Palin in comparison

Something tells me I'll be switching over to Canadian politics very soon, as it looks like an election is slated for my eighth wedding anniversary. Still, it hasn't yet been called. Our elections up here last a little over a month. The American campaign's been ongoing for about two years now.

But that American campaign's getting mighty interesting...

The reaction to McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for next in line to the throne runs the gamut from genius to madness. Here's a woman three years Obama's junior with no foreign policy experience (and no, Fox News, being governor of a state "right next door to Russia" doesn't count)...but she's as hard-right as they come, counteracting McCain's relatively liberal views. She's also a she, which might woo a few of Hillary's Harpies...the ones who want a woman in the White House, politics be damned, anyway. (The existence of a group like Clintons4McCain.com suggests there are a surprising number of those women around.)

And there's a very good chance that, should John McCain win this election, Sarah Palin will be President. McCain, if elected, would be the oldest person in history to assume the post. He's also a cancer survivor whose health is in constant question.

Sarah Palin does have some appeal: the former beauty queen is a tough, no-nonsense straight talker who has come a very long way in a very short period of time. Twelve years ago she was elected mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of less than nine thousand. Her political positions are well in line with Republican orthodoxy: she's ardently pro-life, for capital punishment, against extending marriage to same-sex couples...and an NRA member and avid hunter. She wants to eliminate sex-ed in schools and replace it with abstinence-only education; she also has no objection to intelligent design being taught in schools alongside evolutionary theory--which she does not believe in.

(Wow, writing all that just re-emphasized to me how much of a Democrat I am. With the possible exception of capital punishment I'm in total opposition to everything she stands for.)

The people who think McCain's off his rocker focus unrelentingly on Palin's inexperience, mostly because it's a criticism levelled by the Republicans at Barack Obama. Elisberg calls her nothing less than "the worst vice-presidential nominee in U.S. history."

A totally different take, from The Travis Monitor:

...the genius of picking Palin is how it works on so many levels, and how none of those levels contradict each other much:
* Evangelicals love her and libertarian fiscal conservatives love her.
* She has reformer credentials
* her bio is distinctly [sic] covers all bases - hunts and fishes, hubby is fisherman, soccer-Mom, church-going family values, business operator, working class roots, educator family and PTA leader, union member. Gosh, what flyover America Demographic is not hit there?
* Obama is calling for change and for having someone from outside Washington to come and effect change. Well, you can't get much farther than Anchorage!
* Picking a woman reaches out to Hillary voters and puts Obama's snub of Hillary back in the Obama campaign's face - who's taking women for granted now, Barry?
* The only fly in the ointment is Palin's experience, she's been mayor for a number of years and Governor since 2006. But even that is a fly trap for Obama. She's has a short tenure in executive office. Obama has ... NONE.
I feel distinctly different about McCain/Palin than I felt about McCain say a month ago. I feel like WE CONSERVATIVES NOW HAVE SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO AND SOMETHING TO SUPPORT. Pleasing the base all by itself is a worthy goal, but since the pick makes sense on a populist, maverick image building, lets-change-washington, and make-history-for-women level, it makes a good pick into a GREAT pick.


Personally, I wouldn't have picked Palin. Nothing against her...but as has been noted, the state she currently governs would qualify as the seventeenth largest city in America. There's a difference, in my mind, between being inexperienced and being unqualified. To me, McCain's first presidential decision is impulsive and ill-thought out. Sarah Palin is attractive on the surface (and I'm not talking about finishing second in the Miss Alaska pageant)...but her inclusion on the ticket allows Obama to turn McCain's chief criticism of him on its ear.
Were I McCain, I certainly wouldn't have shied away from picking a female running mate. My first instinct would be Condi Rice for her experience as National Security Advisor, but her ties to Bush are too close. I think I'd have chosen Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey. There are a few political skeletons shambling around in her closet, but she's at least as bipartisan as McCain claims to be (title of her book: It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party... And Bringing the Country Together Again). Whitman has more environment cred than the entire Bush Administration put together...she was an administrator of the EPA, she resigned from her governorship over Dick Cheney's easing of air pollution controls.
Whitman doesn't appeal to evangelicals the way Palin does, but let's face it: the evangelicals will vote Republican no matter who the VP would be. And Whitman would attract quite a few independents. I'd give her a look myself. There's a lot to like in this quote of hers...in fact, it's about the only thing still tying me to a conservative mindset on anything at all:

"The defining feature of the conservative viewpoint is a faith in the ability, and a respect for the right, of individuals to make their own decisions - economic, social, and spiritual - about their lives. The true conservative understands that government's track record in respecting individual rights is poor when it dictates individual choices."

But McCain's stuck with Palin now, and she's got a lot of growing to do yet. I think Joe Biden will destroy her in the vice-presidential debate.

All that said, the election will be very close, and it's by no means certain who will win. This is because the American electorate is polarized and resistant to any ideas that don't come from whatever side of the political spectrum they inhabit. The same thing is true of Canadians, as will probably be seen next month.

Stay tuned, free world.