Beldar has a great post up on why Gov. Palin won’t be Quayled by Joe Biden which, along the way, captures a lot of why those of us who’ve been backing her believe in her.
Category Archives: Sarah Palin
“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.
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.
YES!!!!!! MCCAIN/PALIN ’08!
All right, I’m breaking my own self-imposed rule, but after all the hijinks played yesterday with http://www.mccainpalin.com/, I’m calling this good enough: it’s now firmly McCain-Palin 2008, declaring, “The Wait Is Over” and reads,
It’s Official!!! Congratulations Sarah Palin! We are pleased to announce that John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate! Sarah Heath Palin is currently the Governor of Alaska and assumed office in 2006. In addition to being the first female Governor of Alaska, she has made history again as the first female Republican Vice Presidential running mate. We are confident Sarah Palin will make an excellent Vice Presidential candidate with John McCain, and we congratulate her on her impeccable record of public service and her recent selection as John McCain’s VP!
And indeed, here’s the press release from the McCain campaign confirming his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate!
WE DID IT!
HE DID IT!
MCCAIN/PALIN ’08!
CNN is reporting . . .
. . . that Gov. Sarah Palin is the pick. I’m going to wait for John McCain to say so himself before I go bonkers, but . . . yeah.Incidentally, I’ve been talking about Palin searches driving my traffic—well, I have half again as many hits already today as my blog’s previous high, and it’s only 11 am. It looks to me like a lot of this is people who’ve never heard of the woman and are now trying to figure out who she is and where she came from. Some of the highlights:
- Scads of people looking for “Sarah Palin church,” or some variant thereof. I told you, I don’t know anything about that.
- Several people looking for “Sarah Palin Seattle Seahawks,” which just made me laugh. My dream January: John McCain and Sarah Palin sworn in in D.C., and the ‘Hawks in the Super Bowl.
- One person looking for “sara palin firefly.” I have no idea what prompted that search, but it landed them here.
- A number of searches on “Sarah Palin Native American.” That’s her husband’s ancestry, not hers (she was born in Idaho), but I’m not surprised at the interest.
- We have people looking for dirt, with a few searches like “Sarah Palin, flaws” and “Sarah Palin skeletons.” There don’t appear to be any skeletons in her closet; you want to know what there is to know, negatively-speaking, read the CNN story—it’s all there.
- Which reminds me, maybe the person looking for “Palin closet” was looking for the same thing; otherwise, that bewilders me.
- I’ve also seen a bunch of people looking for “Sarah Palin wealthy,” or some variant thereof. Umm, no, she isn’t (though she’s not poor, either).
- Whoever’s looking for “Sarah Palin ACU rating” is going to be disappointed, since I don’t think governors have ACU ratings. Aren’t those calculated from congressional votes?
- Someone wanted to check out Gov. Palin’s law school. Just so you know, she’s not a lawyer.
- My favorite search? “Sarah Palin humorous VP”
- Longest search? “how many children has Gov of Alaska, Sarah Palin who cares for her children who is her husband”
Kudos to the John McCain Ministry of Disinformation
There’s been some talk in recent weeks about the website http://www.mccainpalin.com/, especially among those of us booming Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Today, it has in succession redirected to websites purporting to announce a McCain/Pawlenty ticket, a McCain/Hutchison ticket, and now a McCain/Romney ticket. Where it will go by the time you click on the link, I have no idea. Plus, there are other indications and rumors flying—Tim Pawlenty has canceled appearances, the Secret Service is at Mitt Romney’s sister’s house, and so on—all pointing different directions.I can only come to one conclusion: the McCain campaign is playing with our minds. Having watched Sen. Obama’s pick leak despite efforts to keep everything hush-hush, they’ve decided to go the other way and flood the arena with disinformation. There are so many red herrings flopping around out there right now, the only thing you’re going to accomplish if you dive in is to come up smelling fishy.I have no idea who Sen. McCain’s pick will be; I think the complete absence of any pointers aiming at my favorite governor might be telling, but I’m by no means sure enough of that to say. I am sure of this, though: Sen. McCain said his pick is going to be a surprise, and by cracky, he wants to keep it that way!
Will he do it?
