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McCain Decides to Pander

August 30th, 2008

So McCain, clearly eager to step all over the Democrats’ thunder–and what thunder it is!–declared his VP pick, and it smacks of desperation. The ads McCain ran during the Democratic Convention were mostly aimed at disenchanted Hillary voters, and now we see McCain has chosen to pander to them–and in a huge way.

His choice, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, might seem like a good choice on the surface–a governor, so she has executive experience, right? But–she’s been governor for only two one and a half years, and before that was mayor of Wasilla, a town of maybe 8,000 people, serving for not much longer than she has now been mayor. Zero foreign policy experience, far less than Obama, and infinitely less than Obama’s VP pick. Look forward, at least, to an interesting debate between Palin and Biden.

So McCain’s claims about Obama not having the experience needed instantly fall flat, and the youth and inexperience of his choice highlight McCain’s age and potential to require a vice president to take office. After all, this is supposed to be someone McCain believes is ready to be president. McCain might think he’s gaining youth, but this will accentuate his age, and remove one of his key criticisms of his opponent.

McCain might think he’s just clinched Hillary supporters, but he’s likely in for a disappointment. Whether or not they will approve of the runner-up for Miss Alaska 1984 runner-up is trivial, but less trivial is whether they will stand behind someone who is strongly pro-life, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, pro-oil and coal, pro-ANWR drilling, and anti-gay marriage. Mother of five works for her, but just about everything else doesn’t. And the question remains, how easily will Clinton supporters swoon for nothing that appeals to them save for an extra X-chromosome? How do they feel about McCain presuming that they will switch parties upon the most blatant of shallow panders from McCain?

Because a pander is what it is, clear and simple. McCain didn’t choose her for experience. He didn’t choose her for the electoral votes Alaska promises. He didn’t choose her for her bipartisan credentials. He chose her despite an ongoing scandal in her office, despite the bad electoral math, despite her lack of experience damaging his arguments.

The only thing that stands out about why McCain chose her is that she’s a woman, and McCain desperately wants those angry Hillary voters to come to his side. And that, without any doubt whatsoever, is a pander.

They’re calling it a risk, and they’re right. If Hillary supporters are so focused solely upon gender and don’t give a damn about Hillary’s policies, or if they’re so upset that they will not only ignore Hillary’s own campaigning for Obama, but vote in a president who will betray all of their core principles, then McCain’s gamble will pay off. I have not been too appreciative of the rationality of some of the more stubborn Clinton diehards in the past, but I do believe this: they are not so monumentally stupid as to fall for something like this.

I’ll be interested to see what people like Rush Limbaugh, who claims that Democrats only like Obama because he’s black, will say about a McCain VP pick which is as clearly only about gender as Obama is clearly not only about race.

McCain might get a bit of a bounce from this because of sheer novelty and risk, but it is bound to backfire over time. McCain made a shallow choice for shallow reasons, and he’ll very likely pay a price for that.

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  1. August 30th, 2008 at 01:28 | #1

    I’m glad to learn that I’m not the only one to have those thoughts when I read the news.

  2. Paul
    August 30th, 2008 at 03:27 | #2

    I would just like to take this opportunity to point out to everyone that…

    I TOLD YOU SO!!!

    I’ve been telling people all along that McCain would pick a white female. He had to; it’s the logical choice to counter the dynamic of Obama’s minority status without actually taking a real risk of losing the racists that will never vote for a black dude.

    And what’s more, it’s going to be pitched SO hard to the female supporters of Clinton. You watch; there will be two main themes to the campaign. Theme one, we’ve already seen- “Obama is just a flashy celebrity uppity black guy with charisma (hide the white women and daughters!) who doesn’t have any experience.”

    Theme two will be “Hillary voters, we’re the ones who really care about you and your needs, Obama wasn’t willing to even truly consider her, he puts women down just like they always have, look, we picked a woman.”

    Oh, I forgot theme three: “I was a POW for five years! That automatically qualifies me for XXX” (fill in whatever issue is being talked about there)

  3. K. Engels
    August 30th, 2008 at 04:37 | #3

    Paul,

    The sad thing is that the Republicans will run with your “Theme two” even though the only thing Clinton and Palin have in common is their gender. Do they seriously think that women are that stupid? “You wanted a pro-choice, actual feminist, etc., we picked an anti-choice, bizaro-world ‘feminist’, etc. Vote for us!”

  4. Chaz
    August 30th, 2008 at 10:19 | #4

    I think it was a brilliant, if risky move. You give voters too much credit when you say ‘If they think the voters will go for that…’ The voters will go for anything, especially a beauty queen. We’re talking Karl Rove and Company here. Its all aesthetics and psy-ops. They’ll have her fixed up in no time. And to be honest, on the face of it–with what we know now, she’s scarcely less qualified than Obama. And she’s a ‘Washington-outsider.’ She has ‘executive experience’–Imagine the big business connections it takes to be Governor of Alaska. She’s extreme but they’ll play that down. This is in the so-crazy-it-might-just-work department, but it was about the best move they had. And if any serious problems crop up (ethics, corruption) they can dump her fast but still have the credit for the original idea. Like the man says at the beginning of Deliverance, this goan be fuuunnn!!

  5. Tim Kane
    August 30th, 2008 at 11:51 | #5

    Good call Paul. Coodles to you.

    Still, part of me thinks that Romney and Pawlenty, after watching Obama’s stellar preformance, called McCain up and said, thanks, but no thanks fella, good luck with the campaign. Thus forcing McCain to go to his bench pulling up someone from the minor leagues, and not just AAA, not AA, not single A, but more like the Rookie extended spring training league.

    And so now there’s this question: Was she even vetted past Cokie Roberts?

    Remember, she’s the one that claimed Obama was too elitist and too foreign for having vacationed in Hawaii. Hawaii and Alaska share time zones. By Cokie’s logic, Palin isn’t even an American, she’s a foreigner!

    An election where Alaska and Hawaii are central to the issues, who would have guessed that?

    Almost every stinging criticism of Obama that McCain could have raised, has just been negated by his choice of Palin. I wonder, just how many women did he have a choice of?

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