My first take on Palin’s pick summarized all of its initially known promises and risks. With such a stunning pick, analyses are bound to evolve as reactions, YouTube videos, trivia facts and old quotes come to light. After half a day of coverage, we are starting to get a better idea of the dynamics of the debate surrounding Palin, and while she still holds the promise of greatly helping McCain’s candidacy, the downsides to her candidacy are looking a bit more clear right now than they were this morning.
If my first post’s general sense was that McCain had made a strong move, this one is going in the opposite direction. My indecision isn’t surprising: This is a huge gamble and we will have to see how Palin performs in the months ahead, what coverage she receives and whether she can move the female vote before having a better idea of how her presence on the Republican ticket will play out.
I pointed out this morning that the problem McCain faced was that most of his unconventional choices (Lieberman, Hutchinson) were in some sense unacceptable to the base. That made Palin attractive: a maverick and a conservative. But there was someone else with similar attributes (diversity, youth, conservatism, outsider), Louisiana Bobby Jindal, someone with a far thicker resume though not thick enough that he would not face experience questions of his own. That McCain chose Palin over Jindal shows just how big of a risk he is taking experience-wise and certainly suggests that his campaign is banking a lot on Palin’s gender.
Conservative enthusiasm: For now, most everyone remains happy. Democrats see Palin as a cross between Spiro Agnew, Geraldine Ferraro and Dan Quayle; many Republicans are excited because she is a game changer that can energize the base, distance McCain from the establishment and appeal to female voters. And conservatives are happy because Palin is one of them; not only is she pro-life, but she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, she favors the teaching of intelligent design and perhaps does not believe in evolution, she does not think that global warming is man-made, and initial reports that she favored gay rights might have been overstated.
This conservative enthusiasm could be very important. McCain has had trouble motivating his base, but if conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and the National Review now become enthusiastic about the ticket, it could have an important impact on November turnout.
Experience: Yet, and perhaps this is due to the fact that those Republicans who did not get the nod appear to be pissed, there seems to be a lot of worry in GOP circles that Palin’s choice will not do, confusion as to how they are to defend her qualifications and anxiety that this nullifies McCain’s best argument. This pessimism has become more visible as the day has gone by, perhaps because the first wave of introductory bios (starting with Ron Fournier’s analysis or the New York Times’ recap) discusses her inexperience more directly than I would have anticipated.
Democrats started pounding Palin’s thin resume as soon as she was announced, even explicitly raising the issue of McCain’s age. Democrats seem to believe that they now have an opening to hint at the age question by talking about the “heartbeat.” Rep. Wexler of Florida, for instance, accused McCain of being a “complete and utter hypocrite:”
Americans should be alarmed that the former mayor of a town of 9,000 people with zero foreign policy credentials could be a heartbeat away from assuming the role of Commander in Chief.
Yes, it is unlikely that Republican-leaning voters who are afraid that Palin is unexperienced will suddenly run to Obama because of that. But what about voters who were moving towards McCain over the past few weeks because they were starting to believe in his attacks that Obama is “dangerously not ready to lead?” That, after all, had become somewhat of a slogan for the GOP.
If voters do come to think about experience as McCain has pushed them to for weeks now, will they be comfortable enough with Palin to hold Obama’s inexperience against him? And if they do not think about experience, does McCain stand any chance? This could also lead voters to question McCain’s judgment. If he truly believes that Obama is “dangerously not ready to lead,” as his commercials have said all summer, why would he pick Palin? New reports that McCain only met Palin once six months ago and talked to her on the phone once before offering her the VP position will only exacerbate the dubious coverage.
There is another experience-related risk for the McCain campaign: What if voters don’t even think of Obama and Palin as having the same level of experience? That could make Obama look better in comparison, and raise worries about McCain’s age. The GOP’s main argument to prevent that from happening is a good one: Palin is the only candidate with any candidate of executive experience, and this is something voters will care about. But there is also a lot that could make voters think of Palin as underqualified.
It’s not just that she has no foreign policy experience, but she has little foreign policy opinion, having even admitted that she hadn’t thought much about Iraq until the beginning of 2007. Beyond the question of how she will perform against Biden, how will voters react to not knowing where she stands on a lot of issues? Palin has been governor for 1,5 years and was the mayor of a tiny town before that (just recently, Rove blasted Kaine as a possible VP pick for only having been the mayor of Richmond before Governor of Virginia). Obama was a state Senator for eight years, representing around 210,000 voters - that’s about a third of the population of Alaska.
