Sarah Palin, Part II: How will she affect the election?

I've got a disorganized mess of points, so I'll do this as a bulleted list:

• She's energized the base - social conservatives love her. These people would vote McCain anyway, but now they're donating money and spreading the message, which will have a noticable effect. She also, however, has energized the Democratic base - the prospect of her a heartbeat away is so worrying that it's lead to a flood of effort and donations from the other side.
• Women: She is one. However, her stances, especially no abortion, will probably not lead to any long-term gains in this demographic. 538 has an interesting analysis of this, suggesting that Palin might do well among white mothers, but overall I don't see her having a major impact. If she does, McCain will win the election. Disaffected Hillary Clinton voters should not be voting for her - although some undoubtebly will -, and Obama should by trying to use Clinton as much as he can to attack Palin.
  
• McCain's age: McCain is quite old, and if he dies Sarah Palin will take over. Other than her obvious inexperience, I think that even many McCain supporters - the centrists and the libertarians - would not like to see Palin become president, just based on her political views. The hawks may like her attitude, but she has absolutely no foreign policy experience.

Sarah Palin was a very risky choice to make, but I think it was probably the best decision McCain could make. None of his other choices stood out, and with Palin he has got a lot of coverage and attention, energised and brough in the base, including the Christian Right, who were having doubts, and overshadowed Obama's pick. He knows that this will either win him the election or backfire horribly, and he felt that his alternative was marching steadily along and losing the election by a small margin. Her big weakness, inexperience, is hard for the Democrats to attack without somewhat exposing their own candidate's suppossed lack of experience, and her youth - and possibly her gender - may make it harder for Biden to effectively attack her without seeming elitist. And remember - the Republicans won the last two elections, and in both of them succeeded in tarring their opponent as an elitist.
Coming back to Earth however, although I am worried about the possibility of Palin, I think the pick will backfire. She in horribly inexperienced, from a small isolated state, and doesn't seem to have been properly vetted.
Then again, look what happened in 1988. (Dan Quayle!)