Will McCain Play the Gender Card?

With disaffected Clinton supporters still vowing to stay home or vote for him, John McCain must be tempted to give them another reason to come aboard by picking Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.

From a look at her political history, the 44-year-old "Northern Exposure" chief executive would bring more than token womanhood to the ticket. With approval ratings in the 80-90 percent range, Palin is seen, in the words of NPR, as "a moose-burger-eating, snow-mobile-riding maverick who's not afraid to take on fellow Republicans she disagrees with," including distancing herself from the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.

At the same time, she is adored by the Religious Right as the mother of five, the eldest of whom joined the Army at 18 last year and the youngest a Down's Syndrome baby she refused to abort, and as a hunting, fishing lifetime member of the NRA.

With her beauty pageant looks and background in journalism, Palin would enliven the Republican campaign and bring them an activist on the key issue of energy, providing a tireless young partner for McCain's claims of change in Washington.

Unrequited Hillary Clinton supporters, still fighting for recognition at the Democratic convention, would face a bitter irony in Sarah Palin as a potential vice-president. In the light of McCain's age, a Republican victory this year could eventually make the first woman in the White House a president who would appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v Wade and restore the era of back-alley abortions.

If McCain decides to play the gender card, he will be forcing Democrats to overcome their differences, to put up or shut up by making party unity a reality rather than a slogan.