Sarah Palin is certainly a bold pick for VP nominee and one that I reckon McCain settled on himself, feeling he needed a "game-changer". It shakes up the race, and we should expect to see some undecideds move over to McCain as a result. However, I think there will also be more people who become "undecided" or switch to supporting Obama/Biden. In this diary I try to summarise the main "positives" and "negatives", and show why the negatives look at this stage much more likely to prevail.
First, the main postives (from a McCain point of view):
1. Boosts the social conservative credentials of the ticket. Russ Limbaugh loves her. The Republican base, long suspicious of McCain, is now much more likely to come out to vote for him and activists are more likely to volunteer.
2. May win over some women voters. This pitch was very clear in Palin's speech yesterday when she directly appealed to HRC voters. I know, I know. She doesn't have Hillary's experience, her policy positions are all wrong, etc. But there are probably a few out there who don't care about abortion or healthcare but really want to see a woman in high office.
3.Folksy charm. Sarah Palin sounds like an ordinary person rather than a politician. She likes huntin', shootin' and fishin'. I remember 4 years ago John Kerry feeling compelled to go on a hunting photo-op to help him look more of a regular guy. There are plenty of rural voters out there; Repubs get most of them anyway but she could help to shore them up by offering them someone they can identify with.
4. Helps the anti-Washington meme. People hate both the presidency and congress right now, so having someone with nothing to do with either could be seen as a plus. She's the only person on either ticket with no connection with the Washington establishment, and also seems to have opposed some of the kind of pork-barrel schemes McCain loves to criticise. "She's another maverick, just like me..."
5. Some geographical benefit. Alaska is not somewhere McCain wants to have to go and defend, and her pick probably ties it down. I imagine it will also help in states like Montana and North Dakota which had been looking slightly vulnerable.
6."Drill for oil!" Palin supports drilling in the ANWR, as does almost everyone in Alaska. McCain hasn't quite gone there yet, but this pick makes me think that he is going to flip-flop on this issue and then push it strongly as an electoral theme. He will lose any environmentalists still thinking of voting for him, of course, but he may well gain more from those who want the government to "do something" about high gas prices.
7. Distracts from the DNC. I've seen some quite serious suggestions that McCain changed his mind at the very last minute, perhaps feeling that he needed to do something that would change the narrative away from how successful the DNC has been and how great Obama's speech was. Only a major dark horse surprise pick could do that.
So what about the negatives?
1. Destroys the "inexperience" attack. This is by far and away the biggest negative in my view. At a stroke McCain has put his best line about Obama off limits. I was expecting the RNC to be full of speakers hammering on about Obama's unreadiness to act as C-in-C in a time of grave challenges. But now if they try that people are just going to laugh in their faces - or worry about how their even less experienced VP would cope if she had to step up to the top job. I seriously think this could hurt them with a lot of older voters who are not particularly political but were worried that Obama wasn't ready. After the VP picks, Obama-Biden now looks to have more combined experience than McCain-Palin. Even Charles Krauthammer is dumbfounded by McCain's "suicidal" move.
2. Palin doesn't seem presidential. Obama doesn't have much experience but he has a lot of gravitas and looks and sounds the part. He has also been through the rigours of a gruelling primary campaign which has schooled him in policy formulation, speechmaking, interviewing and debating. If Palin carries over into the GE campaign the form of her Larry Kudlow interview, where she described being Governor of Alaska as a "cool job" and said she had no idea what the VP does, the comparison could become painful. I doubt she'll be given the traditional VP "attack dog" role by the McCain team, for fear she'll put her foot in it. And the VP debate could be embarrassing.
3. Emphasises McCain's age. Reagan had his famous joke about not using his opponent's youth and inexperience as an argument against him, but he also had a solid-looking VP in Bush to allay the anxieties of those who worried "what if" the old man kicks the bucket. I've already heard many commentators point out that Palin's inexperience might be more important than usual because McCain is "a 72 year old with a history of skin cancer". And of course just standing next to her yesterday made him look old. This is one of those issues which the Obama camp can't talk about directly but would love to become part of the discussion. McCain just gave them a great helping hand in that regard.
