I was driving my son and his friend to a debating practice yesterday, and I said "what do you boys think about Palin as McCain's running mate?"
One boy said "she was governor of Alaska ... oh, and she's a woman ... McCain probably thinks he can get women to vote for him if he picks a woman."
This led to a general discussion of:
- How stupid is the average person voting for president?
- "Executive" experience
- What does it mean when you passionately support a candidate who loses a primary?
One think I have noticed is that you tend to misunderestimate the intelligence of "the other". I am a no-longer-nubile woman who could easily have been a Clinton supporter (but I in fact supported Obama because I think he's more likely to become president and a smarter politician and more progressive than Clinton, a three-fer, if you will). As an actual woman, I don't have to imagine how I would feel when confronted with McCain's choice, I can tell you how I actually react to it. I'm not inveigled by McCain's choice; instead, I feel insulted and patronized by it. It leads me to question McCain's judgement, and go back through his history to re-evaluate his career looking for hair-trigger decisions that I previously had categorized as courageously independent but which I suspect now may have been thoughtless, knee-jerk contrarianism.
So these 17-year old boys thought that women might be so dazzled by the double X chromosome of McCain's VP choice that they wouldn't look any farther. I have had similar thoughts about African Americans (of course they would vote for Obama! he's black too!) which are similarly one-dimensional. But I think that's just one of the problems with being human, with living within your own skin. You can guess at the nature of "the other" but you can't know it.
But I think that this choice will end up reflecting badly on McCain, and reinforcing his personality deficits rather than his assets.
The boys and I also discussed "executive" experience. I always think it is interesting that so little is made of Obama's accomplishments in winning the Democratic primary. I mean, this has to have been something he's been thinking about for four years. He's been actively running for almost as long as Sarah Palin has been governor of <giggle> Alaska. He's set up an absolutely stunningly efficient organization, from nothing; he's picked good people to work for him, he obviously knows how to delegate to them or his head would have exploded; he's gotten and spent vast amounts of money wisely; and during all this grueling endurance contest, he's also managed to quit smoking!. Wow. If, on the other hand, you look at McCain, he didn't win, his opponents self destructed. If they hadn't all gone and fallen off cliffs, he would not be the nominee. His primary run is not a story of strength, it's a story of the alien invasion which leaves the gas station attendant being sworn in as President while the ruins of the White House smoke in the background. And to compare Obama's experience and heft to Palin's is just risible. If the process of becoming the party nominee is climbing Kilimanjaro, McCain was standing near the mountain when a large earthquake caused 90 - 95% of the mountain to collapse, allowing him to walk a couple of steps to plant the flag; Palin was helicoptered to the actual summit; but Obama actually made the climb. Himself. Without supplemental oxygen.
Another thing we discussed was difficulty with which Clinton supporters were transferring their allegiance to Obama. And as I was talking to these boys, I realized that this was the first primary in a relatively long career of voting in primaries when I was actually happy not only with the final candidate chosen by my party, but that I would have cheerfully supported, actually supported and been enthusiastic for, the person he beat. It also occurred to me that it is more difficult to give up on a goal that you really want than one which you don't care about. So in a way, the passion that Clinton supporters feel towards Clinton is not a result of their kookiness (again, I think that portraying bona-fide PUMA's as amusing menopausal caricatures does them a disservice -- I know a couple of these women, and their just as intelligent and clear-eyed as I am), but is a reflection of the democratic candidates' real strengths. That Hillary Clinton came so far was an amazing accomplishment. She would have been a terrific president. Barack Obama will be a slightly more terrific president. Does anybody realize how amazing it is and was that we should have had such a wealth of qualified candidates in our party? Versus the impoverished field on the Republican side? What a triumph! Why aren't we standing up and bragging about this passion?
This is amazing. This year I will not be holding my nose and voting for a Supreme Court appointment, I'll actually want my guy to win! Because I think he can change the country, and my life, and the lives my children can have. Again, what a triumph! What a game-changer.