As I mentioned in previous posts, I felt that McCain had the unassailable upper hand in VP selection by picking second, especially after Obama damaged his "change" rhetoric by picking a boring old white guy like Biden as his running mate. All McCain had to do was pick a politically viable, yet demographically interesting, VP and the race was his. As of Friday's announcement, Palin seemed to fit this bill perfectly. Improbably, she was the only person in the race with ANY executive experience (however slight), and McCain had set the stage perfectly with his ad criticizing Obama for not having the chutzpah to pick Clinton as his running mate. More importantly, McCain was capitalizing on the anger of the Hillary Haridans by choosing a woman as his number two. While Senator Clinton had convinced many former PUMA's in her convention speech that a vote for Obama was (in effect) a symbolic vote for her, these same women would now be forced to choose between a symbolic vote for Clinton and an actual vote for Palin. Who knows which would come out ahead?
All this, and I haven't even mentioned Palin's working-class background - a background which might well neutralize the he-has-seven-houses-what-does-he-know-about-the-working-class condemnation that has dogged McCain over the last week or two. And (could it be any better?) her son, who enlisted in the Army on the 6th anniversary of September 11th, is about to be deployed to Iraq. Set, game and match.
In my last blog post about this topic, I put myself out there - I said unequivocably that if McCain chose a woman or a member of the military as his running mate that he could not lose. And if I'd blogged on Friday, I'm sure I would have reiterated this statement. But, once again, what a difference a few days makes.
I am now prepared to completely renounce my utter certainty and assert that the race is anyone's to win or lose. Furthermore, I think it's distinctly possible that McCain's choice of Palin might well sink his campaign. Here are a few reasons why:
- The first and most obvious reason is the allegation that Palin attempted to force her public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who just happened to be her sister's ex-husband, and who had just completed a nasty divorce and custody battle with her at the time Palin tried to force his ouster. There is the very real possibility that Palin might be under indictment for ethics violations surrounding this incident at the time of the election. And if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that voters really hate indictments. When I first found out about this allegation back on August 1st while blogging about Palin, I was convinced at the time that the potential indictment would be enough to sink any chance of her VP nomination. I was obviously wrong - but that hardly means this is a non-issue. Lawyers have been hired, and the legislature seems to just be getting started.
- The pregnant daughter issue. There has been much gnashing of teeth over 17-year-old Bristol Palin and her pregnancy the last few days. I'm not sure I really have much constructive to say, other than to pass along a gut reaction I had to the news. Specifically, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of mother would subject her daughter to the kind of media scrutiny and disection that has been going on the last few days by accepting the nomination. This might be entirely unfair, but I can't help but think it. Palin knew her daughter was pregnant when she said yes to McCain; she had to know the information would get out. So why put her family through this? I'm a fairly liberated woman, but I've still got this train of thought running through my mind - I can't be the only one. (A further pet peeve - the announcement simultaneous to that of Bristol's pregnancy that she would be marrying the father. I HATE this. Why should kids be forced to compound one mistake - an unplanned pregnancy - with another - a misbegotten marriage?)
- The lack of vetting issue. It seems obvious now that Palin was barely vetted (if at all) prior to her being announced as McCain's VP. Although the campaign might recover from point one above, and probably will recover from point two, I have a distinct feeling that there are other skeletons lurking in Palin's closet that have yet to be uncovered. And one more, I think, will be one too many.
Skeletons, however damaging, aren't the only reason why Palin was a bonehead choice. I fear that McCain's advisors have made the inexcusable error of assuming that any old woman would do when it came to choosing a running mate and securing the PUMA vote once and for all. One would be hard-pressed to discover two women more diametrically opposite than Palin and Clinton. If you don't believe me, then take Clinton's powerful and commanding presence at the democratic national convention and Palin's ridiculous self-introduction on Friday as all the proof you need. Palin may very well be the anti-Hillary, and while this might be just what the Republican establishment ordered, it will not sit well with the PUMA's who weren't sure if they could stomach voting for McCain just to make a point. Perhaps no one summed up the mystery that is Sarah Palin better than Charlie Cook of the National Journal:
The jury is, and will remain, out on McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. It's either brilliant or insane. There isn't much room in between. A narrative storyline is going to develop in the media. It will be either that she is the fascinating, offbeat, not-off-the-rack maverick female governor from a very curious place that reinforces McCain's change-and-reform message and resonates with suburban mothers with children at home; or that her selection was a half-baked, cynical move by McCain that, while "outside the box," probably should have been left in the box and never opened.
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