Posted on 08/30/2008 12:59:17 PM PDT by AreaMan
The selection of a running mate is among the most consequential, most defining decisions a presidential nominee can make. John McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says a lot about his decison-making — and some of it is downright breathtaking.
We knew McCain is a politician who relishes improvisation, and likes to go with his gut. But it is remarkable that someone who has repeatedly emphasized experience in this campaign named an inexperienced governor he barely knew to be his No. 2. Whatever you think of the pick, here are six things it tells us about McCain:
1. He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election — and very sick of the Bush years.
McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike.
McCain’s pick shows he is not pretending. Politicians, even “mavericks” like McCain, play it safe when they think they are winning — or see an easy path to winning. They roll the dice only when they know that the risks of conventionality are greater than the risks of boldness.
The Republican brand is a mess. McCain is reasonably concluding that it won’t work to replicate George W. Bush and Karl Rove’s electoral formula, based around national security and a big advantage among Y chromosomes, from 2004.
“She’s a fresh new face in a party that’s dying for one — the antidote to boring white men,” a campaign official said.
Palin, the logic goes, will prompt voters to give him a second look — especially women who have watched Democrats reject Hillary Rodham Clinton for Barack Obama.
The risks of a backlash from choosing someone so unknown and so untested are obvious. In one swift stroke, McCain demolished what had been one of his main arguments against Obama.
“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced,’” a top McCain official said wryly.
2. He’s willing to gamble — bigtime. Let’s face it: This is not the pick of a self-confident candidate. It is the political equivalent of a trick play or, as some Democrats called it, a Hail Mary pass in football. McCain talks incessantly about experience, and then goes and selects a woman he hardly knows, who hardly knows foreign policy and who can hardly be seen as instantly ready for the presidency.
He is smart enough to know it could work, at least politically. Many Republicans see this pick as a brilliant stroke because it will be difficult for Democrats to run hard against a woman in the wake of the Hillary Clinton drama. Will this push those disgruntled Hillary voters McCain’s way? Perhaps. But this is hardly aimed at them: It is directed at the huge bloc of independent women — especially those who do not see abortion as a make-or-break issue — who could decide this election.
McCain has a history of taking dares. Palin represents his biggest one yet.
3. He’s worried about the political implications of his age. Like a driver overcorrecting out of a swerve, he chooses someone who is two years younger than the youthful Obama, and 28 years younger than he is. (He turned 72 Friday.) The father-daughter comparison was inevitable when they appeared next to each other.
4. He’s not worried about the actuarial implications of his age. He thinks he’s in fine fettle, and Palin wouldn’t be performing the only constitutional duty of a vice president, which is standing by in case a president dies or becomes incapacitated. If he was really concerned about an inexperienced person sitting in the Oval Office we would be writing about vice presidential nominee Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge or Condoleezza Rice.
There is no plausible way that McCain could say that he picked Palin, who was only elected governor in 2006 and whose most extended public service was as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population 8,471), because she was ready to be president on Day One.
Nor can McCain argue that he was looking for someone he could trust as a close adviser. Most people know the staff at the local Starbucks better than McCain knows Palin. They met for the first time last February at a National Governors Association meeting in Washington. Then, they spoke again — by phone — on Sunday while she was at the Alaska state fair and he was at home in Arizona.
McCain has made a mockery out of his campaign's longtime contention that Barack Obama is too dangerously inexperienced to be commander in chief. Now, the Democratic ticket boasts 40 years of national experience (four years for Obama and 36 years for Joseph Biden of Delaware), while the Republican ticket has 26 (McCain’s four yeasr in the House and 22 in the Senate.)
The McCain campaign has made a calculation that most voters don’t really care about the national experience or credentials of a vice president, and that Palin’s ebullient personality and reputation as a refomer who took on cesspool politics in Alaska matters more.
5. He’s worried about his conservative base. If he had room to maneuver, there were lots of people McCain could have selected who would have represented a break from Washington politics as usual. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman comes to mind (and it certainly came to McCain’s throughout the process). He had no such room. GOP stalwarts were furious over trial balloons about the possibility of choosing a supporter of abortion rights, including the possibility that he would reach out to his friend.
Palin is an ardent opponent of abortion who was previously scheduled to keynote the Republican National Coalition for Life's "Life of the Party" event in the Twin Cities this week.
“She’s really a perfect selection,” said Darla St. Martin, the Co-Director of the National Right to Life Committee. It is no secret McCain wanted to shake things up in this race — and he realized he was limited to a shake-up conservatives could stomach.
6. At the end of the day, McCain is still McCain. People may find him a refreshing maverick, or an erratic egotist. In either event, he marches to his own beat.
On the upside, his team did manage to play to the media’s love of drama, fanning speculation about his possible choices and maximizing coverage of the decision.
