Polls: Voters Doubt Palin’s Qualifications While Obama Expands Lead
Will McCain gain back the support after the GOP convention?
FOXNEWS-Most voters are unfamiliar with John McCain’s new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and many question her qualifications to be president, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup poll.
Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows Barack Obama maintaining an 8 percentage point lead over John McCain following the end of the Democratic convention Thursday.
Republicans begin their four-day convention Monday here even as Hurricane Gustav picks up steam as it approaches the Gulf Coast. Palin is scheduled to speak Wednesday.
In the poll taken Friday, 39 percent said she is ready to serve as president if needed, 33 percent said she isn’t and 29 percent have no opinion.
That’s the lowest rating any running mate has had since then-Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle was selected in 1988 to join George H.W. Bush’s team.
By contrast, 57 percent of voters rated Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as qualified after Obama selected him last week. Eighteen percent said he wasn’t qualified.
Meanwhile, the Gallup daily tracking poll shows good news for Obama, following the close of the Democratic National Convention and his high-profile nomination acceptance speech Thursday.
The poll, taken from Wednesday to Friday, showed Obama leading McCain by 49 percent to 41 percent for the second day in a row — a campaign high for him.
Before the convention, the two presidential candidates were tied at 45 percent.
CNN McCain’s VP shocker, what are you joking?
The Colbert Report: Sarah Palin
This is funny!
McCain: “We have raised $4 million on the Internet. I wish I had taken her a month ago.”
August 31st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Interesting post on PP.
Palin Was For The Bridge To Nowhere Before She Was Against It
August 31st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
FYI
Palin electrifies conservative base
POLITICO- The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has electrified conservative activists, providing a boost of energy to the GOP nominee-in-waiting from a key constituency that previously had been lukewarm — at best — about him.
By tapping the anti-abortion and pro-gun Alaska governor just ahead of his convention, which is set to start here Monday, McCain hasn’t just won approval from a skeptical Republican base — he’s ignited a wave of elation and emotion that has led some grass-roots activists to weep with joy.
Serious questions remain about McCain’s pick — exactly how much he knows about her and her positions, past and present, on key issues. But for the worker bee core of the party that is essential to any Republican victory, there are no doubts.
“I woke up and my e-mail was just going crazy,” said Charmaine Yoest, head of the legislative arm of Americans United for Life and a former top official in Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign. “And then when it was announced — it was like you couldn’t breathe.”
The media elite — as well as elite members of the GOP consulting community — have all but mocked Palin as a former small-town mayor with zero Washington experience. But that view of her totally misses the cultural resonance she carries to crucial Republican power centers and could not be more at odds with the jubilation felt among true believers that one of their own is on the ticket.
Palin, say conservative activists, has instantly changed how they feel about McCain’s campaign and spurred them to go to work for the Republican ticket.
First, though, they’re expressing their newfound fondness for McCain with their checkbooks. Since tapping Palin, the campaign has raised nearly $7 million online, according to McCain aides.
Most importantly for McCain, the two constituencies who are most energized by Palin just happen to be the twin grassroots pillars of the GOP: anti-abortion activists and pro-Second Amendment enthusiasts and sportsmen. Without these two camps making phone calls, stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors, Republican presidential candidates would severely lack for volunteers. They are critical to the health of the conservative coalition that has dominated Republican politics for a generation.
Republicans say the primary source for the passion can be found in Palin’s example and authenticity.
Not only is the 44-year-old governor opposed to abortion rights — but she carried and gave birth to a child with Down syndrome earlier this year, a profound and powerful motivating force to both opponents of abortion rights and the parents and relatives of special needs children.
And not only is she a supporter of the right to bear arms — but she’s a lifetime member of the NRA and an avid hunter and fisherman whose gubernatorial office couch is adorned with a massive grizzly bear pelt.
“She’s lived it!” exulted Yoest. “It’s so satisfying as a conservative woman. When she walked out on that stage there was just this moment. It was really emotional for a lot of us.”
