This is an expanded and revised version of a Sunday print column that ran this morning. I'll be off duty tomorrow, for the holiday. Back on Tuesday.
At least in symbolic terms, John McCain has already taken the first big step toward putting his imprint on the Republican party.
By picking a young female governor and mother of five as his running mate, he is signaling his intention to shake things up and scrap the traditional GOP paradigm. Indeed, that is his prime task this week at his national convention, as he seeks to position his candidacy for the autumn presidential race. He rightly decided that he needed to effectuate a marketing overhaul, if only because the Bush-Cheney team has damaged the party “brand” so badly.
The choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin provides a window into McCain’s election strategy. Mindful that fewer votes describe themselves as Republicans than at any other time in recent years – Gallup reports that the self-identified Democrats now hold a 14-point advantage, whereas the parties were at parity only four years ago – McCain knows he’s toast unless he can swing the independents. And he can’t do that unless he reclaims his former image as a “maverick” reformer.
Palin is designed to be Exhibit A. She defeated an ethics-challenged incumbent governor two years ago; she canceled the infamous “bridge to nowhere” pork project that had come to symbolize Republican entitlement in Washington. She reinforces McCain’s longstanding message about wasteful government spending. And by dint of her gender, she helps McCain make the case that Democrats this year do not have the monopoly on “change,” that the Republicans are arguably just as keen to practice diversity in the 21st century.
But McCain is also well aware that he can’t win without also galvanizing the conservative base. He knows that any moves to the center must be counterbalanced by further fealty to the Republican right. He may be the party nominee, but he is stil viewed with suspicion by many of the conservatives who still dominate the party.
The fact is, McCain prevailed in the primaries only because conservatives never coalesced around an opponent. McCain nailed down the nomination in three contests (New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida) without ever winning a majority or plurality of self-described conservatives. He was basically saved by moderates, independents and, in Florida, Latinos.
This means that the conservatives who still control the GOP apparatus are not beholden to the GOP nominee. This sets up an interesting tension. While McCain this week will undoubtedly seek to signal a new era for the party, the conservatives are busy writing an old-style party platform that contradicts McCain’s stated concerns about global warming, and undercuts his belief in the need for path-to-citizenship immigration reform.
Hence Palin’s other important role, as an ambassador to the base. As governor she has signed tax cuts and shaped up the state budget (thereby reassuring the economic conservatives); she is a lifelong NRA member and an abortion opponent who decided to give birth to her fifth child after she received a diagnosis of Down Syndrome (thereby reassuring the social conservatives).
The Palin choice also apparently reflects McCain’s belief that the GOP will benefit from a fresh face, that humanizing the party can help repair the wreckage of the past eight years. She’ll be a great story at the convention – former basketball player, former beauty queen – if only because the press is drawn to novelty, and she can work the women voters in swing states by sharing a personal saga – the ultimate working mom - that no previous Republican running mate could ever muster. McCain wanted to create some buzz, and he has succeeded.
However, millions of these women are likely to feel insulted by the assumption that they'll flock to Palin merely because they all share the same gender. No doubt McCain would like to think that he can make inroads with the disgruntled Hillary Clinton sisterhood merely by putting Palin on display. But I hardly think that those women will march behind the GOP banner once they learn (if they haven’t already) that Palin is an anti-abortion extremist, that she thinks global warming is a hoax, that she wants creationism taught in the public schools, and that basically she stands for everything that Hillary Clinton has opposed for the past 35 years.
Then we have the inexperience factor. McCain, who is by instinct a gambler, has calculated that Palin’s zero exposure to national security issues will not hinder his campaign.
At the convention this week, he’ll surely trumpet his foreign policy seasoning (while omitting his manifest failure to ask any hard questions during the runup to war in Iraq), and undoubtedly his surrogates will retell the familiar POW story that has long mesmerized so many voters. It’s a linchpin of his appeal. McCain figures that his character assets are powerful enough to trump any concerns about Palin’s readiness to command in an emergency; after all, voters generally don’t focus on the running mates when they cast their ballots.
But still. On the readiness issue, Palin’s candidacy can arguably be viewed as a cosmic joke on the electorate.
