Poli-break: McCain Chooses Little-Known Palin

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose the little-known, first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The man who previously criticized Barack Obama as inexperienced chose a woman who has served a little less than two years as governor of a state with a population only slightly larger than the crowd that attended Obama's acceptance speech in Denver. Previously, she was mayor of a small Alaskan suburb.

The New York Times reports that "this month, a bipartisan panel of state legislators appointed an independent investigator to look into whether Ms. Palin had fired a top law enforcement official in her administration because he had failed to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a divorce with Ms. Palin’s sister."

The Obama camp issued this statement: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

Burton also criticized Palin as a vice presidential pick for her support of oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness and her anti-abortion stance, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the United States.

"Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies. That's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," he said.