After hearing the news, Yoest, who was in St. Paul preparing for the convention, said she and other Republican women here “were grabbing each other and jumping up and down.”
Steve Duprey, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman and top McCain backer who hails from the moderate wing of the party, was also in the Twin Cities when the news broke.
“I was in the Rules Committee with about 150 people in the room. They had TVs set up and we took a break to watch the announcement. For a second after she came out, it was silent. Then there was a gasp and everybody stood up and started cheering and clapping. We stayed standing the whole speech.”
After Palin finished, he said, the emotion set in.
“There were 10 or 12 women, party stalwarts, in tears, using napkins and handkerchiefs.”
Part of the reason for the joy is what President Bush once called, in another context, “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Social conservatives just didn’t expect one of their own to be tapped and were actually bracing themselves for the selection of a supporter of abortion rights.
“There is an electricity going through the social conservative crowd right now; it’s unbelievable,” said James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, who had met with McCain in the weeks leading up to his selection of a running mate. “Especially given all the set-ups and head fakes — it’s amazing. A lot of people were sure he was going to show his more moderate colors.”
Muffett said the effect on his conservative comrades in arms has been immediate and visceral.
“My wife and I watched an MSNBC special on her last night,” he said. “My wife knew nothing about this woman. But she was in tears listening to her articulate the views she had.”
Since the pick, Muffett said, he’s gotten “dozens of e-mails and the phones have been ringing off the hook” from other social conservatives who had assumed McCain would spurn them.
“They were taunting me, saying ‘McCain’s going to disappoint you,’” he said of the sentiment before the pick.
Since?
“’Boy, what kind of prayers have you been saying for McCain?’” he said with a chuckle about the question asked on one phone call. “He went and chose a Pentecostal for his running mate!”
The adoration goes beyond Christian conservatives.
Sportsmen are also overjoyed at the addition of one of their own, and can’t get enough of video and pictures showing Palin firing a weapon.
“She’s one of us,” wrote Michael Bane, a prominent Colorado-based gun enthusiast who has a show on the Outdoor Channel, on his blog. “FINALLY, we can get 100 percent behind the Republican ticket … change we can believe in!”
“You know I’ve had my problems with McCain, but he has reached out a hand to us both at the NRA Annual Meeting [earlier this year] and with the amazing selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate,” Bane added.
And then there is the contrast: “While [Barack Obama] wants to ban AR-15s, Palin shoots AR-15s, and apparently pretty well.”
“Every shooter, every hunter, every gun owner, every competitor needs to understand that it is time to, in the words of Bruce Willis, ‘cowboy the ‘f…’ up.’ ”
Chris Cox, the top political aide at the NRA, suggested that his job just got a whole lot easier, not just with a pro-gun Republican vice presidential nominee but a Democratic number two — Delaware Sen. Joe Biden — who is anathema to the Second Amendment community
“We’ll be able to have some fun contrasting not just McCain and Obama, but Biden and Palin,” said Cox, whose organization is giving “I’m a Bitter Gun Owner and I Vote!” signs and T-shirts to its members. “She’s great on our issues and [Biden’s] been terrible for 35 years.”
Her image as a pistol-packin’ mama could prove especially key in the hunter-filled Rust Belt, said Paul Erhardt, a longtime political strategist who specializes on gun issues.
“Palin could play strong in the sporting states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, depending on how they use her,” he said. “Most pundits will underestimate her appeal in these key areas because they don’t know her and they are unfamiliar with the sporting scene. But among sportsmen, authenticity counts and Palin’s got that and then some.”
Palin also reassures those concerned about McCain’s judgment on judges. Said Gary Marx, head of the Judicial Confirmation Network and a former Mitt Romney aide: “I can tell you that this pick tells millions in the base of the party that they can trust McCain. More specifically that they can trust him with Supreme Court picks and other key appoitments”
The sense of rejuvenation is not just limited to party activists, though. Conservative elites, among the most disdainful of McCain, are also coming around.
