I've lived in Alaska for my entire life. Last year, my family moved to Pittsburgh for a while so my husband could attend medical school, but my office remains in Anchorage. When I heard the news that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had been selected to run for vice president I was so shocked I almost got hit by a bus.

Moving to Pittsburgh really opened my eyes as to how different Alaska is from the rest of the United States.

In Alaska, our politics swirl around oil and gas, hunting and fishing regulations, and where to mine next. The issues that people face here in Pittsburgh -- the loss of manufacturing jobs, urban decay, race relations -- bear scant resemblance to Alaska's preoccupations. Not only does Ms. Palin have no international experience (she applied for a passport for the first time a year ago), she has no understanding of the issues that most Americans face.

Today in Alaska, the economy is doing well. State coffers are overflowing with oil royalties and in October every Alaskan man, woman and child will receive a check for more than $3,000 as our share of that wealth. We pay no state income tax, no state sales tax and receive many times more per capita in federal funds than any other state in the union. Sound like life in Pittsburgh? I don't think so.

The town of Wasilla, where Ms. Palin was mayor, is tiny. It basically is a collection of big box stores strung along one of our two major highways (that's right, we have two major highways in the entire state) surrounded by rural-suburban homesteads. It is homogenous -- mostly people who look like Sarah Palin live there.

While she was mayor, Ms. Palin had a full-time city administrator who ran the city, so I would say her level of "executive experience" is much more limited than she claims.

In the 20 months Ms. Palin has served as governor, her style and record raise further questions about her suitability for national office.

She is not a consensus builder and has failed to work constructively even with Alaska's bipartisan legislative majority. While she claims to cut the budget, she has been very generous with her home community. While she ran on ethics reform, she currently is being investigated for firing a state employee because he would not fire her sister's ex-husband.

Ms. Palin is vehemently anti-choice; she does not believe that global warming has a human cause; she wants creationism discussed in public schools. While she says she will lead us to energy independence by increased drilling, there is not enough oil in Alaska or anywhere else in the United States to dent our dependence of foreign oil unless we dramatically reduce our consumption.

By choosing Ms. Palin, John McCain demonstrated that he is cynical about the American public. He is banking on our love of celebrity to distract us from the truth. He believes that by telling us he represents change that we will forget that he has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time and that his party has controlled both the White House and Congress for most of the last eight years without changing anything for the better.

Mr. McCain thinks we will believe that he will cut our taxes when in reality he will lower taxes for people with high incomes like his own while families like that of Ms. Palin's sister, the gas station owner, will see no relief.

Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin have no realistic strategy to cover the cost of health care, as small businesses like mine continue to be crippled by rising premiums for health insurance.

Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin will continue to export jobs overseas with no plans to put people in Pittsburgh and Detroit back to work.

Since Ms. Palin characterized herself as a "pit-bull with lipstick," I see no need to pull any punches. We all need to see Ms. Palin for who she is -- someone frighteningly unprepared for the job she is seeking who will do nothing to improve the lives of everyday Americans.

As for Mr. McCain, we should see his irresponsible choice for vice president as an indictment of his rash decision-making and lack of good judgment. This is someone we do not need in charge for the next four years.