A reader writes:
Imagine this. McCain shows up for the debate and announces that Palin has withdrawn for the good of the country. He has asked Senator Richard Shelby to be his vice president because he has the credentials to help solve the economic crisis. Shelby opposes the bailout as does a significant percentage of the population. Shelby has a better plan than the one cooked up by Paulson and the liberal Democrats, McCain explains. McCain must go back to Washington to work with him and must cut the debate short. Point-set-match.
Andrew Sullivan writes in the Daily Dish:
I've thought from about two days after her selection that she would have to withdraw at some point.
The trouble with this is that McCain would have to concede that he didn't vet her, made his decision impulsively based on no real knowledge of her, and that his first serious judgment as a presidential candidate was so monumentally irresponsible that it doesn't just disqualify her for the vice-presidency. It disqualifies him for the presidency.
Hence the insane campaign since. They are improvising and gambling just to keep alive for another news cycle. No strategy; no policy; no judgment. It really should be over - and Obama should have double-digit lead.
I disagree with Sullivan that McCain would need to concede that he didn't vet her. She will be forgotten quickly. Now I don't know if Shelby would be the pick but it would definitely be someone with strong economic and banking knowledge.
My name is Dan Porter. I have always believed in God. And I have always been a Christian, which means I have always believed, at some level of understanding, Christian assertions about Christ. But during all of my adult life—I am now 65—I have struggled with many seeds of doubt brought on by modern science, objective history, the question of why a loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and difficulties with seemingly conflicting moral precepts. 
So McCain is a maverick?
You can tell how he impulsively makes decisions on a running mate who by everyones account is out of her league. He met her twice!
How he tried curtailing his campaign to help the economic crisis (yet he did neither in fact).
His impulsivity is dangerous. What happens when he decides to bomb Iran, or perhaps North Korea because it was a good idea at the time.
Nope. McCain is not a maverick, just too dangerous a guy to be in the position to which he strives.
L
Posted by: Lewis O | September 28, 2008 at 02:11 PM