I think John McCain seeks to use the myth of Sarah Palin as heavy artillery against the Greek columns of the Obama myth. Obama’s father grew up in Kenya, his mother was born in Kansas, he grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and he later graduated from Harvard Law School. There are places more exotic than the places Barack Obama is associated with – and one of them is the Alaskan wilderness.

What we have here is the myth of Sarah Palin, a pistol packin’ mama, a married version of Xena Warrior Princess, and a woman with the hard edge of a female Alaskan Crocodile Dundee who has the looks of a beauty queen. She comes from a family of fisherman and as a modern day hunter hero with echoes of Davy Crockett. Her husband is a commercial fisherman and an oil worker on the North Slope. Barack Obama made a joke about Annie Oakley, but this mama can shoot. Some people use the word “cowboy” as an epithet – anybody care to say that to the Sarah the Barracuda’s face? Sarah Palin appeals to myths about the American West, and the Alaskan wilderness is the closest place to the classic American frontier as you can get.

Ironically, I think John McCain may have picked Sarah Palin for her foreign policy credentials. Many commentators will ask, “What credentials?” They forget that exoticism sells. Simply being a rural Alaskan makes her exotic to foreigners, particularly Europeans and especially Germans. Even in American cities, rural Alaskans are exotic creatures, perhaps more exotic than Kenyans and Ethiopians. Barack Obama grew up in Java; Sarah Palin hunts moose. Sarah Palin can create the impression among foreigners that she is authentically American precisely because she conforms to the exotic “Wild West” myth of America. John McCain may be betting that the exotic nature of Sarah Palin will trump the exotic nature of Barack Obama.

Besides, if growing up in Indonesia could give someone insight into foreign policy, why wouldn’t growing up in rural Alaska do the same thing?

Sarah Palin gives John McCain one more advantage – Sarah Palin can probably beat Barack Obama in a game of hoops. If the Presidency hinged upon a basketball game between the Republican team of John McCain and Sarah Palin on one side and the Democratic team of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden on the other, there’s a good chance that the Republican team would win.

Hmmm – I would like to see a basketball game between the Democratic presidential ticket and the Republican presidential ticket.