It’s McCain who always contends that the defeat of terrorism is the seminal issue of our time. Yet now, in his first important act as a presidential nominee, he has decided that he wants to position, one heartbeat away, a politician with two years of statewide office and nary a second spent in Washington; a person who until two years ago was the mayor of a small town (population 7000); a governor whose security experience consists of commanding the Alaska National Guard. (Back in 1992, Republicans ridiculed Bill Clinton’s lack of experience by pointing out that he had merely commanded the Arkansas National Guard.)
And there’s also a gem from the archives. Twenty months ago, when Palin was asked whether she supported President Bush’s plan for a troop surge in Iraq, she gave us a glimpse of her foreign policy knowledge. Ready for this? Here we go:
“I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”
And some voters may wonder whether Palin has sufficient awareness of what it would be like to reside a heartbeat away. Here’s what she asked Larry Kudlow, during an interview earlier this summer on CNBC:
“What is it that the VP does every day?”
Well, gee. Even an amateur student of Washington politics knows that many VPs have actually been quite busy since Walter Mondale modernized the job in 1977. Al Gore was quite active as well, although Palin doesn't seem to have a clue about that, either. No doubt Dick Cheney could give Palin a tutorial on his own busy days, without even mentioning how he shot a lawyer in the face.
The Palin choice is not as egregious as Bush’s decision to install Michael Brown at the helm of FEMA (Brownie had previously run the International Arabian Horse Association), but some swing voters may be forgiven for wondering whether McCain is perpetuating the Bush tradition of filling key posts with ill-qualified people…and, in the present case, somebody whom McCain barely knows at all.
Republicans are planning this week to talk at length about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of preparedness to command – and that’s fair game, a legitimate issue for many voters – yet McCain has now risked taking that theme off the table. Particularly because voters might well compare her readiness credentials to those of Joe Biden, who presumably will trump her on foreign policy substance, perhaps provide her with some much-needed "focus" on the war in Iraq, and win their debate with ease - provided he is not perceived as having bullied her.
And this readiness factor matters, if only because of McCain’s age. It’s fair to assume that the Republicans, especially during convention week, would prefer that scant attention be paid to McCain’s age. Palin’s presence guarantees the opposite. Mindful of McCain’s age (he turned 72 on Friday) voters watching Palin’s acceptance speech on Wednesday night will have to ask themselves whether they can envision this “working mom” tending to her brood while taking the fight to al Qaeda.
Perhaps Obama and Biden can ultimately frame the Palin choice as merely cosmetic, an inept attempt by McCain to hide his long fealty to the old GOP and the policies of Bush. For now, however, McCain will cite Palin as proof that he intends to point the party forward, into the future, with a whole new “brand.” Maybe voters won’t buy the symbolism, but it may be the only way he can win.
Well, it looks like Bush is going to use the hurricane as an excuse to not show up, which should be good news for McCain. However, I don't see how this woman can re-brand the party - she's a hard right, anti-choice, oil-drilling, gun-toting evangelical, in other words, exactly the same as the people who have piloted the GOP into the crater they find themselves in now. And I don't see how the Hillary voters will see this as anything but an insult to their intelligence.— yoda- I didn't see it coming at all, but a reform ticket is a great idea. From what I understand McCain ignored most of his advisers and chose the person he thought most embodied what he wants to bring to the White House. A tough-as-nails governor with a willingness to take on her own party and expose and eliminate corruption wherever they find it fits the bill perfectly. (The fact that the left is in overdrive trying to smear this woman is a good indication of how desperately scared they are. Polman, who wrote a very fair article here, not included.)— bon
- yoda: Women are not a hive mind that vote with their womb. People will vote for whom they like. Palin is very likable though. :)— bon