4. Alienates sexists. During the primary campaign, opinion polls came out showing more people ready to accept a black man as president than a woman. Of course, this could have been partly because it's more acceptable to acknowledge sexism than racism, and partly because some didn't want "that woman" Hillary Clinton, but I'm sure there are some older male voters who really feel uncomfortable about the idea of a woman president. Most of them probably aren't likely to vote for Obama either, but some may choose to "sit it out" rather than vote for a ticket with a woman on it.
5. Tokenism. The fact that Governor Palin is so inexperienced makes it look as if she was picked because she is a woman rather than because she is the best qualified candidate for the job. If it was to be a woman, why not someone like K.B. Hutchison? Wasn't she glamorous enough? I think a lot of women could be alienated by this pick if they think McCain is playing them for fools.
6. Raising doubts about McCain's recklessness. The Obama campaign has already been sowing the seeds of doubt about McCain's judgement and this pick helps that theme greatly. McCain claims to prioritise national security yet he's picked a VP who does not look ready to step up to the mark should anything happen to him. It also appears that it was a last-minute, off-the-cuff decision, and that he hardly even knows her. Spur-of-the-moment decisions, without thought of the consequences. Now who does that remind you of?
7. Risk of scandal. Though Palin made a name for herself by opposing some of the more venal aspects of Alaskan politics she is embroiled in her own "troopergate" scandal which may yet prove a serious headache for the campaign. This could be nothing or it could be a disaster in the making - at any rate it's another indicator of how high-risk this choice is.
8. Fiscal irresponsibility? Though her record as governor in Alaska is pretty slim, it appears that Sarah Palin has already done enough to upset some fiscally conservative Republicans over there. This could become a problem within that part of the base if word gets out. I found this interesting comment on Charles Krauthammer's blog:
As an Alaskan, pro-business Republican and someone who has worked with the Palin administration intimately since her election, I'm shocked and extremely disappointed by this selection. Gov Palin is totally unqualified to be Vice President and if this is any indication of McCain's executive decision making skills, we're all in serious trouble. Did anyone vet this selection?
Fiscal conservative? Excuse me. Sarah Palin has increased the state operating budget by 34% in just two years! Tax cutter? Excuse me? In a state that has no income tax, no state-wide sales tax, and in which most residents pay no local sales tax, Palin pushed through the largest corporate tax increase in state history. This impacted the state's only real taxpayers - BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. The activities of these 3 companies account for almost all of Alaska's economy and 85% of the state's operating revenue (the same operating revenue that Palin is rapidly squandering on unsustainable bureaucratic growth). Less than a year after this hike (which increased the marginal tax rate to almost 90%), what did she do? She pushed through a $1,200 per resident cash "rebate". $780 mill in cash giveaways to the residents of the largest entitlement state in the country. Without the federal government and the oil industry, there is no Alaskan economy. There's a reason Palin's followers have been dubbed "Palinistas". Hugo Chavez would be proud of what she has accomplished in 18 short months. I only hope Palin's veneer is peeled before it's too late.
Posted by: Drop_Jawed_Alaskan | August 30, 2008 4:08 AM
9. Political extremism. We don't know too much about Palin's political views but she may be a creationist and opposes abortion even in the case of rape. So while she solidifies the social conservative base she could easily prove offensive to independents once they find out more about her political views. She also supported Buchanan in 2000 which will definitely not play well in Florida.
10. Working mom. No sane Democratic spokesperson is going to make an issue of this, but there are many Republicans who think a woman's first duty is to her children and may be shocked that she went back to work 3 days after giving birth to her 5th child.
Conclusions:- I think McCain is hoping he gets "2 for the price of 1" with Palin: both the appeal to the conservative base and folksiness of a Huckabee and the appeal to women of a Hutchison. But she lacks the experience of either of these two and this in my view is a grave problem for a campaign which had until now been making "experience" a central part of its case. Democrats will be nervous about the injection of uncertainty, but I think the chances that Obama wins in a landslide are now much greater, and Florida in particular now looks very much in play.