Reading other blogs and watching the media coverage of this presidential campaign since Obama’s convention speech and McCain’s VP announcement, it seems that the American public desire an impossibility in their presidential candidates.

They want their president to be young AND experienced. The two cannot go together.

I am frankly amazed at the kind of age bias that is directed at John McCain. If the media were saying about Barack Obama’s race the kind of things they are saying about John McCain’s age, there would (hopefully) be an outcry from the American public. But it turns out you can make fun of old people and get away with it.

Barack Obama has answered the question of his youth and inexperience with Joe Biden, the same way JFK did with LBJ. John McCain has answered the question of his age and experience with Sarah Palin, the same way GHWB attempted to do with Dan Quayle. The difference between Obama’s decision and McCain’s decision is that Obama’s decision works against his own “change” message by putting two Washington establishment liberals at the top of the ticket while McCain’s decision actually works in favor of a new direction for Washington politics by bringing in a woman who has absolutely no connection to Washington. Even Dan Quayle was a Washington insider.

So your choice this time around really comes down to the youth and inexperience of Barack Obama balanced by the aged but experienced Joe Biden, a ticket made up of two men who are in lockstep ideologically, which if you evaluated it honestly is nothing more than the same liberal leadership Democrats have offerred since LBJ; or the age and experience of John McCain who has been daring enough to choose as his running mate a youthful woman with limited experience – none inside Washington – but who is ideologically opposite McCain on some economic (i.e. oil and drilling) and social issues (i.e.,civil unions and embryonic stem cell research).

Which ticket really represents “more of the same”?