James Dobson, long a McCain skeptic, said after the announcement Friday that he’d support Palin.
And he’s not alone.
“I’ve talked to two prominent social conservative leaders in the past 24 hours who told me they had previously not planned to attend the convention, but were now coming to Minneapolis after the Palin pick,” wrote Ralph Reed, a Christian conservative leader who has tangled with McCain, in an e-mail. “One scrambled to find a hotel room and is coming tomorrow; the other rearranged his schedule and is flying in Wednesday. I got a call this afternoon from an evangelical business leader who told me he was contacting the McCain campaign and offering to host a fundraiser with his friends for McCain (sans the candidate) before the Thursday deadline [when McCain shifts to the public financing system]. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a veep pick energize the grass roots like this.”
Rush Limbaugh, who exulted on the air this week, summed up the response he’s gotten from his loyal listeners: “Home f***ing run.”
“Palin=Guns, Babies, Jesus,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Contrast that to Obama’s bitter clingers. Obama just lost blue-collar, white Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and other states.”
And, he said, the line that the pick was aimed at picking off Democratic women who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t get it right.
“[The] choice is to shore up the conservative, pro-drilling base,” he said. “This is an aggressive, on-offense pick, not a defensive pick.”
The pick caps off what has been a turbulent few weeks for conservative Republicans.
Muffett, who was talking on his cell phone from a church outing at Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park, likened McCain’s campaign to the world-record 17 roller coasters that dot the park on the banks of Lake Erie.
“Oh my gosh, holy moly,” he said. “He floated the pro-abortion running mate, then there was his performance at the Saddleback debate, and then you had the Lieberman headfake and now this.”
“Up and down, up and down.”
For now, though, at least as it relates to the long-mistrustful conservatives he’ll need energized to win, McCain is sky-high.
“Now that he has so thoroughly exceeded their expectations for his candidacy (first with his stellar performance at the Saddleback Showdown, now with his selection of his running mate), social conservatives are finally putting on their cleats and getting on to the field,” wrote Reed. “It’s really quite remarkable, and something that no one would have guessed would happen even three months ago.”
August 31st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
This is how I see the election. This reminds of the time when Bill Clinton beat Bush 1. We had a huge spending problem and Ross Perot did a great job educating the public about the issue. Had he not put such a scare in both parties we would have never seen reforms like PAY/GO had he not run. That is why I am supporting Bob Barr, I am hopping this will put a scare into both parties.
I heard all damage BS if Bill Clinton won and any objective person can not dispute he did a better job than Bush. This coming from someone he never voted for him and has been extremely critical of Clinton. Why do any of you think voting for the same BS will change anything? The GOP only changed when enough of us said enough is enough!
August 31st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
My wife is president of our homeowners association.
Why wasn’t she considered for VP?!?!
August 31st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
As far as I can tell her views on Alaskan oil production are perfectly in line with the views of Lindsey Williams.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Mrs. Menace for President?
August 31st, 2008 at 7:57 pm
FYI
Readers critical of McCain analysis
POLITICO-Our e-mail over the past 24 hours offers one irrefutable fact about the surprising selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: A lot of Republicans think we are detached from reality for suggesting the pick was an act of desperation by John McCain.
In a column published Saturday, we wrote that McCain’s pick reflected his need to dramatically shake up the race by selecting a woman he hardly knows. Readers directed most of their outrage at our assessment that this was a “desperate” move by McCain.
Rarely have we been flooded with more e-mail, the most generous of which suggested we are dimwits, and much of it calling us names not fit to print. It was an especially stark example of something that in America’s polarized political culture is a common phenomenon: reporters and activists viewing the same facts through radically different prisms.
