Yes, Dobson and Buchanan have already declared her a perfect choice for VP; the fundie churches are already drumming up money for McCain as a result. She advocates teaching creationism, she doesn’t believe global warming is real, and both she and Charlie Crist used the term “a servant’s heart” tonight to describe her, which is evangelical dogwhistle code for “I’m one of you”. I don’t know if Orcinus has a post up yet about her, but look to them for the definitive word on her religious convictions since they follow the crazy fundie right with accuracy and depth. Her supporters are the ones currently pushing (well, have already pushed, Bush has agreed to it) legislation to declare the pill = abortion and therefore any group, pharmacist or physician who wants to object to abortion can refuse to prescribe, dispense or pay for the pill. They’ve given up on overturning Roe and instead are using stealth methods to return control of women’s reproduction to men. Even that is not the ultimate goal, of course — the real point is to eliminate all sex that is not het and male-dominated. She is absolutely of that camp.

The good news is, that fringe is so out of touch they don’t realize this will sink the McCain campaign. It’s his Harriet Miers/Dan Quayle/Thomas Eagleton moment, and is displaying his reckless, volatile judgment in a way that nothing apparently has to the starstruck MSM.

The whole “He did it to get Hillary voters” is a meme from the Right itself, trying to maintain the belief that ANYONE who wanted Hillary in office is going to switch over to McCain. That idea was killed dead by the activities of the Democratic Convention the past four days, particularly by the speech Hillary herself gave. The mass media and in particular pundits fueled their talking points (which is all of them except Rachel Maddow and sometimes Olbermann) want to keep alive the idea that there are still independent or former Democratic votes for McCain to harvest, both for fundraising purposes and to keep the left answering their false ideas.

This choice was a desperate move by a dying campaign. He could have settled on Kay Bailey Hutchison or eight other much more experienced, nationally-known women who would have met the basic criteria of having a vagina. It’s not about her being a woman, it’s that she’s so far to the Right that she chose to have a Downs’ syndrome child rather than use birth control. She fights for the right for rich white men to hunt bears and wolves from airplanes, she is totally in the pocket of Big Oil, and her placement on the ballot means every fundie church in the U.S. will be directing its members to give money to McCain and the RNC now, instead of holding off as they have been.

He knows he cannot win, not after this past week. But the RNC can fill their coffers and build plans for 2012. And, as a bonus, if they can convince lefties to engage in sexist attacks on Palin, they’ll get us at each other’s throats again.