On the potential downside, the drama was evidently entirely genuine. The fact that McCain only spoke with Palin about the vice presidency for the first time on Sunday, and that he was seriously considering Lieberman until days ago, suggests just how hectic and improvisational his process was.
In the end, this selection gives him a chance to reclaim the mantle of a different kind of politician intent on changing Washington. He once had a legitimate claim to this: after all, he took on his own party over campaign finance reform and immigration. He jeopardized this claim in recent months by embracing ideas he once opposed (Bush tax cuts) and ideas that appeared politically motivated (gas tax holiday).
Spontaneity, with a touch of impulsiveness, is one of the traits that attract some of McCain’s admirers. Whether it’s a good calling card for a potential president will depend on the reaction in coming days to what looks for the moment like the most daring vice presidential selection in generations.
Mike Allen contributed to this report.
The analysis of Vandehei and Harris has the objectivity and neutrality of a carnival hawker singing the praises of the trash he is selling to unsuspecting dimwits.
Ahh the wiggle words..."extended public service"...which glosses over the governorship of Alaska.
Mayor of a town or governor of a State, it is still more executive experience than the Democrats' prez. candidate.
Full fledged ratfest. They are clearly worried. Otherwise they wouldn’t be unloading so hard right out of the gate.
Like Carville says, you want a VP that gets the other side upset.
Clearly the case here from the word go.
Viva the Palin family!
They’re projecting to beat the band.
I don’t know if I can forgive McCain for this. This must’ve been the action of desperation. He WAS doing very well on his own, and he had a slew of capable, qualified politicians to choose from (Romney is one). And I REALLY thought we needed someone with economics experience to run with McCain. Why go this way? I’m not sure what I’m going to do, now. I think there is more of a chance he could die in office than someone else, so it’s important that the VP be presidential material. I don’t see her as that at all. She was picked ‘cause she’s a woman, mainly.
Maybe I’ll get over it. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I can’t vote for Obama. Maybe I should take a look at Barr. What to do, what to do.
You poor pitiful thing.
It only says one thing about McCain, he needs his base back, and he got it.
To paraphrase HRC, Obama is not ready to be pres on day one, and he’s at the head of the ticket.
What I don't understand is why you are wasting FR’s bandwidth.
What to do, what to do?
How about doing some research and learning that this successful business owner, this successful mayor, this successful Governor HAS economic experience. More importantly she has ADMINISTRATIVE experience which Obama doesn't have, Biden doesn't have and McCain doesn't have.
“Full fledged ratfest. They are clearly worried.”
Worried? The Dims are downright terrified!
Mark my words....you heard it here first! This was a mistake by McCain. As a moderate, I can tell you that Palin will ONLY appeal to the further right of the party. Some moderates may vote for the ticket, even with her on it, because of the alternative, but there is NO way that many Independents, who could vote either way, will vote for this ticket, now. Not with her on it. Where is the economic experience in this ticket? Nowhere. Where is the moderate maverick? Nowhere. His second banana is far from moderate. The Repubs NEED more than the base to vote for them this year. They may have lost it with this pick of VP (I mean...she wanted to take the fuzzy wuzzy Polar Bear off the endangered species list? How unappealing to moderates and Independents can you get?)
Maybe she’s got some moderate views we haven’t heard about yet. We’ll see. But I’m thinking....why didn’t he pick someone good for the economy. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Watch...you’ll see. No one’s gonna care that she’s a gun-totin’, tough-talkin’ mama from the wilds of Alaska, except some conservatives who were gonna vote for McCain, anyway.
“And I REALLY thought we needed someone with economics experience to run with McCain.”
Sarah Pail has far more economics experience than either Obambi or Biden. She ran her own company, was mayor (i.e., chief executive) of her town for many years, and is governor (again, chief executive) of natural resources rich Alaska. Obambi and Biden have ZERO executive experience, and the times they had their grubby hands on someone else’s money they frivolously pissed it away!
You sound like a Nader man.
You’re not electing a king and queen! You’re electing people with an ability to administer a nation and to delegate. If you want micromanagers then you elect guys like Carter the worst President in US history. Now where have the dem candidates administered on the scale of Palin? Right off the top Palin showed she was cut of the best cloth in her governship of Alaska. She is decisive and ideologically conservative. She appears to be the new generation of conservative females with guts which men have been lacking in the Republican Party.
We've seen the articles listing the results of McCain's selection of Palin as VP, the most noticeable being that it completely overshadowed BO. One point that hasn't been listed is that with the announcement BEFORE the RNC, all the ammo of the MSM will be out there and used up. When the American people see Palin in person -- and I expect her speech to have a higher rating than BO's acceptance -- they will realize that the MSN was a total misrepresentation. From that point McCain-Palin will gain more momentum.
Your tag line says it all.
“As a moderate,”
Thattttt’s all I need to know folks.
Look, TexasBud, You made your “point” in your first whining post. Making it again, in an ever greater drama queen style, only makes you look like an attention whore.
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