Posted on 09/04/2008 10:54:51 PM PDT by goldstategop
“There are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, ‘Who is this man?’ and ‘Can we trust this man with the presidency?’ ” — Fred Thompson on John McCain, September 2
This was the most effective line of the entire Republican convention: a ringing affirmation of John McCain’s authenticity and a not-so-subtle indictment of Barack Obama’s insubstantiality. What’s left of this line of argument, however, after John McCain picks Sarah Palin for vice president?
Palin is an admirable and formidable woman. She has energized the Republican base and single-handedly unified the Republican convention behind McCain. She performed spectacularly in her acceptance speech. Nonetheless, the choice of Palin remains deeply problematic.
It’s clear that McCain picked her because he had decided that he needed a game-changer. But why? He’d closed the gap in the polls with Obama. True, that had more to do with Obama sagging than McCain gaining. But what’s the difference? You win either way.
Obama was sagging because of missteps that reflected the fundamental weakness of his candidacy. Which suggested McCain’s strategy: Make this a referendum on Obama, surely the least experienced, least qualified, least prepared presidential nominee in living memory.
Palin fatally undermines this entire line of attack. This is through no fault of her own. It is simply a function of her rookie status. The vice president’s only constitutional duty of any significance is to become president at a moment’s notice. Palin is not ready. Nor is Obama. But with Palin, the case against Obama evaporates.
So why did McCain do it? He figured it’s a Democratic year. The Republican brand is deeply tarnished. The opposition is running on “change” in a change election. So McCain gambled that he could steal the change issue for himself — a crazy brave, characteristically reckless, inconceivably difficult maneuver — by picking an authentically independent, tough-minded reformer. With Palin, he doubles down on change.
The problem is the inherent oddity of the incumbent party running on change. Here were Republicans — the party that controlled the White House for eight years and both houses of Congress for five — wildly cheering the promise to take on Washington. I don’t mean to be impolite, but who’s controlled Washington this decade?
Moreover, McCain was giving up his home turf of readiness to challenge Obama on his home turf of change. Can that possibly be pulled off? The calculation was to choose demographics over thematics. Palin’s selection negates the theme of readiness. But she does bring important constituencies. She has the unique potential of energizing the base while at the same time appealing to independents.
This is unusual. Normally the wing-nut candidate alienates the center. Palin promises a twofer because of her potential appeal to the swing-state Reagan Democrats that Hillary Clinton carried in the primaries. Not for reasons of gender — Clinton didn’t carry those because she was a woman — but because more culturally conservative working-class whites might find affinity with Palin’s small-town, middle/frontier American narrative and values.
The gamble is enormous. In a stroke, McCain gratuitously forfeited his most powerful argument against Obama. And this was even before Palin’s inevitable liabilities began to pile up — inevitable because any previously unvetted neophyte has “issues.” The kid. The state trooper investigation. And worst, the paucity of any Palin record or expressed conviction on the major issues of our time.
McCain has one hope. It is suggested by the strength of Palin’s performance Wednesday night. In a year of compounding ironies, the McCain candidacy could be saved, and the Palin choice vindicated, by one thing: Palin does an Obama.
Obama showed that star power can trump the gravest of biographical liabilities. The sheer elegance, intelligence, and power of his public presence have muted the uneasy feeling about his unreadiness. Palin does not reach Obama’s mesmeric level. Her appeal is far more earthy, workmanlike, and direct. Yet she managed to banish a week’s worth of unfriendly media scrutiny and self-inflicted personal liabilities with a single triumphant speech.
Now, Obama had 19 months to make his magic obscure his thinness. Palin has nine weeks. Nevertheless, if she too can neutralize unreadiness with star power, then the demographic advantages she brings McCain — appeal to the base and to Reagan Democrats — coupled with her contribution to the reform theme, might just pay off. The question is: Can she do the magic — unteleprompted extemporaneous magic, from now on — for the next nine weeks?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
But...but...but...Joe Klein says being a community organizer is hard! It’s harrrrrrrrd!