- "Perhaps Obama and Biden can successfully frame the Palin choice as merely cosmetic, an inept attempt by McCain to hide his long fealty to the old GOP and the policies of Bush."-Polman...Cosmetic? I have not seen a govenor of a state take on this level of criticm. Could it be that she is a woman, and you are a shoavanist? This article is not going to sit well with women, as with all of the exaggerating of her lack of experience. Something needs to be said of the field of canidates and how their experience matches up. What EXCECUTIVE experience does the messiah have? What big deals has he done? When has he "blown the whistle" on anyone? What troops has he led? When has he ever cut pork out of a budget? What experience does Obama have in the oil industry(the central issue in America today)?Hey, here's one, who has more terrorist friends; Palin or Obama? I would trust Palin to run this country more than Obama any day of the week. Now let's see if dumb libs like Polman can further anger women.— ObamaHATER
- Bon, that was kind of my point...see Chris Satullo's op-ed for a more articulate and detailed explication of this issue. Hater, it's spelled CHAUVINIST. Are you illiderit or something?— yoda
- When the Republicans are as desperate as they have become in this election, they will grab on to any ray of hope, no matter how small. After the initial euphoria over Palin has subsided, the American people will realize that McCain traded the experience issue for a completly unqualified, conservative woman, from an inconsequential State, who will not attract Hillary voters. Furthermore, for the rest of the campaign, the public will be constantly reminded that this election is about a choice between a candidate who favors continuing the policies of the worst administration in our Nation's history (McCain), and a candidate who wants to take our Nation forward into the 21st Century (Obama). The choice is inescapable and Bush's legacy will drag McCain down to a crushing defeat.— AHiredGun
- Seems to me there is an illogical equivocation in this piece: you equate change with diversity. It is not at all clear to me that is what Obama or voters have in mind when they clamor for "change." Moreover, if your premise is correct, and McCain views his choice of Palin as a "change" for the Republicans from the status quo ante, then McCain admits a fundamental and problematic posture of today's Republican Party: they are NOT diverse and have previously been represented only by males, and, mostly white males at that. Moreover, aside from the fact that Palin is female, there is little else in her public record that suggests any really substantive cange from what amounts to basically conservative orthodoxy as it has dominated the national scene and evolved over the past 28 years. I am sorry to say that I just don't see Palin's selection by McCain as "change."— seehere
- Hey AHiredGun, you are the reason that the vast majority of the country sees the inhabitants of this region as elitist with ignorant comments like you made about Alaska.... It may be our most important state from a natural resource perspective...— Delaware Vol
Comment removed.- You can take it to the bank that we won't be seeing Sarah Palin doing a one-on-one interview anytime soon with anyone whose not with Fox or a partisan. That shows the level of confidence the GOP has in this pick.— yobill626
- First: I just watched Bush talk about his knowledge of the readiness of the Gulf area for Gustav. He's right on top of it. Who says he doesn't learn from his mistakes? Unfortunately, his learning curve takes three years. Second: The slapping sounds you hear are all the high fives being done in the McCain campaign following the announcement that Bush & Cheney will not be attending the convention. That's the best news they've had all Summer.— yobill626
- When the current president and VP won't even show up for their party's national convention, it pretty much sums up the job they've done over the past 8 years. Even their own party wants them to disappear. They can't attend the national convention AND stay on top of Hurricane Gustave? Gimme a f-ing break!— p-diddy
- What was Bush's experience besides pulling the switch on the chair before he ran? Enough said, Why can't we get past choosing people who's only experience is running a two bit unpopulated state in the north pole for a year and a half. You nuts think that woman will vote for her because of her gender, I imagine Mondale thought the same thing? The only fear that Dems have is if McCain does win and drops dead we're stop with Miss Hockey Mom USA, and for some strange reason Repubs. think that she has the gravitas to ware Hillary's pants suits.— doublesvb
- In case Bush, McCain and Cheney haven't heard, there's this new fangled invention that allows you to appear on a screen and give speeches from another location. Maybe one of these young whippersnappers can help you set it up.— p-diddy
- I can't belive I saw McCain on Faux News this morning and for some strange reason there was no Sarah Palen to be found anywhere. How long can they keep her holed up to never be seen by the msm. When Obama picked Joe Biden they hit all the Sunday shows together. I wonder what McCain is so scared of? I'm sure they're giving her a crash corse on geography and world history but how much can one learn in such short notice? Good luck Sarah.— doublesvb
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