One more reason Sarah Palin won’t get Quayled

There are a lot of folks raising the concern with Gov. Palin that, as a newcomer to national politics, she’s likely to make mistakes, and if she does, she’ll be hammered for them by the liberal media and end up a drag on the ticket. Jonah Goldberg put it this way:

I’ve been thinking about it and I think the bottom line on Palin is pretty simple. If she does a good job at the convention and survives about three weeks of serious media scrutiny—no horrible gaffes, no unforgivable I-don’t-knows to gotchya questions (fair and unfair), no botched hostile interviews—she will emerge as the single most inspired VP pick in modern memory and she will give the Democrats migraines for a long time to come, assuming there are no terrible skeletons we don’t know about. But, if she screws up in the next three weeks, gives the press and the late night comedians sufficient fodder to Quayelize her, she’ll be seen as anything from a liability to an outright horrible pick. That’s it.

For my part, I’d been agreeing with this analysis—confident that Gov. Palin will do well, but still in agreement with the consequences if she doesn’t. Now, however, I’m not so sure. Think about it: why did Dan Quayle get Quayled? George W. Bush didn’t see a similar media reaction bury him, and he and the English language have a considerably tenser relationship. I think the answer is that it wasn’t only Democrats who thought Quayle was a lightweight and not worthy of his position: Republicans didn’t either. When Bentsen hit him with the “you’re no Jack Kennedy” right cross and he went down for the count, his own party believed he belonged on the mat. That’s what was fatal to him. With W., that didn’t happen, and so he won two terms in the White House even as every comedian in the nation painted him as an ape in a dunce cap who couldn’t spell his own name if you spotted him the “B”and the “u.”This is, I think, relevant to our evaluation of Sarah Palin. Consider that unlike Sen. Quayle, she has evoked a deep and impassioned positive response from national Republicans; Jonah Goldberg (again) is representative on this:

Whatever else you want to say about Palin, the undeniable fact is that she has generated staggering enthusiasm among Republicans. Every few minutes I get another email like this:

Jonah,
Three days ago, I was telling my fiance that I might stay home in November. I could never vote for Obama, and there were things McCain could do (such as a VP pick) that would prevent me from voting for him.Well, I did it. Today I made my first ever political contribution, and it was to the McCain-PALIN campaign. I’m sold on Palin. And since he picked her, I’m now sold on McCain too.Sincerely,
[name withheld]

This is profoundly significant, because it means that if she does put her foot in it and give the media the opportunity to label her a lightweight, out of her depth—I’ll be surprised if she does, but even the best of us do it at the worst of times—Republican voters aren’t going to buy the line. Instead, we’ll defend her against it to anyone who will listen, and some people will. Would a gaffe or two on her part deflate the campaign somewhat? Sure, just as Sen. Obama’s have deflated his somewhat. As long as she keeps her cool, though, I just don’t see it knocking her or the ticket as a whole off their stride.

Note to Sarah Palin searchers

Well, things have calmed down considerably since yesterday’s spike (more hits in one day than I’ve ever had in a month; from what I can see, this was pretty common among pro-Palin sites, as the Net went crazy with people trying to find out who the heck is Gov. Sarah Palin), but the traffic is still running pretty high; and there seem to be two real themes here. First, people looking for dirt on Gov. Palin. Sorry, nothing there but the accusation that she abused the powers of her office in an attempt to get someone to fire her brother-in-law the child-tasering state trooper who drinks beer in his police car and threatened to kill her father—an accusation which a) doesn’t seem like much of an accusation (actually, getting the guy fired sounds like a pretty good idea to me), but b) doesn’t seem to be true anyway.Second, I continue to have crowds of folks land here searching for info on Sarah Palin’s church, religion, and the like: and for you, I now have an answer. Go here, scroll down to the seventh line, and you will know what churches Sarah Palin attends, or has attended.

GOP angle: the experienced reformers ticket

The best media piece I’ve yet read on the Palin pick is Michael Medved’s. For the most part, he makes the same points that those of us who’ve been agitating for Sarah Palin on the GOP ticket have been making for a while, but what really makes his analysis, I think, is this comment:

Yes, this undermines McCain’s future use of the experience issue, but that’s almost certainly a good thing, too. The experience issue has never worked well in presidential elections: Gerald Ford tried it against a one-term Governor of Georgia (the worthless Jimmy Carter) and lost; Carter tried it against Reagan (no foreign policy experience as Governor of California!) and got wiped out; George H.W. Bush tried to make it stick against Bill Clinton and the result was the lowest percentage of the vote for a Republican candidate since Wiliam Howard Taft. The line McCain’s been using “He’s Not Ready to Lead” is still viable—and should emphasize a discussion of Obama’s policies, not his job history—his radicalism, not his resume. Meanwhile, we should invite comparisons of Governor Palin’s experience with Obama’s: won’t the PTA connect more with middle class voters than “community organizer,” and property tax-cutting small town mayor count more than slippery State Senator who voted “present” a disquieting proportion of the time. In any event, both tickets now balance experience with youthful energy—but McCain is balancing it the right way, with the experience at the top.