Krauthammer is just wrong on this. Palin underscores that Obama is not even as prepared to be president as a Governor in her first term.
First, Krauthammer seems to think that Obama is running for Vice President. He's not. He is running for President. It is Sarah Palin who is the Vice Presidential candidate. There has never really been a standard set that demands that a Vice Presidential Candidate be on a par with the President. That has seldom if ever been the case. Palin is well within the brackets of the experience, presence, and charisma that might be expected of a candidate for the Vice Presidency.
Second, as Krauthammer rightly notes: Normally the wing-nut candidate alienates the center.
In this election, the wing-nut candidate is Barack Obama.
McCains strategy is to drive that fact more and more into the public awareness. He is succeeding, largely because it is an obvious truth.
Krauthammer is not wrong, he seldom is, but he overstates this a bit. The fact is Obama is not qualified, and Palin is more qualified than Obama. Even if Palin undermines the republican ticket’s qualifications a bit, you still have McCain, and no one can deny McCain is qualified and many times more so than Obama. So you still have a more qualified republican ticket, especially in the lead position.
Yes, a bit like Frum over on National Review, his initial take was off and he’s pressing now to defend it despite the obvious.
So Palin's Mayor Exp is close to Obama's state legislature exp(but Palins is exec) Palin's Gov. Exp is close to Obama's Senate exp.(Although shes actually accomplished more on the job, Obama has been running for President 2/4 years. Trouble for Obama is, he is not running against Gov. Palin, and by even making the comparison on Gov. Palin vs Obama, it highlights the fact that McCain blows Obama away on exp.
Obama is barely eligible to be a vice president.
Charles Krauthammer is just a DU troll operative who wants Obama to win. /s
One of the more interesting analysis and one of few that makes sense in its critique of the Palin selection. Not because it shows fault in McCain’s ability to think, but rather questions whether the risk was worth it.
Indeed the candidates were running neck and neck, quite incredible given the economy and war. After Obama picked Biden, McCain could have played it equally safe and continued his attack theme which had been slowly paying dividends. So why take the gamble?
I think Kraut makes one key mistake - he argues that Palin negates the best attack on Obama. But in fact she strengthens it. If she is unqualified, then Obama certainly is. McCain hasn’t doubled down on change - he’s doubled down on exposing Obama’s lack of experience. He’s also doubled down on conservatism being more appealing than Obama’s liberalism. And I think both are a good bet.
“Moreover, McCain was giving up his home turf of readiness to challenge Obama on his home turf of change. Can that possibly be pulled off? The calculation was to choose demographics over thematics. Palin’s selection negates the theme of readiness. But she does bring important constituencies. She has the unique potential of energizing the base while at the same time appealing to independents.”
I usually admire the author’s thinking deeply. I think he has missed something fundamental here. Because Palin is manifestly more qualified than Obama, yet still a rookie, what it has done is quadruple highlighted Obama’s lack of serious qualification for the presidency.
We now see Obama running against the VP pick, not the top of the ticket, and desperately trying to prove that being a community organizer is somehow AS qualifying as being a small-town mayor. And it leaves McCain standing by himself in the stratosphere of experience and qualification. Biden suddenly seems completely irrelevant.
The other thing Dr. Krauthammer misses is that Governor Palin is the first serious Republican candidate since Reagan that unambiguously represents all three legs of the conservative coalition at the same time—economic, national defense and social conservatism. (One might argue that Romney did; but I was never completely convinced by his turnaround on social issues. Perhaps Quayle—but is poor performance after nomination leaves him off my “serious candidate” list). Every other serious candidate since 1988 has been missing at least one of the legs of the stool.
We win when we draw Reagan Democrats to the coalition—and they vote on values. We lose when we don’t. So that third leg of the stool is critical and has been missing. Palin brings that third leg of the stool, without, like Huckabee, sacrificing the economic leg of the stool.