Given the strong response, we asked many of those readers if we could publish their take on the pick. We put the most substantive ones at the top. But if you want to get a flavor of a journalist’s typical inbox fare, read to the bottom:
The experience issue is still in play for McCain. It is out there and Obama has to make his bones on this apart from Palin. He does not look better now because Palin is in the picture. The Democrats really don’t want this argument to continue, but because of their defensiveness may have lost perspective and foolishly start inviting comparisons of Obama to Palin. And McCain can go silent on this and shift gears to other issues. His past attacks are not invalidated and only worked anyway because they confirmed perceptions in the minds of some voters. A fear of Obama’s readiness trumps a fear of Palin’s readiness.
The experience argument was always a cover for a larger argument. And in ads, it had started to shift from “readiness” to “do you know enough about him.” Plus Obama has given the GOP material to make specific attacks. Palin’s blank slate is just that.
I do agree that the polls are misleading and the big elephant in the room was that edge in Dem enthusiasm and registration.
The Clinton women angle is being overplayed. That 18mm is comprised of a wide variety of people. Palin is a play to the base. There are fewer Republicans these days - there are not fewer conservatives.
The Dems are behind the curve on this one, trust me.
— Bruce Schindler, Pennsylvania
1-as one who has followed this election cycle closely, I’ve know about Palin for a long time. I had given up hope a running mate like Palin or Jindal would be chosen and am ecstatic at this move. Desperate? No. Brilliant. Yes. While the Democrats talk about change, all tangible details are the same old DNC party line. Government programs with no real change. This pick gives some hope of a truly refreshing direction.
2-are you completely blind to the other problems Palin poses? Obama talks about energy policy like he has some authority in this area. Palin has real experience and real knowledge. Her expertise will expose Obama’s hollow platitudes.
3&4-On experience, I’d say two years of actually working as an executive trumps one year as a junior senator and one year running for president while abandoning senate responsibilities. And then there is Palin’s record of standing against the abuses within her party. Meanwhile Obama has a record of kow-towing to the Dem power brokers and financiers, combined with a voting record that mirrors the extreme end of the old guard. I’ll take an honest former executive with a conscience before a demagogue with no real experience as our nations leader.
5-I’ll give you 5.
6-Are you seriously calling McCain an egotist when compared to Obama? This is just an indicator of your own political blind spot. Your final two paragraphs point out some legitimate questions about McCain’s shift toward the neo-con right. But be honest and recognize Obama’s own old school DNC party line. He poses no challenges to the teacher’s unions menace to education, the worker’s unions stifling blanket on productivity (just as much a part of the problems of jobs shipping overseas as corporate greed), an approach to government that isn’t more bureaucracy and wasteful spending, a fix to a broken tax code, etc.
— Stephen Jensen, Austin, Texas
WOW!! You couldn’t be more wrong about McCain’ pick for VP. It was a brilliant pick, not intended to get Hillary voters, but to energize the base. There were too many conservatives, like myself, that were going to have a hard time pulling the lever for McCain. With Palin on the ticket I will not only feel good about voting , I’ll be willing to volunteer time and give money to his campaign. I find it amusing that the liberal elit in this country just don’t get it. SO go ahead and follow Obama like the rest of the mindless sheep that hold him up as a sort of savior. The Republican base is now energized and Obama will lose in November.
— Michael Page, Seattle, Washington
Your article on the 6 things that the McCain pick says is completely and obviously misrepresented. McCain is not desperate. He chose a reformer like himself. You also failed to mention how Palin took on the corrupt GOP establishment of her own state. You are so obviously a liberal democrat and only wrote about her in a one sided way typical of the liberal media. I am so sick of you guys. For the first time in my life, I have the opportunity to vote for a woman republican and I am excited. To dismiss her as a desperate choice by McCain is insulting to women everywhere. With this pick, John McCain assured a win in November. I laugh everytime you media idiots say Obama is going to win by a landslide. But you are right, it is not a close as the polls say. John McCain is the one who will win by a landslide. I am not a racist, in fact my husband is a minority and my children are bi-racial. It insults me everytime you media commentaries say that white people won’t vote for a black man. Maybe a very small portion, but those are probably the same voters who also won’t vote for a woman either.
