In a half-assed bid to woo undecided Clintonites, John McCain has selected Alaskan governor, anti-abortionist and gun-lovin’ Sarah Palin to be his running-mate for the upcoming POTUS election. And should McCain go on to win, Palin will once again be the runner-up in a major political contest.

The Miss America Organization is pleased to announce that former Miss Alaska contestant, Sarah Heath Palin, has just been named as John McCain’s vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket. In 1984, Palin was chosen as Miss Wasilla and went on to become the first runner-up in the Miss Alaska Pageant and received the Miss Congeniality award the same year. Her husband, Todd Palin was a judge in the 2008 Miss Alaska Pageant.

I guess being the best of the losers in a beauty pageant is something to sort of be proud about, but it’s not like she accomplished the feat in California or anything. It’s common knowledge that pretty much everyone in Alaska looks a bit like this or this.

Heck, the only vaguely attractive Alaskan that I can think of is Maggie O’Connell from Goeiemore Alaska, but she’s fictitious (surprise!) and is actually Nebraskan. Scratch. So in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we have to conclude that Palin played second-fiddle to White Fang in the beauty stakes, and probably only won the Congeniality title because White Fang was a lonesome wolf-dog not particularly well known for joke-telling and grinning for the cameras.

Frankly, I can think of at least one beauty pageanter who would’ve slotted perfectly into the Republican team, specifically seeing as she already has heaps of experience after serving a year or two as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush administration.

Before any Alaskans get their sealskin loin-cloths in a twist, I’ll concede that I wouldn’t mind sharing an igloo or two with Jewel or Holly Madison (Hef’s main squeeze…for now), both of whom are natives of The Land of the Midnight Sun, but I don’t think that either of them competed in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant. Castrate me if I’m wrong.

Update: turns out Sarah’s 17-year-old daughter has pulled a Jamie Lynn Spears. And this development might just swing the Southern vote in favour of the GOP. Kudos.