McCain is the issue, not Palin
September 3rd, 2008There has been a lot of discussion regarding the pick of Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s Vice President. Here are the facts:
- Palin is the least-qualified Vice Presidential pick, maybe ever.
- Palin was chosen not based on her ability to perform as President but as someone who matched a demographic profile as a purely political choice. Karl Rove even agrees with this assessment.
- Her views regarding creationism in the classroom and abstinence-only education are absurd and the latter has been vividly disproved within her own family.
- Her resume is padded with claims of being a maverick that are at least as fraudulent as McCain’s. She was FOR the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. She simply spent the earmarks on other projects when it became horribly unpopular under the national spotlight.
- All of the above is why the Palin pick is NOT about Sarah Palin. It’s about John McCain.
Everyone agrees that the process for selecting a Presidential nominee is horribly flawed - perhaps even more so for the Democrats than the Republicans. Just look at this cycle alone: we had primaries, caucuses, straw polls, prima-caucuses, Super Tuesday, proportional voting, winner-take-all contests, mail-in ballots, disqualified states, DNC meetings to determine whether Florida and Michigan get to have any say at all, pledged delegates, Super Delegates, half delegates and even more weirdness.
That insane process is how the Democrats got Barack Obama. That insane process was the only way the Democrats could get Barack Obama.
Now what insane process delivered Sarah Palin to the Republicans? John McCain’s inability to think critically and rationally.
Palin is like Obama in many respects: young, popular with the base of the party, charismatic and with a thin resume. In a contest of skills, the edge has to go to Obama: politically, he beat a Clinton (something, frankly, which no other politician has done in 20 years) and he has foreign relations experience in that he has served on the Senate Foreign Relations committee and he was boldly correct about the Iraq War when is was very popular. In Palin’s defense, she has executive experience and a foreign relations background on par with Bill Clinton when he took office.
But again, this is why Palin’s inexperience is not an issue Democrats can use directly.
But her inexperience is damning for John McCain…
- His decision, again, was purely political (Palin is loved by the Evangelicals, she’s pro-life in principal and practice, she’s a woman and , in my opinion only was this a factor: she’s shorter than the 5′8″ Mccain so he’s not getting upstaged all the time by a Romney or Pawlenty next to the small, old man.).
- He didn’t go with his “gut.” He met her twice. The addition of Palin to the ticket was literally lobbied by McCain’s lobbyist/adviser Rick Davis over McCain’s preferences. Again, the “maverick” McCain does what the lobbyists tell him.
- The Vice President only takes the office in the most dire circumstances. The Vice Presidents are the country’s back-up plan. You simply don’t put an amateur in that slot.
The spin on McCain’s choice of the Alaska governor is that it reinforces his maverick credentials. I see it the opposite way: It undermines them. McCain looks like any other calculating politician, willing to do whatever it takes to win.
The other thing we learned about McCain is that he is willing to take an enormous gamble based on limited information. He only met Palin once before summoning her for a final interview. He realized he needed to shake up the presidential race, and that’s what he did. But we are reminded, if we did not realize it before, that the three things not to expect from a McCain presidency are caution, prudence and a willingness to always put the nation’s interests above his own.
The great fallacy of the Palin pick is not that it reinforces McCain as “maverick” but proves it’s simply not true and probably never was.
– Steve
Stumble it!
