Friday John McCain made big news by announcing that his running mate will be Sarah Palin.

The obvious question on everybody's mind is: Will a woman on the ticket help McCain? I don't think so. In fact, I expect a backlash.

The thing most commentators seized upon is Palin's inexperience. After serving as mayor of a town of 5,000 people she has served for 2 years as the governor of the 4th least populous state in the union. After all his talk about how inexperienced Barack Obama is, John McCain is claiming that Palin, with even less experience is ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency (a 72-year-old cancer-surviving heartbeat at that).

Even more significantly, John McCain has been building his campaign around the idea that (unlike Obama, presumably) he is a candidate of substance, who always does what is best for his country and not necessarily what is popular or likely to get him elected. Remember that his big line is, "I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war." Yet he very transparently selects a female Vice Presidential candidate in an attempt to win over the supposed masses of disillusioned Hillary Clinton supporters.

Am I reducing the issue? Not at all. I challenge anybody to come up with one quality about Palin, aside from her gender and her age, that would make her a better Vice Presidential than any other Republican in the country.

So much for McCain putting substance and policy ahead of popularity. But will his gambit succeed in winning over Hillary Clinton supporters? I don't think so. Sure, there will always be a few who will change over just because she's a woman (and you can bet FOX News will find them and interview them), but as a whole I believe people supported Hillary Clinton partly because she's a woman, but also because she speaks to the issues that they care about: health care, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, etc. Hillary supporters aren't going to suddenly switch over to a pro-life, pro-drilling, pro-business candidate just because she also happens to own a pair of ovaries.

In fact, I expect some voters will be insulted by the suggestion that a person's sex is all that matters to them. I'm reminded of Barack Obama's senate race in 2004 when the Republican party drafted Alan Keyes to run against him. It only showed how out of touch the Republicans are that they thought people would vote for another man who also happens to be black, but speaks of none of the issues that the targeted voting block care about.

I don't expect that McCain's selection of Palin will be quite as disastrous as Keyes' Illinois Senate campaign. In fact, I think any direct effect she has on the overall election will be negligible. But I do think the choice compromises McCain's overall message so far, and can only hurt him.