OK, all the hype, angst, hand wringing aside, what does the choice of Sarah Palin mean to me as a woman, as white, middle-aged middle-class working mom? The short answer is that the GOP nominee for the President of the United States doesn’t have squat to offer me if he thinks Palin would make a fine VP.

On the surface, I’m actually smack-dab in the center of the demographic that McCain was aiming for. I’m so white I can trace my lineage back to the Mayflower. I make well above the national average in income. I lack a Y chromosome. I have kids.

And let me tell you, I am so not impressed.

I have been voting Democratic since I started voting, not because I’m partisan, but because since I came of age during the Age of the Great Communicator, the Republican party has mostly given me rabid right wing nut jobs to vote for. So I vote Democrat.

So what does the Grand Old Party (and I mean that sarcastically) give me this time around? They give me Sarah Palin.

Let’s see after hammering on Obama’s inexperience, they hand me someone whose experience makes Obama look like Yoda. McCain picked someone who is currently under  investigation for trying to have her brother-in-law fired for no good reason, other than the fact he was divorcing her sister. She apparently tried to have books banned. She belonged to a secessionist party. She’s anti-choice. Lucky for her, her family life is a bit messy right now, because she can’t win on the issues.

This is the best they can do? Of all the women hanging around the GOP, he picks Buffy the Moose Slayer? Is he really thinking she will lure Hillary voters? About the only thing they have in common with each other is that they both have interior plumbing, does he really think that’s what matters? This is equality, when a highly unqualified woman can get the nod, just for being a (cute) woman? Do these people not have Olympia Snowe’s cell phone number or something?

I think my 18 year old son summed it up the best, when he heard about the nomination he cracked, “Oh I see, now McCain thinks he going to get all the dumb women who voted for Hillary because he give them another woman.” (Note to Hillary supporters, my son does not think you are dumb, he thinks McCain thinks you are dumb. No flaming, please.)

What the choice of Palin means to me is this: the GOP gave me a token, and a pretty damn poor one at that. It means to me that they still don’t get “it”, they still think any woman is as good as any other woman, so you might as well pick the cute one.