Friday, August 29, 2008

McCain's Masterstroke

Today McCain selected Sarah Palin, a relatively unknown governor from Alaska, as his running mate. McCain had a difficult choice. He needed to achieve two things with this selection. First, he needed to add "change" to the republican ticket. With McCain as #1, he didn't need to add more experience; the ticket has plenty of that (in fact, if you believe the Obama line, McCain has almost *too much* experience!). Second, he needed to rally his conservative base. McCain cannot win this election without motivating his base the way Obama has motivated his.

Most of the usual suspects in the VP game - Romney, Pawlenty, Lieberman, Ridge - fulfilled one of these critieria, but not both. Lieberman would no doubt add change and unconventionality to the ticket, but he would infuriate rather than invigorate McCain's base. Romney would energize the base, but he would reinforce the "old / rich boy" image that democrat's are trying had to attach to McCain.

Palin, amazingly, achieves two purposes at once: As a young female governor she adds instant "change" to the ticket. And as a staunch conservative with a pro-life record, the conservative value voters will love her.

Of course the democrats are still saying that the choice of Palin represents "more of the same". But let's face, it they would say that even if McCain had chosen Mother Teresa as his running mate. The Democrats can do nothing but repeat this phrase and with the number of times they mentioned Bush at their convention this week you might think that the current President is running for a third term.

But there's more. Palin has a proven record as a reformer; she ran against the old-style politics of an incumbent governor on a reform platform in 2006 (and won), she has taken on Big Oil and refused to continue the pork-barrel projects and "bridges to nowhere" that became an embarrassment for her state.

Obama, for all his talk of "new politics", chose a 35-year Washington insider for VP. Joe Biden got 9000 votes in the democratic primary, yet Obama picked him over Hillary who got 18 million votes. Then democrats then tried to frame Biden as a Washington outsider because he took the train to work. Give me a break. In the swamp of Washington politics there's hardly an older or fatter alligator than Joe Biden.

Now McCain has completely turned the tables with Palin who comes from a state about as far from Washington as possible. What's more, Palin can credibly talk about energy and drilling, two of the most pressing issues on the public's mind. Her state borders Russia, and with Putin and Georgia on many people's mind these days she will likely add more weight to that discussion as well.

Ironically, the Democrats, who put a freshman senator on the top of their list, are now jumping on Palin's "lack of experience". But let's get this straight: Palin is not running for president. Obama and McCain are running. If she could grow and learn from a President McCain, she may carry on the Republican torch in 2012 or 2016 and become the next Margaret Thatcher of the free world. That would be change we can believe in.

1 comment:

agent mule said...

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http://current.com/items/89220868_outtake_ralph_gean