— Jennifer Tuazon, St. Petersburg, Florida
Your address says it all. You could not be more wrong on your article about McCain’s pick for VP. I am so thrilled with his decision I can hardly stand it. She is far more experienced than Obama that it is laughable. McCain is hardly desperate but I can see that in your liberal surroundings you may think that to be so. I have die hard democrat relatives so furious with the Obama and Biden ticket that they are voting Republican for the first time in their lives. I hear nothing but grumbling about this liberal ticket. This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the empty message of change. The only change I see is the movement of my money into the hands of those too inept to handle it and too stupid to make it on their own. When I finish this email, I am writing a check to McCain’s campaign. Your article fired me up and so did his selection. At least she knows how many states we have. Obama thinks we have 58 and they are making fun of McCain for the house comment. Now that is funny.
— Renee Cox, Irving, Texas
Palin on experience — Of the four, she is the only one to have run anything. She is the only one where something that has been accomplished can actually be tracked back to her actions. Small town? Hey check Harry Reeds home town, and bunch of trailers, and he is leader of our Senate. Mrs. Palin is bringing something to the table that no one else has the guts to do, clean house! Guess what, not to be sexist, but that’s just what women are capable of doing. Discarding what is no longer of use around the house (DC). I believe the American people are excited about this potential resident of Washington DC, and they will back her efforts to the hilt.
— Brian Dani, Laguna Niguel, California
I think Palin is a terrific pick. I will certainly cast my vote for McCain now. My husband, who voted for Obama in the primaries, will now vote for McCain. Obama did not stay true to his message about change, in fact, he picked a complete Washington insider for his VP. McCain used greater imagination, and plucked someone from as far away from Washington as one can get. I applaud Senator McCain. I do believe the race is as close as things suggests. People do things different in the privacy of a voting booth, than they claim to outside. It is a sad statement, but racism is still very much alive.
— Maureen L. Burke, Sacramento, California
just wanted you to know that I think you are wrong about Mc Cain’s pick. How refreshing to see ONE honest person in Government, one that seems to care about the people and NOT just trying to get rich herself! I didn’t give a damn about either men, Obama already is a crook in my book, but now I shall vote because of her and I hope that SHE’ll win!
(new e-mail)
I’m a little worried about your phrase; publishing parts or writing down your thoughts!!!! The most important thing to me is, she is an outsider and seems to be honest and seems to work for the PEOPLE! Now this is something to vote for!! I would not have voted for Hillary, she is a huge liar and we have too many like her already!
— Susanne Lauper, California
My brother-in-law a retired Marine pilot, 2 Vietnam tours with an adopted Vietnamese daugter said it all. He wished Palin would debate BO. Inexperince vs inexperience. She would clean his clock. A Biden debate would be over when she would tell Joe, YOU CAN’T BE CATHOLIC & PRO ABORTION. I lived in WI. I knew Lombardi.
I could introduce to George Dickson Lombari’s backfield coach with the Redskins. I heard 1 of your people state that the majority of people are pro-choice. That’s untrue however the drive by media will not challenge you fellows. John McCain knows how to pick’em. Sarah IS PROI-LIFE. Her DECISION to keep TRIG about the time she met McCain in Feb. proves her decision making capability.
I have 3 daugters 2 older than you and Sarah. They would put their money on Sarah in a head to head with BO. BO V SP BARACK OBOMA vs Sarah Palin.
— John Bettinger, Ohio
Somebody needs to tell McCain that having a uterus and boobs does not = Hillary!!!
