Posted by
woodwose on Friday, August 29, 2008 10:17:57 PM
John McCain's choice of little known Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his VP running mate was certainly a stunner. It accomplished one thing that probably nothing else could have; it yanked the spotlight away from the Democrats less than 24 hours after their candidate's acceptance speech was watched by 38 million Americans on TV and 80,000 people in person. In fact, Obama cooperated by giving a disjointed, less than inspired speech that ended with, in Slate writer Mickey Kaus's terms, "slow, angtsy movie music."
There are certain reasons the Palin choice seems inspired. She's a maverick. She bucked the establishment GOP in Alaska (and Lord knows, the establishment GOP nationally could use a good bucking). She supports drilling without falling over herself to give away the keys to the house to the oil companies. She's a hunter and fisher. She's got five kids, her last knowing the child was going to be born with Down's Syndrome. She is in short, an amazing woman. And in many ways, the perfect choice for McCain to make. She fits with McCain's maverick theme. She has the same western US values that McCain has. And she has executive experience, not much, but more than McCain, Obama and Biden combined.
But, she's very inexperienced on the national stage, and she is not going to get treated with kid gloves like Hillary Clinton did when she ran for the Senate in New York after a lifetime of not doing much more than living in taxpayer financed mansions that were a perk of her husband's jobs. Hillary was given eight years of practice dealing with the press on her own terms before she faced a hostile media in her campaign against the "annointed one." Palin is going to face sheer hell from the media over the next 66 days.
But ultimately, what concerns me most is that the choice of Palin by McCain might be nothing more than a gimmick. Just like the choice of Geraldine Ferraro by Mondale was a gimmick to attempt to defeat an unstoppable Reagen in 1984. I hope Palin is tough, determined and proves that she is more than a gimmick. But I hate gimmicks in national politics, and that's what the Palin choice, at least initially, strikes me as.
But then again, how does a former community organizer who was an Illinois state leglislator less than four years ago end up with the Democratic nomination for president without a lot of gimmickry?