Was the McCain campaign so blinded by its disdain for Obama that they simply assumed that voters already thought of him as blatantly unqualified? McCain was supposed to relentlessly attack Obama’s inexperience next week. Will he still do that? Here is McCain’s defense of Palin’s qualifications today:
“I don’t think it’s a short resume,” McCain said. “She first ran for office back in 1992. I don’t know what Senator Obama was doing then, but the first time she ran was 1992. That’s 16 years. I think that’s a pretty, pretty event-filled and record-filled resume.”
Interjects Gov. Palin: “I haven’t had too many years other than that to fill up yet.”
So does she feel ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? “Absolutely. Yup, yup. Especially with a good team around us.”
In 1992, Obama had just become a law lecturer at the University of Chicago. That might not be political experience, but McCain should be careful to not dismiss Obama’s credentials too quickly, for he might then be moved to overstate Palin’s.
Ethics: A second issue is “troopergate,” Palin’s very own ethical problem. She is under investigation over the firing of a state commissioner who alleged that she was pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. The investigation was just launched last month, and while McCain surely vetted Palin over this, how much can an investigation that is just getting under way be vetted? The press is making more of this than I assumed they would from the get go. The Anchorage Daily News devotes one of the pieces on its front page to a lengthy explanation of this affair; so does the New York Times. And don’t forget that Stevens’s trial will take place starting in late September and the verdict will be handed down before the election. There will be plenty of opportunity for the press to revisit Alaska’s ethics problems.
Buchanan: A third potential problem is one that is much smaller, but I mentioning it because I was not aware of this earlier today. Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan’s 1996 presidential bid (said Buchanan himself today, calling Palin a “brigader”) and she did reportedly did so again in 1999. Needless to say that any connection with Buchanan could be deadly for Palin’s popularity among Jewish voters, especially among the South Florida Jews who reportedly have a deep mistrust for Obama. In a second statement, Wexler (who was on a roll today) wasted no time before seizing this opportunity:
John McCain’s decision to select a vice presidential running mate that endorsed Pat Buchanan for President in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans. Pat Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer… John McCain has failed his first test of leadership and judgment by selecting a running mate who has aligned herself with a leading anti-Israel voice in American politics.
That said, the two Republicans’ first joint appearance should dispel any Democratic triumphalism. For one, the crowd was as energetic as we have seen during McCain’s prior major speeches. There might be an enthusiasm gap in the electorate, but not every McCain event will be as disastrous as his June 3rd speech. Second, Sarah Palin’s speech was solid, as she demonstrated she is a good speaker that can come across as likable and that she has the potential of being a strong boost to McCain on the stump.
Gender: And then, there is the issue of gender. This is the big question mark, the topic everyone is talking about today without knowing how it will play out. This could also save Palin on the experience front. If women think that the press and Democrats are guilty of sexism by holding Palin to be less experienced than Obama or questioning her qualifications more than they are her male opponent’s, it could certainly backfire. We have had numerous examples throughout this election year of a candidate coming under attack increasing the strength of identity politics - it helped Hillary at the New Hampshire debate and Barack at the South Carolina debate.
As soon as we learned that Palin was the choice, it became obvious that Republicans were looking to seize the opportunity of the extended Democratic primary to make a play for the female vote. For anyone who has any doubts about that, Palin’s speech ought to have dispelled them. Not only did she name Geraldine Ferraro, the first and only female vice-presidential candidate on a major ticket and now the most high-profile Clinton supporter who refuses to endorse Obama - but she went on to offer soaring praise for Hillary’s ground-breaking candidacy. Palin presented herself as Clinton’s heir, as if the feminist baton had been passed from the New York Senator to her:
It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. We can shatter that glass ceiling once more.
Not much subtlety there, is there? In fact, you might remember that Hillary did not give that openly a feminist speech until the day she dropped out - but Palin is going there in her very first address as a VP candidate, appealing to women as a woman more explicitly than Clinton ever did. Yet, at a Women’s Leadership conference a few months ago, Palin said Clinton was not helping woman by playing the gender card during her campaign. (Palin also said that it was not “helpful” for Clinton to claim (”whine”) that she was the victim of sexism, and while Palin’s tone was respectful and not vitriolic.)
But the McCain campaign seems convinced that the Democrats’ rift is serious enough that the GOP has a serious shot at picking up Hillary supporters and undecided female voters. Palin’s direct mention of Clinton - a figure Republicans have often demonized - was particularly shrewd, and it will be interesting to see how often Republicans speakers refer to Clinton next week and whether the audience of conservative delegates agrees to cheer her name.