Finally, he misses that the “change” mantle MUST be stolen from the rats. And we saw the completion of that strategy in McCain’s speech tonight. Gov. Palin is the only candidate out there that credibly comes as a reformer that will take on corrupt members of her own party. McCain did what he had to do—admitted that the R’s got power and then abused it like Democrats. He ran against his own congress tonight. There are two good reason to do that: (1) The R’s in congress have been behaving badly—their performance from 2000-2006 was disgraceful and they need to be held to account; and (2) A McCain/Palin ticket is the only credible ticket that can say we are going in to clean up the cess-pool in both parties.
I like Krauthammer but he is another beltway lost his way...like Noonan..
and Chuck is a gun grabber to a degree
there are FR threads on this so don’t wake me up kids if you doubt me
use JR’s search or Google
I generally like CK’s analysis but I’ll respectfully disagree with him on this. I simply don’t think the average voter equates youth on the bottom of the ticket with the same degree of trepidation that they do when it’s at the top.
I also think the media-echo-chamber assumption that McCain is going to wake up dead any day now is something the average voter doesn’t calculate.
I think Joe Sixpack sees McCain (if he likes him) as a wise grandpa and no one is watching the clock expecting Gramps to pass any minute now unless he has a defined illness.
How can so many analysts be so obtuse. Everyone here knows the score, but here, again, are the facts:
1. Obama is running for president, Palin for vice-president. For those of you who slept through civics class, president is the higher office.
2. There are historically two major qualifications for the presidency: having served as vice-president and having served as governor.
3. Neither Obama nor McCain has served as vice-president nor governor.
4. McCain had been criticizing Obama on his lack of foreign-policy experience because McCain has no executive experience. It matters not that Palin has no foreign-policy experience, since McCain hasn’t suddenly disappeared.
5. Obama has less experience than Palin. Obama has only legislative experience, whereas Palin has been both mayor and governor.
6. Palin is not a “star” like Obama. She can point to actual policy accomplishments, most impressively as a reformer.
7. The only reason Palin is seen as a gamble at this point and Obama does not is because Obama has been running for president for two years. He has no other bona fides to qualify him as a national figure. Give Palin a little time, and hard-headed pundits like Krauthammer will get so used to saying Palin’s name that it’ll seem like she’s been around forever.
He doesn’t get it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Rarely would i disagree with Mr Krauthammer but this time i will go way out on a limb to defend Sarah Palin..
He mentions she is a neophyte and is untested..Basically so is Obama, having written no legislation while in the U.S. Senate but rather just voting Present and enjoying the ride..Even in the Illinois State Senate he only wrote 31 bills of which 2 were amended so he could not take credit and only 1 was accepted and became law- basically a list of college graduates from a Community College that could be passed out to potential employers..Some legislation !
Mrs. Palin has been tested- as Mayor and as Governor, even defeating a former Governor of Alaska..Surely she was vetted and tested as Governor and considering the reforms she put through in Alaska she probably picked up her share of enemies who would have uncovered any skeletons she may have had..She is also a proven reformer and cost cutter who saved Billions for Alaska..
In addition she is a much better choice than Obama who has tried to cover up his Muslim ties; his ties to Ayers and Dorn-former Weather Underground violent activists; who cannot even produce an American birth certificate; and who has ties to the Chicago Machine; and his pal Tony R.now a convicted felon; and to Saul Alinsky...Maybe these are virtues to a Democrat, but not to a conservative Republican, or an Independent, or a middle of the road voter...
It appears that the missteps, the lies, the smear tactics and innuendos that Obama and his surrogates are trying will not work against McCain & Palin...His candidacy shows the arrogance of nothingness, the emptiness of the Democratic existentialist campaign that we are witnessing- no program, no joy in helping to restore America, no positive image they can hold up..
Just as Al Gore had to avoid mentioning his President’s name- in spite of some good accomplishments- with help from the Republicans, so Obama is carrying a millstone around his neck with one word on it: Hillary...He could not choose her as VP..and now he cannot do without her help...Talk about a losing situation, and getting worse by the day...
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