— Connie Andrews, Chesapeake, Virginia
how can you even compare senatorial duty to governance … stop drawing conclusions and providing faulty analysis to fit your underlying aggenda … stick to reporting and not retorting … Obama’s a snake oil salesman and Biden’s a angry white guy. … Palin has more class, courage and principles in her little finger then thay have in their whole body … Aloha from Hawaii
— Kevin McClintock, Hawaii
I see you guys are part of the Obama express, just like the drive by media.
— Carl A. Fontana, Pennsylvania
6 things you should know about your article:
1) It had little to do with fact.
2) This didn’t pass the smell test as news.
3) It was far less objective and could have been written by Bob Beckel.
4) This article might appeal to Democrats.
5) I got a sense of wasting my time after I read this.
6) This is an opinion. Everyone has one and I don’t subscribe to yours.
— Ron Stirling, Connecticut
Wow What world do you live in? Sarah has more experience than either obama/biden(the bridge to nowhere) have combined.. She has at executive experience.What has obama done period Biden just sticks his foot in his mouth she be fun to see Sarah rip him apart
— Jim Eglinas, Cary, Illinois
McCain is not desperate, buddy. He is smart and he is not concerned about picking a women to be his VP, unlike the supposedly pro-woman left. Obama should have picked Hillary Clinton and screwed up by picking the terrible Joe “Plugs the Plagiarist” Biden. Obama has less experience than either McCain or Palin and only Democratic bigots like you and the other card-carrying socialists are criticizing his pick. Next time you call yourself a journalist, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are a liar. You and most of the media, particularly at Politico, are basically in the tank for the liberals/Democrats.
— James Dean, Pennsylvania
Whoa, Your slant on McCain’s pick is just, well precious! I think these are the things you are HOPING McCain’s pick means. But as the liberals find out each election season, people don’t like being misled and lied to, and they’re not stupid. Keep up this kind of tripe, and good luck on Nov. 4!!!! Your candidate, Mr. Holiness Obama, will get trounced, and I can’t wait to see your humble acknowledgement of having “hyped” all your stories, once again!
— Marci Johnson, Gilbert, Arizona
I have my doubts about Palin, Jim, but your puff ho piece was so blatantly partisan pro-Obama that it is ridiculous. Methinks you had better go back to Journalism School and learn about objectivity.
If anyone is concerned about losing, and losing big, it is the fraud known as Barry Hussein Obama, who also needed to pick ’safe’. But of course you wouldn’t say that in a million years.
— Alan Rockman, Phoenix, Arizona
My God are you that out of touch?? Obama wont win 10 states. It’ll be somewhat close in total numbers, but a near landslide in the electoral college. Sorry guys, not this time and not with this guy.
— Michael Paro, Algonquin, Illinois
How long, dear god, are you guys going to keep the McCain maverick myth alive? He has repudiated nearly every issue which created the myth: torture, taxes, the influence of the religious right, openness to the press (no more open door, folks; sorry), campaign finance reform. In short, on every issue that matters he has become merely another, tired voice of failed Republican policy. Why not call a spade a spade?
— Peter Tatiner, Highland Park, New Jersey
6 things about JIM VANDEHEI:
1. OBAMA BIASED “journalist” ahumm (Obama man crush) 2. APPARANT SEXIST (I.E HILLARY COVERAGE) 3.MSNBC LEMMING 4.DOUBLE STANDARD BEARER 5.BLIND..UNABLE TO SEE MS.PALIN HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN THE CHOSEN ONE 6.BIAS BIAS BIAS…SHAME SHAME SHAME
— Wanda McMichael, Des Moines, Iowa
You are such a left wing radical that you make me sick. How dare you try to take down a veteran who almost gave his life for this country. And the last time that I looked, the president is the commander in chief, not the vice president, so the argument over inexperience should be directed solely on the President, you jerk.
— Rolf Laws, Nevada
August 31st, 2008 at 8:08 pm
In Case you Missed it Dept:
Hurricane Gustav disrupted plans to observe 3 seconds of silence at the GOPer National Convention, to remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina, three years ago this week.
