Month: August 2008

Yuval Levin acknowledges Palin’s drawbacks, but is ultimately pleased:

The biggest drawback for me is that she has no more foreign policy experience than Obama and fairly little (though, as Mark points out, more than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined) executive experience. I don’t quite agree that foreign policy experience doesn’t matter, and I think concern about that has had a lot to do with the success of the "he’s not ready" charge against Obama–it’s not only because he has so little political and governing experience in general, but also because it’s terribly difficult to see him in charge of American foreign policy in a crisis. It’s at least as difficult to imagine Palin in charge in a crisis, and maybe more so. But on the other hand, Palin is up for the number two spot, not for President, and the guy at the top of the ticket is John McCain, who people certainly have an easier time seeing as a foreign policy expert and decision-maker. A heartbeat away is a real issue, as Jonah says, but it’s much less of a concern than choosing a president who isn’t ready for the job.

A reader plumbs the weirdness:

"Willow" was Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s best friend and "Piper" was the eldest sister on the series Charmed played by Shannen Doherty.  The governor obviously has a penchant for television shows of paranormal female empowerment.  (I know, it’s too gay that I know this).  "Trig?" Don’t have clue.

Bristol! A town in near Wales! And another correction:

Piper was the second sister, she was played by Holly Marie Combs. Shannon Doherty played Prue (Prudence) Halliwell. Willow and Piper are both witches. Good witches.

Brendan Loy makes it:

[T]he thrust of the Dems’ argument will not be that Palin is too inexperienced; it will be that McCain is being disingenuous when he argues that Obama is too inexperienced. This argument will gain wide acceptance among the pundit class, and it will also succeed with voters — largely because it is correct, and obviously & instinctively so.

12.46 pm. I can see the logic of this, and she made a good speech. I’m just very unsure what this does to the race. It’s a total curve-ball. Will people respond to this – essentially window dressing for female independents? Or will they consider this a trivial, headline-grabbing choice that suggests a lack of seriousness about governing?

12.45 pm. The embrace of Hillary Clinton directly – and Ferraro! – is remarkable. She is directly appealing to Clinton’s female supporters to back her because she is a woman. Subtle this wasn’t.

12.44 pm. "Only one candidate has truly fought for America." Oh, and she pronounces "nuclear" the Bush way.

12.43 pm. Challenge the status quo and serve the common good. This is about coopting the message of change.

12.42 pm. Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and … Trig? Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and … Trig? Maybe we don’t need the Romneys. But she has experience on the PTA.

12.41 pm. She mentions her son going to Iraq. Biden, as far as I recall, didn’t.

12.40 pm. Her husband’s a snow-machine racer!

12.30 pm. Mortgage payments, groceries … the focus on pocket-book issues is identical to Obama’s. And the reference to union members is an obvious attempt to get out of the "elitist" trap.

12.23 pm. This is a populist speech. Democratic in its themes.

12.20 pm McCain’s opener is borrowed entirely from Hillary Clinton.

Noah Millman:

McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin (assuming it’s confirmed) is a brilliant first counter-stroke. She helps the ticket on so many different fronts: she gives women who are angry about Hillary being passed over another reason to vote McCain; she gives fence-sitting whites who feel they "ought" to vote for Obama because of the historic nature of his candidacy an excuse to find history on the other side; she burnishes McCain’s credentials as an independent, reform candidate; she restores McCain’s credibility on energy and environmental issues, where Obama personally feels most comfortable going on the attack; she will generate enthusiasm among evangelicals among whom Obama was hoping to make inroads; she absolutely locks down the gun-rights vote (where McCain needed to play a bit of defense against Barr); she helps McCain in the Mountain West (Colorado and Montana) where he cannot afford to lose any states (except New Mexico); she neutralizes Biden in the debates (if he comes out zinging, he’ll seem ungentlemanly); and, most important, she makes McCain seem bold, future-oriented, and in control of his Administration, where Obama has seemed timid, defensive and unable to control his own party.

Jonah Goldberg:

The upside: She’s the best of the dark horses because she’s an exciting, exotic (yet heartlandish) female pick.

The base will love her. She’s a true outsider and the only person in the race with serious executive experience. This will have to mean McCain’s flipping on ANWR, which will make gas prices a central issue.

Downside: She may not be ready for primetime. The heartbeat-from-the-presidency issue is a real one.

