| Talk about a curve ball. John McCain had everyone buckling their knees when he selected Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. The initial impact of choosing Palin, in addition to the GOP convention bump, has vaulted McCain ahead of Barack Obama in many polls. It remains to be seen if the Palin strategy will win McCain the White House but the pick has drastically changed the dynamics of the 2008 campaign.
WHY PALIN?
So why did McCain pick Palin? It was a decision driven by desperate necessity. McCain couldn't pick who he really wanted and he needed a wildcard to take people's minds off of the problems facing the country created by HIS Republican Party. Media accounts have it that McCain wanted to tap Joe Lieberman as his VP but that his aides told him the already uneasy ultra conservative Republican base would revolt on the convention floor (Lieberman is a socially liberal war hawk) if the Connecticut Senator got the nod. McCain was now left with a group of flawed GOP primary opponents or a wildcard. Many thought that wildcard would be experienced Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson or eBay CEO Meg Whitman. These two women would bring a lot to the table in terms of experience and would help McCain pander to pissed off conservative Hillary supporters. The often reckless McCain decided to go with a little known and little vetted Alaskan governor in what he rightfully hoped would be a game changing decision.
STRATEGIC IMPACT
McCain's folks realized that the 42 year old Palin was one of the only people in the country that could both sure up the conservative base while at the same time giving McCain a shot at bringing over some of the more conservative Hillary primary voters, those elusive but crucial Reagan Democrats. Palin's appeal to undecided voters has less to do with her being a woman than it does her rural and average person appeal. Everything about Palin screams identifiability- be it true or not. Republicans are much better at the perception game than Democrats and although that leads to poor government it often results in victorious GOP elections. Most Americans in the center of the country's electorate view Palin as a good looking, middle aged soccer mom who shoots straight both verbally and figuratively. Middle America can relate to Palin's portrayed image much better than they can McCain, who is from military royalty and is a multimillionaire or Barack Obama who is racially mixed and has an unusual name. Joe Biden has the appeal but his experience in Washington leaves little zest to catch people's attention.
WHAT DEMOCRATS WANT TO HAPPEN
It seems every time I prognosticate I get myself in trouble but here are some scenarios that I hope play out. McCain's choice of Palin is a paper tiger. Palin appears now to be a slam dunk but it has undercut some core aspects of McCain's message, namely experience. Palin is not experienced and quite unproven on national and international issues. In fact, Palin has been quoted to have said she knows little about foreign policy or the American economy. Age having already been an issue for the 72 year old McCain brings Palin's ability to step in and lead the country that much more into the spotlight. Once Palin starts fielding questions we will see if she can hold her own under the pressure of media scrutiny. Any mistake that Palin makes will be that much more magnified and it may be viewed that Palin's lack of experience shows poor decision making skills on the part of McCain. The Democrats have to be careful as hell with Palin. Any perceived sexism or improper aggression on their part would also be magnified by the media given the Hillary dynamic that played out in the primary. Reality means nothing and perception everything in the 24 hour news cycle and if Palin forgets the name of the Iraqi President or if Biden would call Palin a bitch then the ramifications could turn the election.
McCain's second worry must be Palin's ideology and record and the problem is twofold. The first pitfall of Palin's political ideology is its roots in ultra conservatism. There is a reason why Palin solidifies the right wing of the GOP- she has some fairly out of touch stances on a number of issues. Palin is as anti choice on abortion as any major American politician. Abortion is such a difficult moral issue but many policymakers agree that in cases of rape or incest the mother should be given all due consideration in deciding whether or not to take the baby to term. Not Palin. Even if a woman was raped by her father and becomes pregnant Palin believes that mother should not be allowed to terminate the pregnancy before it comes to term- not after a trimester, not after a month, not after a week. I just do not think that radical and unyielding a position can survive nationally and if it can then I am worried about more than just this election.
Palin's radical political views also have her coming out against evolution. Yes, evolution. Palin is a creationist and would continue the radical right's attempts to dumb down America to the point where we do not stand a chance against other nations in the fields of science. The Bush Administration has been repeatedly criticized for its war on science over the past eight years and with people like Palin at his side John McCain will kowtow to the radicals in his party so that the war against knowledge continues. People have the right to be as ill-informed as they please but when we elect leaders we should hold them to a higher standard. Otherwise they will set policy that will continue the retardification of our great nation.
McCain must also be worried about Palin's record. McCain failed to fully vet the Governor despite what his campaign says. We are finding more and more out about her policy positions each week. Her limited experience as mayor of a town with 8k people as well as her two years as Governor of 670,000 people and 1 million caribou has left only traces of a governing philosophy but what we find when we look at her decisions is not good. When mayor, Palin increased government spending by 33% and city taxes by 38%- including an increase of the regressive food tax. Palin spent $15 on a sports complex for her small city but failed to build a needed sewage treatment plant. Instead of using tax surpluses to repair the weather weary city roads, Palin took the town further into debt with a $5 million levy. Palin inherited a city with zero debt and when she left the mayor's office Wassila's debt was $22 million. Palin was also one of the most pork friendly mayors of Alaska- often calling on corrupt Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens for fist fulls of money. Hypocrisy is a cold Alaskan dish and Palin eats it with a spoon.
Finally, McCain's last and most serious worry has to be that once the Palin bounce subsides he is left with his weak argument for change. McCain has perhaps given up his high ground position in this political war to earn himself an early and ultimately meaningless, unless sustained, skirmish. I mean how in the hell can the Republicans sell themselves as change agents when they have been the one's causing all this mess in the first place. It reminds me of a line from the movie O' Brother Where Art Thou. The sitting governor is trying to figure out how in the hell he will beat his opponent given his poor standing in the polls. Junio says, "Well, people like that reform. Maybe we should get some?" to which Governor Pappy replies, "I'll reform you, you softheaded sonofabitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent!" Well, I don't see it selling and it could prove a big mistake later for McCain. Palin may be popular but even if she doesn't screw up when answering questions from the media she will still lose some of her wow factor after a few weeks. If and when that happens the McCain campaign will have no discernable message and no real claim for why the Republicans should be given another four years to drive our beloved country into the ground.
CONCLUSION
The Palin strategy has worked so far. McCain has caught up with, if not passed, Obama in the polls and will probably stay there until the first presidential debate. Once the debates begin Palin will become an afterthought, unless she makes a great gaffe, until the VP debate. The Palin strategy is very risky but it might have been McCain's best political move. She certainly wasn't the most qualified candidate McCain had to choose from but that means little to a savvy politician like John McCain.
Only a few Democrats are in a position to attack Palin with Hillary Clinton being one of them. Palin has radical views and little experience and is no friend to the average Jane or Joe. She is more like George W Bush than McCain could ever be and that is both bad and good for Dems. Likability, not leadership ability, wins most presidential elections and the GOP knows that.
Time will tell if the GOP has undercut itself with the Palin strategy but Democrats should be worried. If you thought Obama was going to have himself a cakewalk into the White House then you were just wrong. This campaign is as close as they come and if you want the country to change direction and move out of doldrums of the Bush years then you better be working to get Obama elected because with 58 days until the election he is losing. |
