Month: August 2008

This deserves a second note from yours truly. McCain’s pick was the most pro-gay move any Republican has made since George H.W. Bush added hate crimes against gays to the national statistical base. I know that’s not saying much, but the details are here. Bottom line:

Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples.

Yes, she opposes equality in marriage. So does Obama. And, yes, she’s much worse than Obama on civil unions:

Palin said she’s not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay, but that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment. Elected officials can’t defy the court when it comes to how rights are applied, she said, but she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples.

But she is a rare Republican governor who signed benefits for gay couples into law, as a matter of constitutional equality. And she has gay friends. It’s a good day for gay Republicans, and the clear public references to gay rights in all the major Democratic speeches last week shows how far we’ve come.

Obama’s lead stretches to eight in Gallup daily. That’s before his acceptance speech and before the Palin shocker. But I’ll wait till the week after next.

38 million viewers watched Obama’s speech:

Nielsen Media Research said more people watched Obama speak than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year.

The McCain campaign responds to the Obama camp’s statement on Palin.

Marc has the statement:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.  Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.

Calling Palin "more of the same" falls a little flat, no?

From National Journal’s Almanac, a comprehensive, if dry, profile of Palin.

She named two daughters after television witches, and smoked pot when it was legal in Alaska, and inhaled. She’s also very gay-friendly. It makes me like her. I’m not so sure how the most devout in the base will respond. Her Down Syndrome baby will help, I’m sure – and her decision to bring him into the world is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Could this be McCain’s Miers moment? Some readers think so: the point at which people suddenly realize that McCain is actually less interested in governing than in politics. And willing to let personal liking and respect for utterly unqualified people trump the sober responsibilities of running a country at war, a climate in flux, an economy in trouble, and an empire close to imploding.

One more thing: this was a bit of a F-U pick, a personal, totally idiosyncratic, gut-level, aggressive piece of opportunism. Yes he can! And yes, it does underline his maverick, out-of-the-box brand. It makes me like his empathy for gutsy young women, even former beauty queens (is there footage of her contest out there?). But it also makes me less comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief. It seems a less steady choice than Biden.

An Alaskan reader writes:

This is a gift for Obama. This is Dan Quayle and Gerry Ferraro all over again.

Another writes:

She thinks he’s senile, drunk, or both.  I told her to show some respect, the woman was Miss Alaska’s first runner up in 1984.  You think they were laughing BEFORE.  Ha!  Kay Bailey Hutchinson would have been masterful, this is just hilarious.  Game on.

 

McCain’s penchant for beauty queens is, um, subtle.
 

I like Palin personally, from what I’ve seen. Seems like a great person, great new governor, wonderful mom, should absolutely be part of tomorrow’s GOP. But this struck me as a desperate and possibly disastrous ploy for the McCain campaign, a self-evident gimmick, driven by the demands of campaigning, not the duty of governing. So it undercuts the deepest theme of McCain’s campaign: service.

Compared with Biden, it’s just not a serious pick. It may even become close to ridiculous.

Ramesh Ponnuru deserves major props for this very honest post:

Both the pros and the cons are pretty obvious. I’m going to focus on the cons, mostly because conservatives right now seem to be paying them less attention.

The pros: She’s a pro-life conservative reformer from outside Washington, and a woman. The pick signals a boldness and willingness to mix things up that the McCain campaign, like Republicans generally, need.

The cons: Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain’s age raised the stakes on this issue. As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama.

Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins. And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)

Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?

Compatibility. It doesn’t seem as though McCain knows Palin well. Do we have much reason to think they would work well together?

Debates. Maybe, as Jonah said the other day, Biden will look like a bully going up against her—and maybe she’ll shine. But I can think of a lot of other picks who would have been lower-risk.

I am not even sure that the pick will have quite the galvanizing effect on conservatives that it seems to be having now as it sinks in. The concerns I’ve mentioned here—about her readiness and her credentials—are the kind of thing that many conservative voters take seriously.

Now, as I said, there are pros too. Maybe Palin will be a terrific candidate and vice president. But let’s not underestimate the potential downside.