I think this is right on target, for two reasons. In the first place, every Democratic soundbite against Gov. Palin on the experience issue is also a soundbite against Barack Obama. Charles Schumer, for instance, said this: “While Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling.” OK, Senator, so riddle me this: doesn’t that mean that Sen. Obama’s lack of experience makes the thought of him assuming the presidency troubling? After all, Gov. Palin has considerably more governance experience (technically, infinitely more, since Sen. Obama has none), and a considerably longer list of achievements to her name; how is it that her lack of experience troubles you, and his lack doesn’t? Check this out (HT: Carlos Echevarria):

Or, the thought strikes: does Sen. Schumer really mean (consciously or otherwise), “don’t worry about Sen. Obama’s inexperience—he’s just out front running the campaign; when it gets down to brass tacks, it will really be Uncle Joe running the show”? Is this a Freudian slip here? I’ve suspected for a while that that’s how the Democratic leadership on the Hill sees Sen. Obama; have we just seen that confirmed?In any case, going back to Medved’s point, prior to Steve Schmidt taking over to run the McCain effort, I remember seeing quizzical headlines asking, “Why is John McCain re-running the Hillary campaign,” pointing out as Medved does that running on “experience” doesn’t work well when your opponent is running on “hope” and “change.” The danger always was that Sen. McCain would lean on that too heavily—and now the presence of Gov. Palin on that ticket both makes that impossible and pulls the campaign back to a hope/change/reform emphasis of its own. The key now is to make the case that John McCain and Sarah Palin are experienced reformers who will put country first, working for the common good, serving the people above all. That, I think, is a message that works for them, since it fits what they’ve done in their careers, and what they care about as individuals; it’s a message they can back up from their own stories and their accomplishments in life; and it’s one that can win in November.

“To serve the common good”

This still revs me up whenever I think about it—we did it. The longest of longshots happened. John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate—and for today at least, she blew the roof off the place. If you didn’t see Sen. McCain’s introduction and Gov. Palin’s speech (which, judging by what I can see of his reactions, took him by surprise, it was so good) in Dayton this afternoon, the video is below (it’s about 27 minutes).“A ship in harbor is safe—but that’s not why it is built.” —Gov. Sarah Palin

The Palin conundrum for Barack Obama

Several months ago, I was interested to read an article in Salon by one Rebecca Traister on the sexism of some of Sen. Obama’s supporters, one which suggested the beginnings of disaffection with him among some female voters (including some who were supporting him over Hillary Clinton). Earlier this week, I began to notice signs that that disaffection had become very real, such as his dropping poll numbers among women, not to mention the blogger who asked, “Why is Barack Obama so afraid of women?” I posted on that, but unfortunately, I didn’t get it phrased quite the way I wanted it, which resulted in a discussion in the comments that never really explored the key question: is Sen. Obama dealing with a perception problem among women—is he giving women the feeling that he doesn’t like or appreciate them properly, or that he has a problem with powerful women, and if so, how can he address this? (The latter is a question which I didn’t try to answer, because I don’t have an answer.) To my way of thinking, the idea seems absurd—would he have married his wife if he had a problem with powerful women? From where I sit, aside from the Senate service, she’s more qualified for this race than he is. I’m starting to think, though, that after the long, bruising battle with Sen. Clinton—and perhaps more importantly, his treatment of her after he secured the nomination—that maybe a lot of people, and especially women, don’t find it so absurd. If that’s so, then it seems to me that would add up to a real problem for Sen. Obama.In light of that, I was quite interested to hear Dick Morris, in the middle of a paean to Sarah Palin (whom he called “great” and “brilliant” and a terrific pick for John McCain), say this:

She’ll demonstrate that the Republicans, unlike Barack Obama, are open to women and believe that women ought to be promoted. Now you have Barack Obama, who spent his whole primary trying to stop a woman from being President, and now he’s going to spend the whole general trying to stop a woman from being Vice President, and he’s trying to do that with women’s votes.

