term Maryland governor Spiro Agnew; the experienced Senator Bob Dole; experienced George H.W. Bush; the callow Dan Quayle; the experienced men Jack Kemp and Dick Cheney; and now the fairly unknown Sarah Palin. The Democrats, by contrast, have a strong record of choosing experienced senators: Kefauver, Johnson, Humphrey, Muskie, Mondale, Bentsen, Gore, Lieberman and Biden. The exceptions: in 1972, McGovern picked Tom Eagleton, a first term senator who had more than a decade’s experience in Missouri state government (and selected him only after he had been turned down by Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Abraham Ribicoff, Edmund Muskie and Birch Bayh), and in 1984, the not-ready for prime time Geraldine Ferraro. Is the GOP rushing Palin? She seems like a very attractive figure with a big future, but on the face of it, she is not ready for the vice presidency. I have thought for some time that the vice presidency ruined Quayle. I think if he had been left alone to season, he would have become a good, garden-variety conservative Republican senator–Nancy Kassebaum or Lindsay Graham, capable and honorable people. Instead, he was plucked too soon, and became a laughingstock. Palin seems to have a livelier mind, but who knows what pitfalls await?