I KNOW. I should be concentrating on the US presidential candidates’ policy positions on such weighty issues as the impact that either’s victory would have on the global financial crisis and international trade and multilateral security frameworks. But as these matters are being tackled in our coverage in the main edition of our newspaper, forgive me for indulging in more whimsical gossip in this blog.

The truth is I find myself irresistibly drawn to Mrs Sarah Palin, with a mix of fear and loathing and awe and grudging admiration. Mr John McCain and the Republicans are asking Americans to accept that she is fit to sit a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world. But even if Mr McCain loses, which he probably will, she’ll be hanging around. Her mascara-extended lashes are batting away at the 2012 presidential elections.

Can she lead a diverse population of 300 million, a country with half the world’s military spending at its disposal and the world’s largest economy?  How did she achieve what many other hugely more able candidates – think of poor Mrs Hillary Clinton here – tried to, only to stumble and fail?

As Mr McCain’s aides have sheepishly admitted, the vetting stamps weren’t even whipped out for her papers before the Republican candidate decided she was his veep partner. For a while, it looked like an inspired choice that would invigorate the Republican ground. And it did.  But only for a while, before the carefully-crafted image of empathetic hockey mom cracked to reveal what many describe as an incurious mind and an ill-disciplined politician with a knack for going off-message.

That’s just her political chops. Let’s not go into such alleged indiscretions as the abuse of petty power, from wreaking revenge on a public servant because of a family squabble to claiming expenses for personal travels.

Already, more voters have concluded that she is not qualified to be a vice-president, dragging down Mr McCain’s chances. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll out over the weekend found 59 per cent of voters believing her to be unqualified to be veep, compared to 50 per cent a week earlier. Voters also said they had much more confidence in Mr Obama to pick qualified people to serve in his administration than they did Mr McCain.

Still, the question has to be asked: what was Mr McCain thinking and how did she get so far?

Would someone like Mrs Sarah Palin get within sniffing distance of being, say, Deputy Prime Minister in Singapore? On the one hand, one could argue, why not? After all, what is our problem that only deadly serious types like Prof S. Jayakumar and Mr Wong Kan Seng should reach such positions? Even the handful of women leaders we do not have Mrs Palin’s casual charm.

Mrs Palin is out there shaking up and talking down to Washington DC’s male establishment. In contrast, Singapore’s female politicians are happy to be team players and you would not catch them whipping up a crowd with declarations like, “Hey I think it’s time the Istana had a taste of girl power.”

But these are all probably good things and in keeping with the political culture where one cannot be seen to be coveting power. One is called upon to serve and one accepts gratefully but also with grim resignation the sacrifices one makes of family time, career opportunities and private space.

In the US, and mostly everywhere else, it is OK to show you want power. In Singapore, such open ambition and reliance on charisma is a liability. I dare wager that is true not just for the ruling party but also the Workers’ Party.

Mrs Palin would probably not be invited to a PAP tea party of say a decade ago. More recently, she might have snuck in under the banner of diversity, with the PAP anxious to show that it has representatives of different backgrounds and generations.

Even if she were picked as a candidate, would she rise in stature and to significance in the Singapore system? Probably not. The qualities that the Singapore government values in its ministers are glaringly absent from Mrs Palin. 

The PAP system is not perfect and suffers its own weaknesses. But, I am quite relieved actually that its recruitment system would not take a Palin-like candidate very far. I can almost see the late Mr Lim Kim San pursing his lips and casting an acerbic remark about her, the way he did over some other candidates that journalists would mention at our internal meetings when he was our company chairman.

The late Mr Lim was a sharp talent scout for the PAP and one hopes that the same tough, unsentimental scrutiny of candidates is a tradition that continues to this day.

So, Mrs Palin?  A backbencher, perhaps. Hip hop dancing at Chingay Parades, why not.

But it’s good to know that the decisions that matter would be made not by the likes of her, but more by politicians in the Hillary Clinton mode: smart and tough and who will earn people’s respect sooner than she is relatable or liked.