OMFG, this woman could be a single gunshot or heart attack away from being President...

...and if this photo is any indication she's may well either fire the former or induce the latter in John McCain.

Look, part of me is sort of excited: no matter what the election results, the US will either have an African-American Commander-in-Chief or a female Vice President.

And this is difficult, because debate over Sarah Palin will, inevitably, be sexist - or at the very least focus on gender in a way it never will for male candidates. We're already speaking about her in a way that we don't about the men. Kindly, she's being referred to as the ultimate hockey mom; unkindly, a transparent selection designed to woo Hillary Clinton's potentially dissatisfied supporters; and really unkindly with words that shouldn't be used to describe any woman. McCain and Obama's gender simply doesn't fit into the bullet-point descriptions of them we receive. I might argue that Palin's gender is a lot like Obama's race, in this election: something relevant if it's not too threatening, or if it doesn't dominate everything else to the point where it's perceived as a weakness. I fear that Sarah Palin's nomination, in the short term, may be something of a step backwards for women in politics, as the best way to discredit her will be to focus on all of those things that, unfairly, are perceived as being particularly female attributes, especially in politics. Obama's camp has managed, very carefully, to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to race (mostly!) in that he's clearly a black candidate but he's not too black.

It's unfortunate that we're still there, but that's the reality of the situation whether we like it or not. Honestly - and this is a difficult question to answer because it makes us confront our own embedded sexist attitudes - did anyone look at this picture and think "Vice President?" At the very least, this makes me think that this woman will have trouble being taken seriously on a political stage (and again, this may be something sexist in me speaking up in a way that I can't really articulate, but that's the sort of emotional response that drives somenone to vote for one candidate over another.) So rather than get into a debate as to whether or not this is right - because it isn't - it makes more sense to ask if she's a good choice to help the original Johnny Mac get elected. What surprises me in all of this is that this woman was picked by a McCain camp that should know better, seeing as much of his own bid for the Republican nomination in 2000 was undone by some very careful management of his public perception.

We're all used to overly candid photos and videos circulating on-line now, but this is something else, no? It's fodder to promote her perceived lack of seriousness, lack of experience (which, I fear, is just a sort of code for "female" in the hearts and mains of many, sadly.) I realise that there may be an not-inconsiderable portion of the American public that likes Sarah Palin because of photos like these. For some people this is incredibly real, and relevant, and therefore really, really attractive in a leader. But if the Dems can't get their hands dirty when they're being provided mud like this, then they're even worse at getting themselves elected than the last two federal elections have indicated.

Oh, and one last thing: I'm not even certain this photo is real. It has the faint but unmistakeable whiff of Photoshop to me. But that just adds to the argument: McCain has entered the realm of gender politics where the gloves - and a good portion of the other clothes - are off. For all the talk of Obama's lack of experience, we've never seen him in a Speedo, and the most the race card has been played up was in satire - that New Yorker cover from earlier this summer - that everyone chose to distance themselves from. Maybe this is the difference between race and gender: there simply isn't a way to invoke the former in a political arena without sounding racist, but there are plenty of ways to subtly introduce the latter and not come off sexist. I don't know if that says more about our attitudes towards race and gender than it does the nature of politics, but either way, I think this is trouble for the McCain camp.