The interest in Sarah Palin continues to drive the traffic on this blog up and up and up, as the search hits keep rolling in; and it’s not just me, either—Adam Brickley’s blog, which is the hub of the Palin movement, topped 5,000 hits both Monday and Tuesday (a fact he relayed in his excellent “pep talk,” in which he made the case for Palin as well as he ever has). A great many people across this country—many Republicans, but also more than a few moderate Democrats—are catching the vision of a McCain/Palin ticket, and getting excited about the possibility. This is the reason John McCain needs to name Gov. Palin as his running mate, because you can’t say that about anybody else; the arguments for the other candidates are all purely rational, coldly political parsings of the data. There are equally strong rational arguments, and perhaps stronger, to be made for Gov. Palin, but among them is this: she excites people. None of the other candidates do that, except Mormons for Romney; none of them excite both wings of the Republican base; none of them excite people beyond the Republican base. Only Gov. Palin does that, and I hope Sen. McCain realizes that.The question is, will he do it? We’ll find out tomorrow—or maybe today, if it leaks the way the Biden pick did. If he does, then yes, the media will immediately go on the attack, but despite them, we’ll see the excitement continue to build; if he doesn’t, it will deflate. We have lifelong Democrats who are leaning toward voting Republican for the first time; some of them will go back to Sen. Obama. We have disaffected Republicans who don’t like Sen. McCain but are thrilled at the prospect of voting for Gov. Palin; some of them won’t vote. We have others who like Sen. McCain well enough but aren’t energized by him, but would love to turn out and work for a McCain/Palin ticket; they’ll still vote for him in November, but most of them won’t contribute otherwise. And then there are those of us who will keep beating the drum regardless, but would like to have as many reasons as possible to make our case; there’s simply more to be said for McCain/Palin than for McCain/Hutchison or McCain/Pawlenty, let alone McCain/Romney. And yes, for a lot of us, if the Palin energy goes, there will also be a lot fewer people listening to us as we do.So, will John McCain make history by picking Sarah Palin, Alaska’s preternaturally accomplished female governor, as his running mate? I don’t know—but I hope so.
To repeat: why John McCain should choose Sarah Palin
It occurred to me today that though I’ve posted a fair bit about Sarah Palin, it’s been a couple months now since I laid out the reasons that convinced me of the truth of the superficially crazy notion that the best running mate for John McCain is the first-term governor of a small red state that most Americans rarely think about. Given that more and more people are discovering her and starting to consider that superficially crazy notion for themselves, I thought that re-running those reasons might be in order.One, she’s young, just 44; she would balance out Sen. McCain’s age.Two, she has proven herself as an able executive and administrator, serving as mayor, head of the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and now as governor; she would balance out Sen. McCain’s legislative experience (though he does have command experience in the Navy).Three, she has strong conservative credentials, both socially (she’s strongly pro-life, politically and personally) and fiscally (as her use of the line-item veto has shown); she would assuage concerns about Sen. McCain’s conservatism.Four, she’s independent, having risen to power against the Alaska GOP machine, not through it; she’s worked hard against the corruption in both her party and her state’s government. She would reinforce Sen. McCain’s maverick image, which is one of his greatest strengths in this election, but in a more conservative direction.Five, for the reasons listed above, she’s incredibly popular in Alaska. That might seem a minor factor to some, but it’s indicative of her abilities as a politician.Six, she has a remarkable personal story, of the sort the media would love. She’s a former beauty-pageant winner, the mother of five children (the oldest serving in the Army, preparing to deploy to Iraq, the youngest a Down Syndrome baby), an outdoorsy figure who rides snowmobiles and eats mooseburgers—and a tough, take-no-prisoners competitor who was known as “Sarah Barracuda” when she led her underdog high-school basketball team to the state championship, and who now has accomplished a similar feat in cutting her way to the governor’s office. No one now in American politics can match Sen. McCain’s life story (no, not even Barack Obama), but she comes as close as anyone can (including Sen. Obama); she fits his image.Seven, she would give the McCain campaign the “Wow!” factor it can really use in a vice-presidential nominee. As a young, attractive, tough, successful, independent-minded, appealing female politician, though not well known yet, she would make American voters sit up and take notice [as indeed she is already]; and given her past history, there could be no doubt that she would be a strong, independent voice in a McCain administration, should there be one. (Update: for those wondering how she’d do in debates, go here to watch how she did the last time around. Go here to see her inaugural address.)Eight, choosing Gov. Palin as his running mate, especially if coupled with actions like giving Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal the keynote slot at the GOP convention, would help the party going forward. The GOP needs to rebuild its bench of plausible strong future presidential candidates, and perhaps the best thing Sen. McCain can do for the party is to help with this. The party needs Gov. Jindal to stay where he is for another term or two (as, I believe, does the state of Louisiana), but in giving him the convention slot that launched Sen. Obama to prominence four years ago and putting Gov. Palin on the ticket, Sen. McCain would put two of the GOP’s best people and brightest hopes for the future in a perfect position to claim the White House themselves; in so doing, he would make them the face of the GOP for the future.