Palin Aces 2nd Round Veep Interview

More of this, please.

Kudlow: All right, drill, drill, drill! Nobody does it better than Alaska, if only Congress would let it. So here to tell us all about it, Alaska Republican Governor Sarah Palin.

Governor Palin, thank you ever so much for coming on. We appreciate it. I want to start with this, it’s an oddball question. I mean, Senator McCain says it's too pristine to drill. Senator Obama says the drilling won't work. What is your response to this? How do you fight back?

Palin: Well it will work. And Senator McCain is wrong on that issue. He’s right on a whole lot of other issues, so thank goodness that he’s understanding and evolving ...

(Amen.)

 Kudlow: Why don’t we just liberate, and decontrol, and deregulate the whole bloody energy business – whether it’s oil, gas, shale, nuclear, coal, natural gas, as well as wind and solar – why don’t we just decontrol, deregulate, go for an America first energy policy? Get independent of Saudi Arabia? America first. Create all of these millions of high paying jobs. Why isn’t anybody talking about that in this race? That’s the natural, Reaganesque thing to do. Isn’t it?

Palin: Yeah absolutely! You’re hitting the nail right on the head. That’s what so many of us normal Americans are asking. The same thing. Why aren’t the candidates talking like that? Where we can secure America and we can be more independent when we talk about energy sources if we could drill domestically.

Here's how she handled The Question (excluding the political boilerplate about being fulfilled by her current job, not expecting to be asked, etc.):   

Kudlow: If [McCain] asked you to be his vice-president, would you accept in light of your  disagreement, apparently, over ANWR drilling?

Palin: Well I’d like the opportunity to get to change his mind about ANWR, I’ll tell you that. ...
Kudlow: Well okay. You’ve got a lot of work to do drilling up there to help the rest of America. But let me ask one final question. In your judgment, is it time for the Republican Party to put a woman on the ticket?

Palin: Oh, we’re overdue for that.  Absolutely. I would love to see that happen.

I have to say, I'm still crossing my fingers that Mitt gets the nod, as I think he can help McCain "understand and evolve" on a whole raft of economic issues where he'd benefit from a little evolution, whereas Palin's primary policy impact would presumably be limited (at least for the time being) to energy policy alone.  Plus, Romney's exquisite CV enables him to check the "ready to assume the Presidency" box better than any of the other short listers.  Plus, there's the hair.  Admittedly, there's also the YZF Ranch.  And millions of voters too nuanced disingenuous in their thinking to grasp the difference between Mormons and FLDS.

From a pure electability perspective, I'm not sure McCain could do better than Palin.  If the polls conducted toward the end of the Democratic primary (showing a meaningful segment of Hillary's supporters planning to defect) were any indication, even if they overstated the percentages 2- or 3-fold, moderate McCain has a legitimate poaching opportunity.    And in a cycle when identity politics is all the rage, one can be forgiven for assuming that some non-zero incremental percentage of Hillary's female-skewing support base might be swayed by a McCain-Palin ticket.

Update: Allah's got video of the full interview.  Eight minutes of free-market red meat.  Delicious.