Some of you were stunned by McCain’s choice for his running mate and asked how Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can bring anything positive to the ticket. Well, it’s going to have to play out some before we know for sure. I have to say, though, I’m impressed that McCain pushed away from the recommendations of his party (to choose a more seasoned old school lawyer-politician) and chose instead a Washington outsider.
But McCain isn’t a cookie-cutter politician. In that respect, he’s exactly what the country needs. He’s gone against the grain to pick a running mate he thinks will help him fight (and a fight it will be!) to fix our broken political system and hopefully restore public trust in government. I for one would love to see that happen. But McCain’s choice brings with it some obvious risks and some perhaps less obvious benefits.
For example, Palin has served less than two years as Governor of Alaska which tends to eat into the experience message on which McCain has so far relied. At 44, she’s three years younger than Obama. She’s served as a mayor and as the Ethics Commissioner on the state board regulating oil and natural gas for a total of eight years political experience before her election as governor. That’s slightly less than Obama with seven years in the Illinois legislature and three in the US Senate.
But let’s take a look at the positives she brings to the ticket:
Palin has spent her entire political career crusading against the political machine — within her own Republican Party — that rules Alaska. She blew the whistle on the state GOP chair who had abused his power on the same commission to conduct party business. Obama, in contrast, talked a great deal about reform in Chicago but never challenged the party machine, preferring instead to take an easy ride as a protegé of Richard Daley.
She has no formal foreign policy experience, which puts her at a disadvantage to Joe Biden, but in nineteen months as governor, she certainly has had more practical experience in diplomacy than either Biden or Obama. She runs the only American state bordered by two foreign countries, one of which — Russia — has of late grown increasingly hostile toward the US.
But Team Obama can hardly attack Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience; Obama has none at all and neither Obama nor Biden have any executive experience. Palin has more than seven years executive experience.
McCain’s picking Palin puts Obama between a rock and a hard place. The Dems were likely prepared to assault McCain’s running mate, but Palin presents a unique challenge: If they slam her like they slammed Hillary, Obama risks again alienating women. And if they don’t, he risks alienating Hillary supporters who’ll see it as a sign of disrespect for Hillary.
And choosing Palin gives McCain an additional boost in several ways:
First, the media will eat it up. That effectively buries Obama’s acceptance speech and steals oxygen he needs for a long-term convention bump.
Second, Palin will re-energize the base. She’s not just a pro-life advocate, she’s lived the issue herself. That will attract elements of the GOP that have held McCain at a distance since the primaries and provide positive motivation for Republicans rather than just reliance on anti-Dem sentiment to get them to the polls.
Third, she addresses the energy issue better and more attuned to the American electorate than perhaps any of the other three principals in this election. Even beyond her efforts to reform the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, she has demonstrated her independence from so-called “Big Oil” while promoting domestic production. She brings instant credibility to the ticket on energy policy, and reminds independents and centrists that the Obama-Biden ticket offers nothing but the same excuses we’ve heard for thirty years.
Finally, McCain can remind voters who has the real record of reform. Obama talks a lot about it but has no actual record of reform, and for a running mate he chose a 35-year Washington insider with all kinds of connections to lobbyists and pork. McCain has fought pork, taken real political risks to fight undue influence of lobbyists, and he picked an outsider who took on her own party — and won!
Here’s the bottom line: That’s change you can believe in, not change that amounts to all talk. McCain altered the trajectory of the race today by stealing Obama’s thunder and turning it against him. Obama provided the opening by picking Biden as his running mate and McCain was savvy enough to take advantage of it.
I can hardly wait to see how this all plays out! I know, this is all just my initial take on McCain-Palin and the dems will surely find something about her to slam. In fact, it’s already begun. But now we have a horse race!