It's official. We're now getting confirmation from the Washington Post that the McCain campaign did almost no vetting of Sarah Palin. While Palin was on the long 20 person list, she was not vetted nearly as intensively as the people on the "short list." After reading the Washington Post article, I'm more convinced than ever that Palin's nomination was a snap judgement at the last minute. They did investigate the trooper-gate thing on their own. But there were only two meetings with Palin both the day before she was offered the job. It was in those two last minute interviews that Palin's daughter's - ahem - condition was revealed. But by then, McCain had decided it was down to either Palin or Pawlenty (interestingly, the co-chair of the GOP accidently referred to the "the next vice President of the United States, Governor Sarah Pawlenty"). As I write this, I've got Joe Scarborough on the TV in the background and the consensus on that show is that the McCain campaign is very defensive about the vetting.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
McCain: The Decider Part II
The other thing that is coming out here is that Sarah Palin is so popular among the conservatives that she is overshadowing McCain. Given that McCain's main strength as a candidate is "Hero-he-man-in-charge" this is not good for him. The polls are already showing that McCain has lost the lead to Obama in regards to questions like "Strong and decisive leader." This Palin thing can't win for him. Either people decide that he made a rash, poorly thought out decision and picked an unqualified and scandal ridden running mate or they love Palin and think she's better than McCain on ideological stuff and more dynamic than he is. My guess is that this will energize the religious right somewhat but they'll be thinking the ticket is upside down. And the rest of the country will just think "WTF?"
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:10 AM
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6 comments:
Picking Sarah Palin fires up the base, but leaves independent voters, I think, fairly numb and disappointed. The whole GOP convention seems like a party that is disorganized and off-message. Imagine if Obama had selected Governor Patrick Deval of Massachussets. Liberals would be thrilled. But the rest of the country?
Picking Sarah Palin fires up the base, but leaves independent voters, I think, fairly numb and disappointed. The whole GOP convention seems like a party that is disorganized and off-message. Imagine if Obama had selected Governor Patrick Deval of Massachussets. Liberals would be thrilled. But the rest of the country?
As I said in a previous comment: I think it was a spite pick. McCain wanted Liberman and the RNC said, "No way!" (which was probably the right thing to say) so he gave them what they wanted . . . and more. Take that, RNC.
Consider that at first he was looking a Carly Fiorina. NPR mentioned the founder of E-Bay was also on the list. And it isn't a secret that gender was on the forefront of his mind! The guy "dated" a lot of women for this pick.
So it suggests to me that he really wanted the social conservative. And he wanted the woman. And it suggests that despite it all, the far right of the party is still trying to run the show. And, if McCain was the smart Maverick that he likes to potray himself as being, he would have picked Palin with the full intention to lose the election so that he could put and end to the far right. Then he could return himself and his party to moderation. But that is too sophisticated and cynical a risk for McCain to take.
"Liberals would be thrilled." Not this liberal. I wanted the VP candidate to be someone who addressed Obama's weaker areas and someone who would appeal to people more on the fence. I suspsct most more liberally minded people would agree with me on this.
I believe now that Palin was chosen to be a media magnet. McCain desperately had to do something to draw the press away from Obama, and choosing Palin has worked like a charm. Obama gave a big speech and got a significant poll bounce, but nobody is even talking about it. Palin's pretty pregnant daughter and her hockey-jock boyfriend have titillated the tabloids. For the Republicans, at least, it seems there is no such thing as bad press.
So what will Obama's next move be? What can he do to make a splash? He's already done huge stadium stunt and the whirlwind trip abroad. A little cheap theatrics might be in order here. Maybe another basketball game would be good. Or perhaps Barack, Michelle, Hillary, and Bill should do shots of Crown Royal together in Indiana. After all, the Clintons are always good for adding that enticing whiff of scandal, if nothing else.
Chelsea's pregnant! - just kidding. But what would you think?
Seriously, I think this will begin to blow over in a week or so. The debates will return the news cycles to more balanced coverage. Keep in mind that this is coinciding with the Republican convention. We should all have expected that the news coverage would be less on Obama and more on the Republicans right now.
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