Ever since John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his Vice President, Conservatives and Republicans alike have been beside themselves with joy. Republican party faithful practically fainting in ecstasy over Palin I can understand, since it almost guarantees McCain a win in November. However, McCain himself has not changed just because he added Sarah Palin to his ticket. He's the same person, with the same attitudes and agenda, that he was the day before -- when the odds were good that he was going to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Nothing is different now. Adding Palin to the ticket has done nothing to change him or his policies, and I, for one, don't think she's going to be setting the White House's agenda if McCain wins. She'll be doing the political equivalent of cutting the opening ribbons at shopping malls. Without altering his own political policies one iota, McCain has tricked a lot of Conservatives into supporting him based on his picking as his running mate a person whose entire job will consist of breaking ties in the Senate... of which there will be damned few, with President "Reach Across the Aisle" setting the agenda.

And yet, Conservatives are flocking to the McCain-Palin banner in droves, sending in those all-important campaign donations. That makes me sad, it really does. Because I can't imagine how anyone could really believe that John "Screw the Conservatives" McCain is doing anything but using Palin as a stalking horse. She's not going to be running the White House. She's not going to be setting policy. She's going to sit in the Senate just in case there happens to be a tie someday, and that's it -- aside from a lot of photo ops. Don't get me wrong -- I like what I know of Sarah Palin so far, aside from the fact that no one seems to know her position on granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. If she runs in 2012 I might even support her. It's just that Palin has only one purpose as part of McCain's campaign: to trick Conservatives into voting for the guy who has spent his entire career stabbing them in the back. And so far, it's working. I guess the McCain-Palin campaign can be summed up as "Change You're Desperate to Believe In."