Holly Bailey:

Palin, in hindsight, looks like an obvious pick for McCain. Not only is she one of the most popular public figures in the country—her approval rating, according to the Anchorage Daily News, tops 80 percent—Palin came to office running a clean government campaign and has fought for ethics reform. Among other things, she supports drilling in Alaska, with limits, she’s pro-life and she’s a fiscal conservative. And she’s a lady—something that, if she’s the pick, surely figured into the McCain strategy of hoping to woo upset Hillary Clinton supporters. Plus, Palin’s an interesting character: a former beauty queen, she was a star high school basketball player (she was known as “Sarah Barracuda” for her intense play). Palin married her childhood sweetheart, a blue collar oil field worker (who is on leave, so as not to create a conflict of interest). She hunts, she fishes, and earlier this year, she posed for Vogue.

Josh Marshall:

It’s a daring pick but I think a very weak pick. I’m perfectly happy with it. Palin is in the midst of a reasonably serious scandal in her home state. Her brother-in-law is a state trooper who is in the midst of an ugly custody battle with her sister. And she’s accused of getting the state police to fire him. Recently she was forced to admit that one of her aides had done this, though she insists she didn’t know.

Now we’re talking:

Palin doesn’t support legalizing marijuana, worrying about the message it would send to her four kids. But when it comes to cracking down on drugs, she says methamphetamines are the greater threat and should have a higher priority.

Palin said she has smoked marijuana — remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law — but says she didn’t like it and doesn’t smoke it now.

"I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled."

The more I read the more I expect to like her a lot.

Sonny Bunch says I am confused:

Andrew has this exactly backwards. The McCain campaign is hoping and praying that someone will say that Palin is unready for the job. “Please,” John McCain is praying right now AS I TYPE, “Let a Democrat say that an executive with 2 years of experience and no foreign policy expertise isn’t ready for the presidency. Oh pretty please. Because you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take that soundbite, put it in an ad, slap Obama’s mug up there, and run it over and over and over again.”

Because Palin has exactly as much experience as Obama–arguably more, since she’s an executive. The only difference is that she isn’t running for president.

I can see that. But still: there’s inexperience and inexperience. Has Palin ever even said anything about foreign policy in her entire career? That’s all I’m asking. What have been her views on Iraq and Afghanistan? Darfur? Georgia? Russia? The EU? I’d like to see evidence that she has addressed these issues or has substantive views on them. That’s all. Is that too much?

Much better than the base, according to Wiki:

She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination.^[9] While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.^[28] She disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling^[29] and supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter.^[30] Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii.^[31] Palin has stated that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.^[9]

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. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.^[29]

A reader writes:

You’re talking about the war, but as you’ve pointed out numerous times, it’s winding down on its own. The pick of Palin doesn’t show that McCain doesn’t take it seriously… it tells us that he’s going to make this election about energy. It’s a winning issue for him, and that’s Palin’s speciality. Who can speak with more authority on ANWR than the Governor of Alaska?

Conservative pundits tried to blunt the Biden choice by saying it undermines Obama’s message of change. It doesn’t, of course, because Obama for better or worse, embodies the idea at this point. Similarly, no running mate can genuinely undermine McCain’s experience on foreign policy. Let us not forget that, young or not, she’s the only one of the four people on either ticket with genuine executive experience.

You can’t have it both ways: either both choices undermine something the candidates have touted about themselves, or they cannot overshadow the man at the top of each ticket. My vote is for the latter on both counts.

The war on Jihadist terror is not winding down, whatever the lull in Iraq might suggest; it’s very much here and on the horizon. I also don’t believe that drilling for oil is going to win the election. In fact, it’s insane that it should win the election. It’s fine, even important, as part of a longer-term energy diversification policy. But I don’t see how a focus on drilling for oil is going to win over independents in an era of petrol-fueled-wars and climate change.

And yes, there’s always a balance between a president’s qualities and a vice-president’s. That’s why Obama picked Biden. It’s why Bush picked Cheney. But a future vice-president in war time should have some record of even interest in foreign policy. And, yes, my error in the last post says it all: she’s had two years of executive experience as governor of a state with not many more people than the District of Columbia.

I reserve judgment of this pick until we see her and him together. And I can see the sense of it from television’s angle, from diversity’s angle, and from the change angle. She may well also be a great pick for the future of the GOP. But, still …

Ross:

This could, of course, turn out to be an enormous debacle if she isn’t ready for prime time. But for now, Sarah Palin looks like a perfect face for the sort of Republican Party I want to support: She’s a pro-life working mom; she’s tough on corruption and government waste without being a doctrinaire Norquistian on taxes; she’s more supportive of gay rights than the current GOP orthodoxy (while stopping short of backing same-sex marriage); she has a more conservationist record than your typical GOP pol, but supports drilling in ANWR; she’s an evangelical but she isn’t a southern evangelical … and if McCain loses, she can run at the top of a Palin-Jindal ticket in 2012!

All of this may be great for the future of the GOP. But it’s a hell of a risk for the country.