Democrats are saying that Palin’s strong pro-life stance (which places to the right of McCain) will not give her any appeal among suburban women or Clinton voters. Wexler’s statement made that point particularly strongly: “Sarah Palin is a far right, pro-life zealot who can not hold a candle to Hillary Clinton’s lifelong fight to better the lives of women everywhere.” And women’s rights groups are already mobilizing against Palin’s record. But this would first imply that female voters come to know about her exact stance on abortion. Considering that many swing voters do not know that McCain is pro-life and that Democrats are notoriously weary of tackling the topic too directly, will Palin’s stance really come through? Hillary would be best equipped to inform voters of Palin’s stance on abortion, for instance.
Republicans are surely not naive enough to think that picking a female vice-president will be enough to get women to massively vote for McCain. But there is no doubt whatsoever that there is a significant fraction of Clinton voters who have yet to fully commit to Obama. As of last week-end, some polls found Obama getting somewhere between 50% and 65% of Clinton voters. The Democratic convention, the display of party unity, Hillary and Bill’s speeches were meant to address that. All the Palin pick is meant to do is convince the Clinton voters and those women voters who have a tenuous link to the Democratic Party to keep an open mind, stay on the fence and not be moved by the Democratic convention to commit to Obama. If Palin can help keep Obama at 60% of the Clinton vote - where he was last week - the GOP would feel very good.
It will be fascinating to learn the backstory behind this choice. There must have been an incredable debate within the campaign.
I can’t imagine Joe Liberman, Rudy or Mitt will be very happy with this choice. The sole vital criteria seems to be she is a woman. If not why not choose Huckabee whose positions on most issues are the same and who brings much more experience and campaign skills to the table.
I just cannot see serious Hillary supporters voting for this woman. They are not stupid people and can see when they are being played.
I can see this going badly - if it is widely publicised that McCain has met Palin once and spoken to her on the phone only once before making this decision then that will reflect badly on him.
I agree if McCain wanted a conservative (understandable) then Jindal and Huckabee were options. I will enjoy seeing Rove try and support Palin when he and the GOP would have lambasted Kaine - who was Mayor of a much bigger city and Virginia is much bigger than Alaska.
If it also gets tagged as affirmative actgion (choosing her primarily because she is a woman) then that will hot the GOP message also. I can see McCain and the GOP having to spend the next week defending Palin rather than attacking Obama - good for Obama.
Also if the McCain campaign now gets more coverage that is also good for Obama since it will frame the election as a choice. It also raise’s McCain’s age and his view on abortion which have been muted this far. I think if the Dems can equate her to Qualye even in passing that will lodge in peoples mind a lightweight.
I agree that the vital criteria to choose Palin must have been the gender card. But I also agree that Hillary Clinton’s role might be crucial in this regard. She is the one being played as the pioneer in “opening cracks.” She might deliver on her promise of doing all that she can to have Obama elected by pointing out (without chewing her words) why Palin and her are far from being of the same “heir.” Perhaps by then Geraldine Ferraro could change her mind and remember that she is a member of the Democratic Party and not of the Hillaric party…
I am concerned that we are mainly focusing on the “experience” (or lack thereof) similarities between Obama and Palin. Although a former Clinton supporter, in part because of concerns arising out of the experience question, I have always had tremendous respect for Obama’s thoughtfulness and understanding of national and world affairs. Taniel points out that Palin didn’t even have an opinion about Iraq until fairly recently. I wonder if Palin’s lack of opinion about a war that has dominated American and world politics over the last years arises from a fundamental lack of understanding of world history and politics. I find such a lack of knowlege troubling and simply do not understand how McCain could have picked such a running mate.
I hope Obama will use Hillary as his main attack dog against Palin. It would be a powerful message if Palin, who is prasing Hillary, is faced with an ad or a public event in which Hillary Clinton denounces Palin as a right wing zealot.
I am sure Hillary will help out. After all she wants to be the first woman President and if Palin becomes VP she is likely to become President or at the very least the GOP nominee in 2012/2016.
There seems to be plenty of digging out comments she has made like Hillary is a whiner and Roves comment that Kaine was too inexperienced. These comments and more will come back to haunt this pick.
I think Sarah Palin has already done her job. Presidential elections are about the guy, or gal, at the top of the ticket. When is all said and done I believe very precious few will go to the ballot box and vote against McCain or for Obama because who the VP candidate is. Nixon won with Agnew, Bush with Quayle, and Dukakis lost with Benson. With Palin around I just can see the debate turning into experience, experience, and experience. That is a debate that Obama cannot win, especially if another terrorist attack or another international crisis develops.
I agree that Hillary is the one to combat the Palin selection. An ad on Palin’s acceptence speech night narrated by Hillary that contrasted Clintons’s and Palins positions on issues that ended with both Hillary and Obama approving the ad would be a media sensation and step all over Palin’sspeech. If it’s good for the goose etc. Just a thought.
