29
Aug
Palin - Another Qualye?
Topic: Politics
Tags: Election 2008, Obama
The story just broke that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin - the governor of Alaska - as his running mate. Check out her Wikipedia page to get a reasonably unbiased sense of her background (I’m impressed with her Wikipedia editors - they added information about her as the VP pick within minutes of it hitting the news). It’s hard to overstate what a huge gamble McCain is taking here. I believe he choose her because:
- Unlike the others he was considering for VP, she has an unusual combination of characteristics that give her the potential to appeal to both the GOP base and independents: social conservative, female, young, pretty, and - like McCain - she has a mavericky, anti-corruption reputation.
- He hopes it’ll give him a chance to improve on the GOP numbers among women, who consistently go for Democrats more than men (and he hopes to pick up on any resentment that might still remain among Clinton supporters).
- She has a scorecard that parallels Obama’s in certain respects. In the microcosm of Alaska politics, this young, relatively unknown, ambitious outsider took on and beat the GOP party establishment.
She got some good press from PBS’ Now a few weeks ago, when they aired a story on corruption in Alaska:
The former beauty queen, small town mayor and mother of five is a conservative Republican who ran for office in 2006 and won, promising to clean up corruption—in her own party.
Before the elections, Palin was considered a long shot. But her plain spoken style and willingness to be tough on the oil industry has made her wildly popular here. With the VECO case constantly in the headlines Palin has already forced sweeping ethics reforms on the legislature in Juneau.
So at first glance she seems like a good choice. But I think McCain has skated into Dan Quayle territory by choosing her. After Quayle was chosen as GHW Bush’s VP and made repeated gaffes, he quickly became the butt of endless jokes. What isn’t as well known, however, is that - prior to being chosen as VP - Quayle was well regarded within the party as a junior Senator with a bright future ahead of him. But as Bush quickly learned, he was too green for a rapid transition to the big leagues. Palin has 1 year and 7 months experience as governor, and prior to that she was mayor of a very small town. She makes Obama’s resume look long (and Obama had the benefit of ramping up his campaign skills in his long primary battle with Clinton). Also, the cloistered, oil-soaked world of Alaskan politics is probably not the best place for a brief training before hitting the national scene. It seems to me McCain made the same calculation Bush did when choosing Quayle (and Mondale did when picking Ferraro) - he considered only her polling-related characteristics (her cross over demographic appeal, her personal story, etc.). Neither he nor anyone else has any idea how she will hold up under the withering fire and intense scrutiny of a Presidential campaign. In particular, it’s quite a gamble pitting her toe-to-toe against Biden in the VP debate.
GHW Bush was fortunate that the political fallout of his VP choice wasn’t severe. Bush wasn’t as old as McCain, and didn’t go through four bouts of skin cancer. McCain’s VP choice will (or at least - should) be held to a higher standard given that McCain just turned 72. If he wins, he’ll be the oldest newly inaugurated President in our history. The odds of him having health problems that will require the VP to step in are much higher than previous newly elected Presidents. Choosing Palin fundamentally undermines McCain’s central argument against Obama - that’s he too inexperienced to be President. Palin has even less experience, and would be more likely than previous VPs to suddenly inherit the Presidency. Also, if McCain wins, there’s a good chance he won’t (or at least - shouldn’t) run for a 2nd term, due to his age, which means the mantle of party leader may be passed to his VP in the not too distant future. He’s forcing the entire GOP - and possibly the entire country - to make a very big investment in someone who was completely unknown to 99% of Americans until 30 minutes ago.
Update: a comment from top McCain adviser Charlie Black: “She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long.” Apparently he meant the last part of that sentence as a joke, but it’s not exactly a reassuring one.
Sean’s summary of the situation at fivethirtyeight.com nails it:
And that gets back to the heart of the gamble this pick represents. If McCain and Obama each consolidate their bases at the same percentages, Obama wins. There are now numerically more Democrats, and independents favor Obama. Before the conventions, McCain had moved past Obama, mostly because many women in Hillary Clinton’s coalition had failed to warm to the Democratic nominee. Obama was stuck at 83% of his base and McCain had moved from a tie into 87% consolidation. Had this week’s Denver convention not been as successful from a unity standpoint, McCain might not have needed as much to go for broke. If Obama secures his base, wins indies (as he’s easily doing) and dominates in the ground game, game over for McCain. Demographically, the mountain is too steep to climb.
So what does McCain do? He picks a woman specifically to aim a wedge at the Obama base. It’s a demographic pick - all about gaming the vote and little about governing. This is not the resume of a male candidate that would be acceptable…
It’s probably not going to work, but we’ll see some number soon. I think it’s a gamble that McCain will lose. But I do respect the gamble. He looked into the numbers, saw the need to freeze Obama’s base or be swamped on the numbers alone, and he took a big risk. Will a pro-life candidate sell those reluctant Democratic women? Again, unlikely. But kick in a few sexist dismissals - particularly any by Joe Sinatra Biden - and the outrage machine might get itself going.
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