Ouch.I’ve been arguing hard for two months now for Gov. Palin on the GOP ticket because of all the things I have been and remain firmly convinced (despite the naysayers) that she brings to Sen. McCain’s campaign; but I’m starting to think, as a political matter, that the challenge she poses to the Obama campaign might be important as well. (Update: so does the New York Post’s Kirsten Powers, who calls the pick “a brilliant trap” for the Obama campaign.) I said earlier today that I thought the Democrats were making a mistake trying to dismiss her out of the gate as “Geraldine Quayle,” a lightweight, rather than taking her seriously, because she isn’t another Quayle, she isn’t a lightweight; but as well, from some of the reactions I’ve seen, I’m starting to think that kind of approach has real potential to tick off female voters. Honestly, the GOP should take Morris’ quote and plaster it everywhere they can find the wall space, because the more people look at the matter in that way (and I’m starting to think that a lot of folks already do), the more of a problem Gov. Palin is going to pose for Barack Obama and (especially) Joe Biden. I think they’re going to find that she’s a lot harder to attack than they realize, regardless; but the more voters see the race in the terms in which Morris casts it, the greater the chance the McCain/Palin ticket will really have to peel away not only conservative but also moderate Democrats, and the better their chances of getting to 270 in November.

For a 90° turn: meditation on faith and reason

OK, I’m going into overload here; I have to shift gears or I’m going to fry the engine, and besides, I have other things I need to be thinking about. So, while I will no doubt have more to say about John McCain, Sarah Palin, and their detractors before long, I’m going to take a deep breath and send my brain in a different direction: specifically, the issue of the relationship between faith and reason.

One of our best guides in this regard is St. Augustine, in whose writings this issue looms large. It’s only to be expected that this should be so; as a philosopher, he is committed to reasoning his way to truth, but as a Christian he must accept some things as true on faith rather than by his reason, and these two stances might seem incompatible. It’s a major part of Augustine’s task as a philosopher to reconcile these seeming opposites, to prove that Athens does indeed have fellowship with Jerusalem.

Before he can begin building his case, Augustine must define his terms. In doing so, he draws a sharp distinction between knowledge, which is the result of rational thought, and belief, or faith. Knowledge is “the rational cognizance of temporal things”; in other words, it is the understanding, brought about by reason, of the things of this world. Belief, by contrast, is a matter of “consenting to the truth of what is said.” Rather than being an act of the reason to discover something to be true, it is a decision of the will to accept something as true. However, the statement that faith is an act of the will rather than a product of human reason does not automatically make faith opposed to reason. This is a critical point; otherwise, reason and faith are irreconcilable and the entire enterprise of Christian philosophy is in vain. Augustine offers several arguments to show that faith is indeed reasonable, and thus that faith and reason can and do complement each other.

The first point is that faith does not spring out of nothing, but out of rational thought.

For who cannot see that thinking is prior to believing? . . . it is yet necessary that everything which is believed should be believed after thought has preceded; although even belief itself is nothing less than to think with assent. . . . everybody who believes, thinks—both thinks in believing, and believes in thinking.

This means that faith is not antithetical to reason but a possible product of it; reason can lead to faith.

Augustine further argues that faith leads to knowledge, not merely belief. He draws this argument from Scripture, citing the words of Christ in John 17:3 (“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” ESV) and Matthew 7:7 (“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you,” ESV). His point is,

One cannot speak of that being found which is believed without knowledge, nor does anyone become prepared to find God who does not first believe that which he is afterward to know.

The goal of faith, according to this interpretation, is to bring the believer to a point where it is possible to gain true knowledge of God, not simply to rest in believing things about God. Thus reason and faith complement each other in the quest for understanding.

The reason why this is so, according to Augustine, is that some truths are too big for the mind to comprehend them through reason alone. Citing Isaiah 7:9, he says,

We must first believe whatever great and divine matter we desire to understand.

Our minds are limited, and thus our reason cannot see all truths. Since reason lacks force to compel us to accept these truths, we can do so only by an act of the will.

As such an act isn’t grounded in our own reason, it must be based on authority external to ourselves. Augustine even declares,

For those who seek to learn great and hidden truths, authority alone opens the door.

As he sees it, while reason is higher and more fundamental than authority, authority must precede reason in operation, at least for human beings, in order to ensure that reason proceeds in the proper direction to reach truth. He sums up the relationship between the two by saying,

Authority demands faith, and prepares man for reason. Reason leads him on to knowledge and understanding.