I’m a Ron Paul Republican.
Before McCain made his choice, I was split between McCain and Barr, unsure of whom I would vote for.
With Palin as McCain’s VP, I can now say I will be enthusiastically voting for McCain/Palin this November.
anon4rp - how can you as a Ron Paul supporter now support McCain/Palin. She is an extreme social conservative who wants “intelligent design” taught. If you really were of a Libertarian bent you would not support social conservatives who try and tell people how to lead their lives.
More internet coverage that covers an important point. Obama put governing ahead of winning the election with his pock of Biden. McCan has put winning ahead of governing with Palin. She is a gimmick. If Kaine was too “inexperience” or unknown then Palin really is.
The case against Palin. The biggest negative about the pick is that on its face, it looks like a political gimmick, a political calculation. And McCain’s supposed to be anything but a calculating or gimmicky pol. Indeed, as the Los Angeles Times wonders, isn’t McCain supposed to be the guy putting “country first” and not playing politics? The fact that McCain doesn’t know Palin and spent all but a couple of hours getting to know her before making his pick is going to invite A LOT of judgment criticism. The perception is going to be that McCain panicked and wanted to do something radical to shake up the race. Well, he may have shaken up the race, but at the cost of undermining his best asset: that he was ready to lead. This decision doesn’t look like it was well thought out, even as Palin has made a tremendous first impression.
I think many of you jump to conclusions. What Palin has that the other would be candidates lack is POTENTIAL. We all knew what Romney and the other guys would have brought to the ticket. No surprises - what you see is what you get. And that probably wouldn’t have been enough.
But Palin has the potential to grow, just like Obama grew, into a media phenomenon. If so, this pick will go down in history as a masterstroke.
Anyhow, I think it’s not fair to describe this as a “gimmick”. Like it or not, if McCain wins and then becomes incapacitated - she IS the new president. That’s a fact, and so this selection should not be described as a joke.
Urgon - you are right she does have potential. But the GOP would be very quick to point out if the shoe was on the other foot that voters deserve more than 65 days to assess someone who you rightly say could become President in the next 4 years if McCain dies. So I do not treat the selection as a joke I do think he put winning an election ahead of country.
The selection has upsides - solidifying the base (which was happening anyway due to dislike of Obama) and strengthing his position in western states.
But he has lost two agruments against Obama - experience and putting country first. The GOP in previous elections have chosen the vunerability they want to pursue, for example elitism and flip-flopping with Kerry. They then attack on thos points for months and months. McCain’s campaign will essentially have to go back to the drawing board with 2 months to go and start new attacks.
She also doesn`t help McCain on the economy, but he had a limited range of picks.
It should be noted that McCain aides have said that Palin will learn from McCain and hope that she isn`t call to lead to soon (you never know when that will happen). Biden was chosen to lead from Day 1 if needed.
This is very risky for McCain because he is in essence admitting that he has chosen someone who is NOT ready to lead as of now. And will need on the job training. Ummm can`t see how Obama/Biden can now be attacked at all on these issues.
I don`t think this pick will make much difference - McCain will solidify the base but he will lose undecided Dems and Independents who don`t subscribe to the right wings social conservatism.
The buzz may well subside in a week during which you have the GOP convention which should be about McCain not Palin. Also you have other news like Hurricane Gustaf so lets see where we are in 2 weeks time - both in polling and news coverage. It is easy to get caught up in the moment.
I voted for Al gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and I will hold my nose and vote for Barack Obama in 2008, because I believe the most important issue facing this republic is the future of the Supreme Court. We survived W the idiot, and can survive Barack the neophyte. But the specter of another judge Scalia in the court sure send shivers up my spine. That said and done, if we lose this election, a very real prospect, in a year that by all measures of political statistics and lore, should be a democratic year, we will have nobody to blame but our self. Every so often in this blog I have made the devils advocate case against Barack Obama. Even when I understand the deep emotional connection that many Obama followers have with Obama, a very fine man, I have grown tired of the intellectual gymnastics that is always made to describe his qualifications and accomplishments. Truth is that he is barely more qualified that Sarah Palin. If she is unqualified for the VP slot, them why is Barak qualified for the POTUS job?
My bone here is with intellectual dishonesty, on all sides. And the believe that the American people buys this nonsense. For a brief, and absurd moment, I contemplated voting for John McCain. I have always had a warm spot for the guy. He does not seem like the kind of ideologue that the GOP right love to nominate. But he will not do. Not when he offers Scalia and Roberts to the SC. But to think that I for a second buy this crap about Obama’s qualifications is insulting.
