Ever since John McCain plucked Sarah Palin out of snowy obscurity to be his running mate, analysts both on the left and the right have been swooning over his political savvy. Karl Rove has admitted on at least two occasions that McCain's selection of Palin was a political decision not a "governing decision." Conventional wisdom says that Palin is there to energize the GOP base and to boost McCain's ticket by 3 points. Oh, really?
Palin is a drag on McCain's ticket. And yesterday's tete a tete with foreign leaders proves that McCain does not trust her.
There's more behind the cut ...
After McCain and Palin met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, McCain didn't allow Palin to speak:
Politico posted a pool reporter's account of what occurred yesterday:
McCain ... looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin ("Governor, what have you learned from your meetings?") but McCain aide Brooke Buchanan intervened and shepherded everybody out of the room.
Palin looked surprised, leaned over to McCain and asked him a question, to which your pooler thinks he shook his head as if to say "No."
What happens when Palin does get out of the soundproof box the McCain campaign has put her in? Well, when she speaks it seems like stuff like, you know, subjects and verbs and grammar and pesky syntax kind of get, well, like, ignored, you know?
This was Palin's response when CBS's Katie Couricin an interview to air tonight on the Evening News asked whether inaction on the financial crisis could trigger another economic collapse.
"Not necessarily this as it's been proposed has to pass or we're gonna find ourselves in another Great Depression. But there has got to be action taken, bipartisan effort-- Congress not pointing fingers at this point at-- at one another but-- finding the solution to this-- taking action, and being serious about the reforms on Wall Street that are needed."
Sheesh! An unscripted Palin makes George W. Bush sound like a genius!
Lazy reporters have been after Joe Biden lately. They like narratives, and they like to make anything that Biden says or does fit their "gaffe narrative." If I'm sick to death of lazy reporters highlighting Biden's supposed gaffes while ignoring McCain's truly alarming gaffes (see, Spain, NATO ally), I'm positively exhausted hearing about how many white women are flocking to McCain's ticket solely because of Palin.
The new Post/ABC poll makes clear that Palin isn't a vote-getter. The only thing that Palin has done was to distract voters from the real issues.
Think of all the other people McCain could have picked for veep who could have helped him get elected.
If McCain wanted to make the base ecstatic, he could have picked Mike Huckabee, a very likable guy.
If McCain wanted to "make history," he could have picked LA governor Bobby Jindal who would have shored up the base and could have become the first person of South Asian heritage on the ticket.
If McCain had wanted to really prove that he was a maverick and could reach across the aisle, he would have picked Joe Lieberman. Or he could have gone with someone with real executive and economic experience, Mike Bloomberg. Lieberman and Bloomberg would have attracted independents and solidified the Jewish vote for McCain in swing states like Florida.
But no. McCain chose Palin.
We know that McCain doesn't have the temperament or judgment to be president. McCain is also proving that he doesn't even have the political savvy to be president.