Okay, so before I get into my political thoughts of the evening, I have an achievement to report. Tonight, reached the rank of “General of the Army” in Battlefield Bad Company’s multiplayer mode, thus unlocking any remaining weapons and eliminating any need to play further. I haven’t felt this good about game since I finished the main quest in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now what will I do with my downtime?

On to the election. After the immediate buzz started to dissipate around McCain’s pick of first-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin, it seems that the majority of the rational pundits are on the same page as me. Chiefly, uttering various polite versions of my continued reaction: WTF?

It seems McCain did not receive a bounce from the announcement, and that the vast majority of the Hillary supporters (but not the completely insane PUMA’s, who I am beginning to believe are actually a Republican front organization pretending to be enraged Hillary supporters) are not on board with Palin.

Thinking about it this evening while basking in the glow of my new online military rank, it occurred to me that a choice like Sarah Palin is exactly the kind of stunt “elected” dictators like Hugo Chavez and Vladamir Putin pull. It’s all about gunning up some kind of populist support based on the belief that average citizens are a bunch of rubes too stupid to see what’s going on.

Palin was picked because she was a woman — McCain desperately believes that any woman on the ticket will pull in the Hillary supporters. But she couldn’t be a pro-choice woman, which would have certainly scored him some PUMAs, because the party base would abandon him. Palin, you see, is a member of the Assembly of God, an evangelical sect I have a lot of experience with given that my best friend as a kid was a member. Now, I have no intention of throwing my old friend under the bus — I certainly respect his beliefs, and I attended church with him once or twice. But I’ve got to confess folks, they are not in the mainstream of American thought.

In the 1980′s these beliefs involved a church-wide ban on movie attendance. I think they’ve softened their stance lately, but when I was growing up, they were adamantly opposed to going to the movies because of “the people you meet there.” They believed in the imminent return of the anti-Christ, the Satanic messages buried inside of rock music (including records by bands like Poison and Great White), the corrupting demons that could infect you if you played Dungeons and Dragons, and that the devil is a real entity in the world trying to possess your soul. I was also told that the Smurfs were satanic as well (yet oddly enough, my friend and his sister were allowed to watch Pee Wee’s Playhouse, which even before Paul Reubens’ conviction for public indecency and possession of child pornography I was pretty sure was created by a child molester).

If Sarah Palin is a member of the Assembly of God, then this is what she believes. And the members of the right that adore her know this — it’s why they adore her, because they are also believers. It’s what qualifies her to them.

But if you go with her record as a state governor and mayor, there’s not much that would recommend her to the position. In fact, I can only imagine what would happen if McCain dies and she is made President. George W. Bush played the evangelicals like a harp, but at the end of the day, he was just a dumb rich boy who figured out how to gain political power — he co-opted their language and culture for his own purposes. Sarah Palin is the real deal. I don’t want a president with thin foreign policy experience, little education in national affairs and extreme religious beliefs deciding who to nuke, who to invade, etc.

And a lot of other people feel the same way. If McCain had been smart, he would have picked a woman with experience. I may loathe Kay Bailey Hutchison, but I respect her. She’s smart on the issues, she knows her stuff as well as Biden. She’s just got bad ideas. She’s certainly qualified.

Then there’s the other issue the McCain people thought we’d ignore — the fact that she just gave birth to a five-month old son with a serious disability. How much time will she have to be there for him? Doesn’t she have a responsibility to her child? As a father, I would never take a job that would take so much of my life away from my children. I’m pretty sure a lot of other Americans feel the same way I do about this. The Republicans are the “family values” party, and this kind of thing from a Democrat would have drawn a firestorm from them about how she was abandoning her family. But since she’s a right-wing evangelical, leaving the care of her son to others is — you know — a sacrifice for the greater good.

Who cares, right? The PUMA’s will go for it! She’s a woman, a working mom! Score this one in the win column for the Old Maverick!

Perhaps McCain is winning the race in some alternative universe because of this pick. But I seriously doubt it.

Tina takes aim at McCain for asking a new mother to abandon her children to be Vice President.

But hey, her 17-year-old daughter has to learn to be a “mama” sometime, right? It’s “country first” with the McCain campaign, Tina. Remember, families are nothing more than props to help sell your “narrative” and “brand” to America.

And Sarah Palin’s brand is “devoted hockey mom,” “former Union member,” and “evangelical Christian.” Forget how all three of those things contradict who she really is.

Oh yeah, and despite the fact that both she and her husband have worked for the oil industry their entire lives, she’s a solider against the influence of big oil and special interests.

This woman has all the right family values to be Vice President. And her judgment shows that if melanoma ever takes down McCain, she’ll be right there to lead this country further off the cliff.