It is one of those decisions that could still blow up, of course. Maybe she can't spell potato or sort out which is Iran and which is Iraq. But I would not bet on it.
John McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate was not an impulse decision. It was a big gamble -- as big a political curve ball as you ever see on the national stage. And it was smart politics.
There are two John McCains -- as the lead story in this week's Economist ("Bring Back the Real McCain") suggests. McCain 1.0 is the maverick who fought Bush for the 2000 nomination and fought against Bush pork, tax cuts, immigration policies, torture policies, energy policies, and military incompetence. He fought to get Bush to embrace the surge in Iraq and fire Donald Rumsfeld. He frequently denounced the religious right as intolerant and foolish. Indeed, John McCain has earned more scars fighting the Republican Party than most Democrats. He has challenged the mandarins of his party far more than Obama has ever challenged Democrats and he has a far stronger record of bipartisanship. That's why McCain 1.0 was every Democrat's favorite Republican. It is also why McCain 1.0 would be the only Republican who could win and would be a very dangerous opponent to Obama.
The catch of course, is that McCain 1.0 could not become the nominee of the Republican Party. So for the past year, we have been witness to McCain 2.0 -- silent on pork, an advocate for oil, supportive of the Bush tax cuts, compliant on Iraq, immigration, Katrina, torture, and abortion. Lap dog to the evangelicals. McCain 2.0 is Bush 1.0 and represents a transformation that makes even Mitt Romney look craven -- which takes some doing.
Naming Sarah Palin as his running mate means that McCain will energize the evangelical Republican base and it means that we are going to see John McCain 1.5 during the next two months. This will be a dangerous candidate. When Obama says "change", McCain will see him and raise him one. When Obama says "bipartisanship", McCain will lay down his cards and call. It's a maverick ticket -- the only kind that could win -- and Palin, a pork-busting, corruption-defying governor, fits this strategy well. Democrats should not dismiss this threat or take Palin lightly.
Those who say that McCain just lost the argument about experience miss
the point. Any Dem who argues that a first term Alaskan governor is too
inexperienced for the #2 job must explain why a first term Senator
is qualified for the #1 job. There are good answers of course: Obama has a
well-developed view of foreign affairs and has been active on
nonproliferation issues. He is battle-hardened from the toughest primary in history. But these arguments don't fit on a bumper sticker, which
is where debates over symbolic issues happen.
What are the qualifications of the person who suddenly has the best chance to be the first woman President of the United States? Well, she is a caribou-hunting beauty queen who loves moose-burgers and is married to a part-Eskimo fisherman who is a member of the Steelworker's Union. She is an evangelical mother of five, but named two of them after witches, once took drugs, and refused to sign a bill removing domestic benefits for gay couples. She plays a mean game of basketball and she is not afraid to take on the Republican Party. Plus, unlike many in politics, (Teddy Kennedy, George W. Bush, and HIllary Clinton for starters) she is part of no political dynasty.
Of course, the religious right is in Ecstasy because McCain has picked one of their own. She opposes abortion, even for victims of rape or incest. She opposes stem-cell research. She wants creationism given equal standing with evolution in public schools. She supports public funding for homeschooling. She supports the abstinence-only sex education even though she has a pregnant seventeen year old daughter.
For some independent swing voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, those are real qualifications.
Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a small town that lies between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges. I visited in Wassilla two weeks before McCain named Palin to his ticket. It is a strip mall on Highway 3 near Anchorage. In 2000, 5,470 people lived here. It is reportedly the fastest growing part of Alaska (with only 700,000 people, a state that is smaller than San Francisco). One Wasilla resident bragged to me that "our Walmart sells more Spam, more Duck Tape, and more blue tarps than any Walmart in the world". A store at a gas station in Wasilla (the only place I actually visited) sold a bumper sticker that read "Alaska: Coldest State, Hottest Governor" (like Obama, Palin is easy on the eyes).
Wasilla aside, Palin brings McCain-like maverick strength to the ticket -- and some McCain like inconsistencies. She killed Alaska's infamous "bridge
to nowhere" (although she was for the bridge before she was against it). She chaired the 527 committee for its sponsor, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (the Republican Senator who all but owns
Alaska and just got re-nominated while under indictment) -- a man she now happily detests. She has both fought and recruited oil companies. She supports drilling Anwar, so look for McCain to come around. She is outspoken, colorful, articulate, and conservative but not stupid. Her oldest kid is a soldier heading for Iraq, her youngest a disabled newborn. She has no experience with big league politics -- it ain't bean bag, so the small skeletons (the allegation that she got her sister's ex fired, or various rumors about her unmarried daughter's pregnancy) will all get more media coverage than they deserve: that's how it works.
Palin's contribution to the ticket will turn less on her policy experience than on her ability to connect with people without making any really bad mistakes. We have a lot more to learn, but based on the initial indications, McCain just made the most interesting election in many years a lot more interesting.
Of course Palin is a risk: she could turn out to be all Spam, Duck Tape and blue tarp and self-destruct in a single 24 hour news cycle -- taking McCain's candidacy down with her. But credit McCain with knowing that he needed a Hail Mary pass and for throwing what looks from here to be a strong one.
Regardless, it now really sucks to be Hillary. If Obama wins, Hillary can't run for President in 2012. If McCain goes one term (something he would be very smart to promise: look for an October surprise), Hillary will have to challenge another woman in 2012. Hillary Clinton persuaded 18 million people to vote for her and all she has to show for it is a woman on the other ticket. For perspective, Palin was elected by 115,000 Alaskans. History ain't linear. Or fair.
On the other hand, Clinton, together with Obama and McCain, may have just killed the white male ticket. As a country, we are having our 56th presidential election, meaning that about 200 people in American history have had the honor of running for President or Vice President at the head of a major party ticket (some have run more than once, some years there have been more than two major parties). So far as I know, all but two of these candidates has been a white man (the exception is Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and, thanks to an alert reader, Charles Curtis, Senate Majority Leader and Herbert Hoover's VP who was Kaw Indian on his mom's side and grew up on a Kaw reservation). With the nomination of Palin, neither party has fielded a white male ticket. Indeed, thanks to the contestants in this year's election and the odd way the US selects Vice Presidents, a white male ticket may now be politically untenable.
Fine.
