For all the talk and poll numbers about how close the 2008 presidential race was heading into Labor Day, John McCain's choice of freshman Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate smacks of desperation, and even of questionable responsibility.

McCain, like most presidential nominees, declared that in choosing a vice presidential nominee, he would be looking first of all for someone qualified to take over as president if destiny were to dictate. With voters already concerned about McCain's advanced age, he has a particular burden justifying the choice of someone so inexperienced in national affairs and foreign policy.

Picking a little-known woman of 44 with only two years as governor in a small state — on his own 72nd birthday — is a huge gamble, amid continuing speculation about his own durability, in spite of his withstanding the rigors of heavy campaigning this year.

It's a rerun of the choice by Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984 of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York to be his running mate, in a similarly obvious bid for the women's vote. That one failed abysmally in trying to rescue Mondale from a landslide loss to President Ronald Reagan, seeking re-election.

The selection of Palin is a transparent effort to tap into the disappointment of some Democratic supporters of defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose discontent was dealt with aggressively at the Democratic Convention in Denver. In the announcement, the Alaska governor pointedly referred to the 18 million Clinton voters who "cracked the glass ceiling," adding "The women of America aren't finished yet."

If McCain's rationale in his vice presidential choice was to provide electric-shock treatment to the presidential race, to his own campaign, and to steal some thunder from the emotional conclusion of the Democratic convention, he clearly succeeded.

But dealing with the aftermath of his decision may not be so easy. McCain's main argument has been that Obama is not ready to be president — too inexperienced generally and in foreign policy especially. He will be hard-pressed to explain why he would pick a running mate who is even more inexperienced, in both national and foreign-policy matters.

Palin herself faces a daunting task in being compared with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden. Biden's 36 years in the Senate, as chairman of its Foreign Relations Committee, former chairman of its Judiciary Committee and a seasoned debater, will pose a particularly formidable challenge for her in the scheduled vice presidential debate in October.

It's understandable that McCain would want to try to shake up the election if he and his strategists believe that the polls indicating a close race are way off base. But when Mondale picked Ferraro in 1984, he was much more obviously a long shot from the start, and he was only 56 at the time. His strategists realized they really needed, in football terms, to throw the long ball and didn't think too much of presidential succession.

Picking Palin suggests that McCain has already reached a similar conclusion about needing a Hail Mary pass, but was willing to brush aside the succession question, in spite of his age. It's a specter that the Obama campaign certainly will conjure up to the voters in the fall.

At the same time, the McCain advisers are well aware, as Bush guru Karl Rove has been noting, that voters nearly always cast their ballots for the top of the ticket no matter who the running mate is. That seemed to be reinforced in 1988 in the election of the senior George Bush despite his selection of the much-ridiculed Dan Quayle.

In that election, the running mate of Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, the seasoned Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, got the best line of the campaign in his debate with Quayle, who had compared himself to John F. Kennedy: "I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine, and senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Bush won anyway.

But this time around, vice-presidential selection is likely to be more in voters' minds with a 72-year-old seeking the top job, a realization that should make the Obama strategists ecstatic that McCain picked this inexperienced Alaska governor to stand a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.