What a lot of you fail to observe, our illustrious host included, is the level of anger and disgust that so many of us fell about the treatment that Hillary Clinton got from the most ardent Obama maniac, the main stream press and the Pelosi-Dean wing of the party. If Obama goes down in defect, well, this folks knew for the longest time that his candidacy was a marginal one at best. I am still convinced that HC would have been a better presidential candidate that Obama. But that issue is settled. The Obama camp better tread the Palin mine field carefully. Any impressions that they are going after the “monster”, or the “B word”, or the bimbo as I heard before, will get an awful lot of folks, that are already smarting about this, very angry.
Look at the polls, barely coming out of his nomination party, he is basically in an statistical dead heat with McCain. No looking good.
Robert V - I also appreciate consistency. So the GOP will be doing verbal gymnastics to explain why she is qualified enought to be President (underlying assumption is McCain will not make it to 80) when they say Obama is not experienced enough.
Obama has served 12 years of elected service in Illinois and in the Senate. Being mayor of a 5000 population won and then Governor for under 2 years is not the same. SImilar league maybe but still less.
Also she has no experience with foriegn affairs, unlike Obama. She had no view on the Iraq war until early 2007. Obama laid out in detail in 2002 the issues he saw with the invasion so I think he has better judgement and experience than her.
But the real question is McCain’s judgement and temperment. It seems like he shots from the hip (or lip) and doesn`t think through the consequences. We have had that for 8 years, not another 4.
Mike, you are making a distinction without a difference. It still remains the fact that is Obama who is running for president not Palin. You are gravely mistaken if you believe the Palin selection has anything to do with governance, and everything to do with driving the debate and creating the room for the comparisons between Obama and Palin whether fair or not. We vote on the president. The VP will be the attack dog as well as the lynch pin for a constituency or to secure a stare. Only folks like us, political junkies, worry about the consequences of a VP selection two or three years down the road. In the mean time, the Obama camp has to deal with the experience issue, which might well become the issue in this election, change looks venal and trivial when our security is on the line. And they also will have to explain, believe they will have to, why Sarah Palin is in a national ticket and Hillary Clinton is not. And that will hurt.
I’m concerned by the impact this will have, but not for the reasons Robert V posits.
As I’ve noted before, Palin must be handled with extraordinary care. We have more than enough exposed nerve ends on the gender issue as it is. If ‘inexperience’ verges into perceived gender bias, Obama has a problem. Ditto, that BS about ‘who will take care of the children?’ Or any comments about appearance. Beyond that, the normal hardball attacks on male candidates have to be muted into a respectful tone, and Biden for example has to carefully avoid the wisecracks and focus on speaking positively on his experience and Obama’s knowledge of foreign policy to allow the voters to reach their own conclusions. Even so, it’s hard to control enthusiastic supporters, witness some of the extreme comments from fellow Obama supporters that convinced many Clinton voters that the campaign itself was perfused with sexism.
On top of gender issues, Palin clearly has energized the radical evangelical base, and McCain cannot win by abandoning them. The last few months and Obama’s choice of Biden dilutes the experience argument for some voters. Worst case, like Robert V, many Clinton voters will hold their noses and vote for him. Social issues will bring along another group of voters; the PUMA bunch can”t make a difference, despite all their noise. That minimizes McCain’s chances of pulling in one tranche of Clinton voters: relatively well educated and affluent urban and suburban Dems and requires him to tilt right. (I know, McCain wanted Holy Joe, but IMO this is how his advisors convinced him to choose Palin.)
But that doesn’t account for all the Clinton supporters. There’s a far different constituency of vague Dems and independents. much less concerned about choice and environment and much more focused on their own daily lives, as they should be. They’re going to find her very likable and plain spoken, and she can address energy issues with greater perceived expertise than McCain can. In fact, he may designate her a spokesperson on the issue. Those voters are likely to remain disinterested in her support for Buchanan, her disregard for the environment, her support for intelligent design and her extreme social positions - in fact, they may find them comforting. Foreign policy expertise? No disrespect, but while this cohort reacts to testosterone dripping GOP language, they just are not into the nuances of foreign policy once you get beyond terrorism. They are not as apt to connect her inexperience and apparent lack of interest with the difficult diplomatic circumstances we face.
She’s a working mother with a fisherman husband who’s found a way to combine politics with family life, she speaks their language and attacks on her risk both a gender backlash and a revival of the ‘elite’ argument. The Dems are confronted with two issues: gender and class. In the end, the latter could be decisive. It certainly compounds Obama’s difficulty in connecting with this group of voters.