“To govern is to choose.”
Pierre Mendes France
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Dear Friends,
For presidential nominees, it begins with the choice of a vice presidential running mate.
We know about Barack Obama and his choice: Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and, before that Chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- best of class.
Now comes Sarah Palin (pronounced “pale-in” or “pay-linn,” take your choice), John McCain's choice for vice president.
Within hours following this surprise selection, two narratives developed quickly and settled rapidly in cement:
First, that it was a head-slapper; second, that it was a touch of genius.
So, while you're sorting out your own feelings on the two competing narratives, herewith some fodder for your thoughts.
First, the touch of genius narrative, which has considerably more attributes and components than the alternative version.
She's a smart, young, dynamic, attractive, funny, tough-as-nails, iconoclastic female governor who has a reputation for straight talk, standing up to entrenched interests, not suffering fools, selling off the state plane, cutting budgets.
She's a “hockey Mom” with five kids whose political involvement took her from the PTA to City Council to Mayor of her hometown, Wasilla, AK. At each stop along the way on her political journey, her primary motivation was outrage at the good old boys, profligate spending, high property taxes, and unethical behavior by public officials.
She's married to her high school sweetheart, Todd, who is an Alaskan native and Native, a world champion snowmobiler, a blue-collar oil guy and commercial fisherman, member of the Steelworker's Union.
She's a “military Mom” whose son, Track, heads off to Iraq in September. So she's a patriot through-and-through with a personal commitment to the Iraq wa r.
She's not just a “pro-life” advocate. She made a real-life pro-life choice in 2007 to carry their Down syndrome baby to full term in April 2008.
She's got it right on the Republican base social issues -- guns, gays, choice, medical marijuana, and more.
She shares McCain's enthusiasm for drilling our way to energy independence (sic), even in the ANWAR.
She'll be a vigorous, 24/7 campaigner.
And the instantaneous “book” on her is that she'll excite the Republican base and up the ante for Democrats this fall, despite the common lore (and polling data) that vice presidential selections don't influence voters.
Second, the head-slappper narrative.
She's a political and public policy neophyte, wafer thin on governing experience, and virtually none on national security and global economic issues.
She's been governor for less than two years of a state with a population of San Francisco and an annual budget that would support about two-and-a-half weeks of Iraq war funding; and before that Mayor of a village whose population is slightly larger than the number of delegates, alternates, and working staff at next week's Republican Party convention.
She's an obvious reach for the disaffected Hillaryites, a little too obvious and a little too little in the experience and gravitas departments. And despite having aligned herself yesterday with both women, she's as far from Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro on political and policy views as the spectrum allows. Although, like Ferraro, she was a gender choice.
Her views on energy and environmental issues are retrogressive and cavalierly dismissive of the science on climate change:
“She and other Alaska elected officials fear a [Endangered Species] listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts . . .
“ 'Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable,' Palin said.” (Anchorage Daily News)
Most disconcerting of all, Palin and McCain had met once -- once -- before his last minute offer to join the ticket. So even the personal relationship is flimsy, at best.
To imagine her as number two to a 72-year old man with a serial history of melanoma --- a heartbeat away from being Commander-in-Chief, as they say -- is a disconcerting prospect even for many Republican stalwarts.
So, what can we surmise?
John McCain concluded that the first requirement for his vice president selection was to motivate the Republican base, a group he needs desperately because it's going to be a very tough election for Republicans no matter what the polls say today.
Sarah Palin was the best available choice on that measure.
He decided that the second requirement was to make big news in order to blunt the blockbuster momentum of the Democratic Party convention, Obama's speech to 80,000 at Invesco Field, and the Beijing Olympics. He didn't have a Biden in his vice presidential garden, so he went the other direction.
Sarah Palin was the best available choice on that measure because she was a “bombshell” in both meanings of the term (reference to the Miss Alaska contest is unintentional but unavoidable.)
McCain simply hadn't found a soul mate who would be acceptable to the clan gathering in Minneapolis next week.
Lieberman and Ridge would have offended the base.
Pawlenty was perfectly acceptable, but anodyne, much like Evan Bayh.
The prospect of Mitt Romney for four or eight years was as appealing to McCain as Hillary and Bill were to Obama.
The days were growing shorter and McCain needed to act.
Sarah Palin talked a good game and was tough enough to sustain herself in the tundra and bush country (that's “bush,” not Bush) of Alaska. She had already taken on the Alaska Republican Party leadership, including its Crown Prince, Frank Murkowski, and had that beauty queen-bear trapper profile going for her. McCain apparently saw his reflection, albeit younger and more comely.
McCain has chosen the high risk-high reward road to November 4th, and in doing so, he's playing fast-and-loose with his fiduciary responsibilities, the ones that should come first -- a hallmark that some Senate colleagues suggest has been his operating style for years.
Sarah Palin may have a list of positive political attributes, but her substantive governing and policy credential is breathtakingly slender. And as the investigative reporting mob digs into and at this national campaign newcomer, she -- and McCain -- may find that the ride gets very rough. And if it does, let us pray that they will not cry “gender bias.”
If they win, McCain will be judged a genius for having picked her. If they lose, well, it won't matter much because he'll be an instant political relic, and she'll go back to the once frozen but warming reaches of Alaska.
It's too early to place this nominee in the pantheon of modern-day vice presidential choices, and she deserves time to demonstrate her mettle.
The same cannot be said for John McCain, however.
Despite having achieved two short-term objectives -- making news, and knocking Obama and the Democrats off the front page, he is derelict on the longer term, which begins on January 20th, 2009, should he prevail in this election.
His choice of Sarah Palin is impetuous, ill-advised, shallow, undisciplined, and, dare it be said, cynical. And that's true even if you think she's terrific. To this observer it has the faint odor of George H. W. Bush's selection of Clarence Thomas to fill Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court.
And I suspect it makes Karl Rove a very happy man.
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