For Augustine, then, the quest for understanding begins with faith in authority, which prepares the soul to use reason to gain understanding of that which is believed. This does not mean, however, that reason is “useless to authority; it helps in considering what authority is to be accepted.” This is very important to Augustine, because faith is worthless if it is misplaced. Those who place their faith in God are on the road to true understanding, because God, the creator of all, is the source of Truth Itself. Those who place their faith in a false authority, however, can never reach true understanding, because the foundation for their reason is flawed. Reason thus has an important part to play in finding a true authority to accept.

In Augustine’s understanding of the pursuit of truth, then, reason and faith are intermingled. Reason provides a basis for faith by determining which authority is worthy of acceptance. From that rational basis, the individual chooses to accept that authority as true. That authority in turn prepares the individual to seek understanding, and gives a foundation for the use of reason in that search. Thus reason and faith are integrated in the search for truth, keeping all of life together as a whole rather than splitting it in two.

It’s important to note here that for Augustine, a questioning faith is true faith because it is seeking to grow in understanding. That is the proper aim of faith, to apply reason to gain understanding of God and the things of God. While Augustine grants that those who fail to do so will still reach heaven, he does not believe that they are truly happy, for they are falling short of that for which they were made.

 

Is this really helpful, guys?

The bloggers over at PowerLine are quite negative on the Palin pick. Paul Mirengoff wrote, “I’m very disappointed that John McCain would put someone as inexperienced and lacking in foreign policy and national security background as Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Why, because Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney have so much foreign-policy experience? Guys, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s kinda this big honkin’ landmass in between Alaska and the rest of the US—it’s called Canada, and it’s a foreign country, and it’s one of Alaska’s only two neighbors. The other is a little country called Russia (I think you might have heard of it). I don’t say that Gov. Palin is accustomed to going toe-to-toe with hostile foreign leaders, certainly, but then, it’s not like she’s Mike Huckabee‘s running mate; she’ll be understudying a guy who knows the field pretty well, and she’s a quick study. Trust Sen. McCain to bring her along on that score.Now, could we have done better in that regard from the GOP field? Sure. Six months ago, I wanted Condoleeza Rice on the ticket; you could also have picked someone like Richard Lugar. But you guys aren’t boosting anyone like that—you want a governor, and there are good reasons it should be so. If you get a governor, though, you’re not going to get much in the way of foreign-policy experience. (And incidentally, how much foreign-policy experience did Gov. Reagan have when he was elected 28 years ago, anyway?) In all honesty, I’m not sure how much that matters; it’s not Barack Obama’s foreign-policy inexperience that worries me, it’s his judgment. Where I think experience matters is in the practical details of governing, and having a sense for what works and what doesn’t; and there, though Gov. Palin doesn’t have long experience, she has highly successful experience, having accomplished quite a bit in a difficult political environment, working against her own party’s political machine. Where her inexperience abroad matters is in that sense of what’s possible and reasonable, and though she doesn’t have that, she can develop it.And honestly, given Secretary Rice’s track record over the last couple years, I think I might just prefer inexperience. (For whatever it might be worth, Johnathan Adler thinks much the same.)

And now the spin begins

as the Democrats try to neutralize the Palin pick. Charles Schumer is already claiming she takes the experience argument against Obama off the table, other Democrats are warning (in appropriately sepulchral tones) that she might be “a disaster”—one even dismissed her as “Geraldine Quayle.” For the latter, I think once America gets its first good look at Sarah Palin, I don’t think anyone will buy that; she’s bright, capable, and a quick study. What’s more, it isn’t quite true that she has no foreign-policy experience—remember, Alaska doesn’t border the US, it borders Canada and Russia. She certainly doesn’t measure up to Joe Biden in that respect, but that’s what the GOP ticket has John McCain for. And with all due respect, Sen. Schumer: don’t just look at the calendar, look at the accomplishments. That’s where the experience differential between Gov. Palin and Sen. Obama is very real.To go one step further, I think the Democrats are making a major mistake here. They’re trying to neutralize her with ridicule as a lightweight, hoping for the quick wipeout right out of the box, instead of treating her seriously; and while that would work if she were a lightweight, she isn’t, and she’s faced worse before. What this means is that, when she comes to the debate with Joe Biden, the expectations for her will be low, because after all, Sen. Biden is a vicious this, that and the other thing—and as George W. Bush found, she will find that low expectations can be a real help. She won’t need to “win” the debate with Sen. Biden to win the debate: all she’ll need to do is look respectable and not make a fool of herself, and the Democratic attack on her will go down like a house of cards. If in fact she stands up to Sen. Biden and performs well—as I’m convinced she will if the campaign staff prepare her properly—then the attacks on her will backfire in a big way. And if Sen. Biden has one of his “Uncle Joe” moments and she handles it well, she could flip him clean off the stage.