Sarah Palin for Veep - The Maverick Strikes Alaskan Gold
John McCain made his choice for his vice presidential running mate known today. To applause from the majority of conservative punditry the choice is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
My initial thought was that this was a brilliant counter-punch, which is exactly the kind of campaigning John McCain does best. He waited for Obama to make his own selection. Allowed the disaffected Hillary supporters to grumble. And then... bam! Introducing Sarah Palin. Say goodbye to the ability to bring all those Hillary supporters back home Mr. Obama.
Obviously there are two huge factors that make this choice even possible, let alone smart. The first is Obama's own paper-thin resume. If Obama can make the case that he's qualified to be president, he's going to have a terrible time discrediting Palin for her own youth and inexperience in office. And when he tries he feeds right into the other factor - Hillary baggage. The same notes that caused so many Hillary supporters to dislike Obama - the way he was perceived to be talking down to and disrespecting a woman - are going to be replayed again. It's like ripping the scab off a wound that had barely begun to heal.
Now objectively, I agree with the main point Democrats are now making - that Gov. Palin doesn't have enough experience to be president yet. For the same reason I didn't think promising Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was ready either.
However I think the same thing about Barack Obama, so I do wish the Democrats would look in a freaking mirror once in a while. Rather than getting into an obscure Angels-dancing-on-needles breakdown of the comparative inexperience between Obama and Palin as some others seem to be doing, I'm calling it a wash. The Dems took experience off the table as a qualification for office by nominating Obama in the first place. I have no desire to even rekindle that debate until someone can convince me Obama has done anything noteworthy as an elected official.
And since we're talking about electing political naifs to the nation's highest office, I'm a lot more comfortable with the inexperienced one playing the role of understudy rather than leading man. Advantage - Republicans.
But it's in the other area - the open grab for disaffected Hillary supporters - that seems to be the key to this selection. And when I watched her speech in Ohio today upon being announced it became extremely clear that this was going to be THE major role for her in this campaign.
She established her "common woman" credentials as a wife and a mother from a typical American family; a family most people can relate to. This was the ground Hillary used - somewhat less plausibly but effectively - to rally back against Obama in the latter races in the Democratic primary. Hillary's women seem to find Obama MOST off-putting compared to someone like this.
And then, somewhat surprisingly for its directness, she lauded the accomplishments of Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton before making an open appeal to women to "finish the job" of breaking through the glass ceiling by helping elect her. As evidenced by watching the Democratic campaign, it's not like this kind of line is unusual in American politics. It is, however, unusual in Republican Party politics, and it signals a very different strategy for competing for independent and even Democratic votes. This will not be another Karl Rove "turn out your base in
bigger numbers than the other team" kind of election.
There's going to be a lot of dirt thrown at Palin in a hurry by Obama's deep-pocketed and semi-fanatical attack machine. That would happen to anyone McCain chose. The thing to watch is not the existence of the attacks, but the counter-punches. An early example I saw among the television chattering classes looked formidable.
On Palin being criticized by the Obama camp for being mayor of a town of only 9,000: "I would think Senator Obama would know better by now than to attack small town America. Governor Palin is proud to be from small town America."
On Palin's record not being experienced enough: "I'd think Senator Obama would have learned by now not to diminish the accomplishments of women."
After being bored by the predictability of the Democratic convention, things are suddenly looking interesting for the next 67 days.
My initial thought was that this was a brilliant counter-punch, which is exactly the kind of campaigning John McCain does best. He waited for Obama to make his own selection. Allowed the disaffected Hillary supporters to grumble. And then... bam! Introducing Sarah Palin. Say goodbye to the ability to bring all those Hillary supporters back home Mr. Obama.
Obviously there are two huge factors that make this choice even possible, let alone smart. The first is Obama's own paper-thin resume. If Obama can make the case that he's qualified to be president, he's going to have a terrible time discrediting Palin for her own youth and inexperience in office. And when he tries he feeds right into the other factor - Hillary baggage. The same notes that caused so many Hillary supporters to dislike Obama - the way he was perceived to be talking down to and disrespecting a woman - are going to be replayed again. It's like ripping the scab off a wound that had barely begun to heal.
Now objectively, I agree with the main point Democrats are now making - that Gov. Palin doesn't have enough experience to be president yet. For the same reason I didn't think promising Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was ready either.
However I think the same thing about Barack Obama, so I do wish the Democrats would look in a freaking mirror once in a while. Rather than getting into an obscure Angels-dancing-on-needles breakdown of the comparative inexperience between Obama and Palin as some others seem to be doing, I'm calling it a wash. The Dems took experience off the table as a qualification for office by nominating Obama in the first place. I have no desire to even rekindle that debate until someone can convince me Obama has done anything noteworthy as an elected official.
And since we're talking about electing political naifs to the nation's highest office, I'm a lot more comfortable with the inexperienced one playing the role of understudy rather than leading man. Advantage - Republicans.
But it's in the other area - the open grab for disaffected Hillary supporters - that seems to be the key to this selection. And when I watched her speech in Ohio today upon being announced it became extremely clear that this was going to be THE major role for her in this campaign.
She established her "common woman" credentials as a wife and a mother from a typical American family; a family most people can relate to. This was the ground Hillary used - somewhat less plausibly but effectively - to rally back against Obama in the latter races in the Democratic primary. Hillary's women seem to find Obama MOST off-putting compared to someone like this.
And then, somewhat surprisingly for its directness, she lauded the accomplishments of Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton before making an open appeal to women to "finish the job" of breaking through the glass ceiling by helping elect her. As evidenced by watching the Democratic campaign, it's not like this kind of line is unusual in American politics. It is, however, unusual in Republican Party politics, and it signals a very different strategy for competing for independent and even Democratic votes. This will not be another Karl Rove "turn out your base in
bigger numbers than the other team" kind of election.
There's going to be a lot of dirt thrown at Palin in a hurry by Obama's deep-pocketed and semi-fanatical attack machine. That would happen to anyone McCain chose. The thing to watch is not the existence of the attacks, but the counter-punches. An early example I saw among the television chattering classes looked formidable.
On Palin being criticized by the Obama camp for being mayor of a town of only 9,000: "I would think Senator Obama would know better by now than to attack small town America. Governor Palin is proud to be from small town America."
On Palin's record not being experienced enough: "I'd think Senator Obama would have learned by now not to diminish the accomplishments of women."
After being bored by the predictability of the Democratic convention, things are suddenly looking interesting for the next 67 days.
Posted by Doug Williams on
Friday August 29, 2008 at 1:02pm
