Does anyone remember the few days between Obama announcing his running mate for the 2008 Presidential election, and when Sarah Palin was unleashed on the world?  18 million American voters wanted Hillary Clinton in office, but instead of at least adding Clinton to his ticket, Obama instead decided to run with a man that virtually no one wanted in office;  Joe Biden.

With those 18 million voters in mind, the McCain camp saw opportunity.  They decided they had better find themselves a running mate with lady parts, and fast.  Experience?  Who cares – the democrats just nominated someone with almost zero experience administrating any public office – why can’t we?  Qualifications?  Doesn’t need any.  The lady parts are qualification enough…  or so they thought.

In case this is the first you’ve heard about this, it might sound completely absurd that a political party would add a woman to a ticket just in the hopes of picking up the votes from the people who wanted a different (very, very different) woman on that ticket.  But this really happened.  And it almost worked.

Remember that, in the days following the announcement of the McCain/Palin ticket, McCain’s numbers rose.  Many of the 18 million Hillary voters felt burned by the Obama camp, and thought maybe McCain could help us put a lady in office after all.  But this lady was no Hillary.  Not by a long shot.

There was a good chance the McCain/Palin ticket could have beaten the Obama ticket, and The Smart People couldn’t have that.  Remember the “I’m with the Hockey Mom” bumper stickers?  The Democrats had to take her down.  But how?  They couldn’t ignore her and treat her like she wasn’t there – the way every vice-presidential running mate in history has been treated.  No, this woman was NOT our Hillary, and we were not going to settle for some cheap, flimsy substitute.    So, they put Palin up high to make sure she fell hard.  They placed her under the white-hot spotlight to reveal the cracks in the foundation.  They let Katie Couric unravel her on national television.  They had to expose the uneducated, gun-toting, anti-choice danger that she was.  And in the process, they made her a star.

Now, she won’t go away.  She’ll probably even run for president in few years, and because Obama’s “change” message turned out to be mostly rhetoric with few real results, she might actually win.

And when this country is under the reign of Sarah Palin, you can thank Barack Obama for that.  If Hillary Clinton had been anywhere on the democratic ticket, Palin never would have been dragged out of Alaska.  She would still be safe in the frozen tundra, that baby-daddy-Levi kid wouldn’t be an “actor”, and David Letterman would have better things to joke about.

Now I know why Hillary cried on camera.  She saw this all coming.  And she was dead on.