In my previous post, I discussed negative political advertising. I talked about how McCain portrayed Obama as not being experienced enough to be President, and also how Obama portrayed McCain as being old and uncaring of minorities and the middle class.

Well, both McCain and Obama answered back to these negative advertisements by choosing a Vice President that would make up for their weaknesses. Obama choosing Joe Biden adds the experience that is needed for his campaign, and McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his Vice President adds the woman or minority representation to his campaign and the younger, fresh image that Obama has. That was a smart move on both candidate's parts.

McCain's choice was smart: bringing a woman back into the mix allows for a lot of Hillary supporters to jump over to the Republican side. The empowerment of woman and minorities is very important in this campaign, and McCain is using that to his advantage. Although many people may think that McCain chose Palin only because she is a woman, from the news I have seen that she is an exceptional candidate. And the timing of McCain's choice also was smart because it took away some of the focus from Obama.

Obama and McCain's decisions have been very strategic and well planned. It will be very interesting to see how supporters react to the new Vice Presidential candidates and how it will affect both campaigns.