Sarah Palin? OK by Me, Bad Choice by McCain

Really? Sarah Palin? OK. I suppose you know what you are doing, Sen. McCain but let me make a few off-the-cuff observations about your new pick.

First, let me admit up front that I don’t know a whole lot about Sarah Palin. I know she is Governor of Alaska and that before that she was a city councilwoman and mayor of some small town in that state. I know she is anti-choice, she has five kids, one of whom has Down’s Syndrome. I know she ran on a clean government campaign to get elected Governor. I also know that she is a member of a group called “Feminists for Life” (which strikes me a bit like “Muslims for Judaism,” but whatever). I don’t know much about many of her policy positions so let me just keep these observations to Sarah Palin as the Republican pick for VP and why this makes so little sense to me.

Before I get started on why I think she is a bad pick, let me discuss why I think she is a good pick for McCain. She is a conservative darling. She is loved by the right-wing base, a group that has been historically a bit leery of McCain.

That’s it. That is the only reason I can think of for McCain to have picked her. She makes guys like James Dobson more comfortable. The thing is, guys like Dobson were never going to vote for Obama anyway. Is t possible those guys would stay at home and vote for no one? Yeah, I suppose it is. But I don’t think that a VP candidate really motivates anyone to vote unless there is some special tie between the voter and the VP. I guess that in the end this will shore up McCain with the base he needs to hold on to, but it still does very little to expand McCain’s reach.

It seems obvious that McCain is trying to reach out to disaffected Hillary Democrats. All those PUMAs who were saying that they would vote for McCain over Obama really must have sent a message to McCain and he seems to think that if he can shave off some of Obama’s natural support, he has a better chance of winning. Well, here is the thing that strikes me: All those Hillary Democrats were telling Obama not to pick Kathleen Sebelius because Obama can’t choose just any woman. I had to have been Hillary. A lot of those PUMAs viewed any woman not named Hillary Clinton as being a lame sop to getting the real thing. It is my hope and belief that all those woman who told Obama “don’t you DARE pick any woman other than Hillary” will now tell McCain “Don’t you DARE believe that we are going to be fooled by this cynical ploy and that simply having a woman on the ticket will get you our vote.” Sarah Palin is not a champion of women’s rights, she is not a champion for gay rights and she and Hillary Clinton are about as far apart on most issues as any two people could be. If these so-called PUMAs actually fall for this and vote for McCain based on the fact that he chose a woman, they are more idiotic and easily manipulated than I ever gave hem credit for being.

A popular reason for bringing in a particular VP is the belief that they shore up a perceived weakness in the résumé of the candidate. Barack Obama went with Joe Biden to offset a perceived lack of experience with regard to national security and foreign relations. Another reason to bring on a VP is to bring in a state the candidate himself would not likely get; Obama considered Tim Kaine as his VP to possibly bring Virginia to the Democrats when the electoral votes were counted. Yet another reason many candidates bring in a given VP is to broaden the candidate’s appeal; Obama is also thought to have selected Biden because of Biden’s appeal to working class white voters.

By any of these measures the choice of Palin makes no sense. Alaska is so red it’s bloody. She didn’t bring McCain a state that was previously not in play, so the geography theory is out. She is very young, but her age and inexperience highlight McCain’s age (one of his biggest weaknesses) and prevents McCain from arguing about Obama’s ostensible youth and inexperience. She doesn’t have any great domestic policy skills or experience that would suggest that she is shoring up McCain’s admitted weaknesses on the economy or fiscal policy.

In short this makes no sense. The only reason I can come up with is that McCain is cynically manipulating PUMAs into believing that a vote for him is really a vote for Hillary. I guess one advantage is that it will be tougher (supposedly) for Biden to really go into “attack dog” mode lest it look like he is beating up on a girl, but that’s only one debate in a campaign full of non-joint appearances.

This week was already good for Obama, McCain just made it better.