Supposedly MSNBC has confirmed that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will not be John McCain’s running mate.

Several bloggers have noted that at least one plane was chartered from Alaska to Ohio, which would suggested he is going with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

That seems like a desperate choice to me. McCain is over 70 and a cancer survivor whose main argument against Obama is that he is not “ready to lead.” So then he chooses someone who not only hasn’t finished a single term as governor, but has already become mired in an abuse-of-power scandal? (She used powers of her office to try to get a state trooper fired because of he and Palin’s sister were going through a bitter divorce.)

Great move!

The arguments for Palin are

1) she’s a woman

2) she reinforces McCain’s arguments on tax cuts and oil drilling, and

3) perhaps Joe Biden would have to go easy on her or else look like a bully.

But 1) I am skeptical that picking a woman will significantly cut into the gender gap working in Obama’s favor so far. I guess we’ll know more when we have more polls taken after Hillary Clinton’s convention speech, which more than 20 million Americans watched.

2) Alaska cut taxes because the state receives a huge amount of money from the federal government compared to what they put in the federal coffers. You can’t run national fiscal policy the same way.

3) Biden can ignore Palin most of the time. His job is to be an attack dog on McCain.

If McCain wanted a woman, he should have gone with Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She has experience in federal government. Even those some advocates on the religious right don’t think she is strong enough on the abortion issue, she does have an anti-choice voting record.

If it is Palin, props to Douglas Burns, who called that a long time ago.