- - - - - - - - - -
Nice to see Rolf Laws of Nevada defending John Kerry against the Swift Boat smear campaign.
A bit late, but nice nonetheless.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:13 am
Wow John, are you so blinded by BDS that you cannot appreciate that Palin has taken on the Republican establishment in Alaska and proven herself to be accountable to the taxpayers? Palin is a REFORMER! Barr is suddenly anti-establishment when he is out of office and earning a salary as a political writer. What did he do to demonstrate his allegiance to the taxpayers while in office? I’d say Barr is making more money in the private sector as a spoiler than he did on his own and is more concerned with lining his pockets than he is with the actual governing of this country. Maybe I wouldn’t think that if he was independently wealthy like Perot. but, he’s not and his run for office is disappointedly transparent. His claim to fame is his being snookered for “Borat”. He’s not a serious candidate.
September 1st, 2008 at 6:02 am
Hoads
Do you think this is the best person for the job in the GOP?
September 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
John, I find it amazing that the proprietor of this blog doesn’t even either know how to debate the issues, or chooses not to while sitting on his perch. You never address the points in anyone’s posts except for an occasional “I agree”. It’s always some non sequitor question that appears to be an attempt to shift the direction or substance of the argument. Weak.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:48 am
HOADS THIS IS FROM THE NRO!
NRO-Palin [Rick Brookhiser]
I have not had a TV to watch all week, though I have had internet, so I have followed the Palin pick entirely through the medium of the Corner.
I share the initial reservations of David, and to a lesser extent, Jay. The Palin pick shows a low opinion of the vice presidency, and it shows conservatives in a bad light.
1. The Vice Presidency. Either McCain thinks the war on terror isn’t serious, or he thinks the vice-presidency isn’t. Since the former is obviously untrue, it must be the latter. McCain is certainly following a very old conception of the job. One nineteenth century veep was reputedly so underutilized that he kept a tavern in his home state. But that is not our conception. Vice Presidents have grown in clout and responsibility. In the last fifty years, four former vice presidents have run for president (Nixon, Mondale, elder Bush, Gore), two of them successfully, while since Carter/Mondale, veeps have been given more and more to do. McCain, bless him, intends to do everything himself. Good luck! Perhaps the Palin pick is a sly diss both of Obama/Biden and Bush/Cheney. Palin will go to funerals.
2. Conservatives. Palin will also be assigned to pacify conservatives. On the evidence of the numerous emails reprinted here, that will be easily done. Reader after reader said that the base was now energized. You would have thought the base was energized by being in a war. If not, perhaps we need a new base.
We have shown the same color-by-numbers mindset that liberals did when they rallied to Obama. Liberals love Obama because he is a Numinous Negro. Conservatives love Palin because she has a Downs baby and an M-16. For both sides, that is all on earth ye know and all ye need to know. You might call it mystical and childish.
May I be so wrong that a hundred harpies will pluck my eyeballs.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDQ5ZmE5NjU4MmRlOWUyZjM0MTBlYWY2NWEwZDczNjg=
September 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Hoads this is also from the NRO!
Cold Water on Palin [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Both the pros and the cons are pretty obvious. I’m going to focus on the cons, mostly because conservatives right now seem to be paying them less attention.
The pros: She’s a pro-life conservative reformer from outside Washington, and a woman. The pick signals a boldness and willingness to mix things up that the McCain campaign, like Republicans generally, need.
The cons:
Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain’s age raised the stakes on this issue.
As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins.
And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)
Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?
Compatibility. It doesn’t seem as though McCain knows Palin well. Do we have much reason to think they would work well together?
Debates. Maybe, as Jonah said the other day, Biden will look like a bully going up against her—and maybe she’ll shine. But I can think of a lot of other picks who would have been lower-risk.
I am not even sure that the pick will have quite the galvanizing effect on conservatives that it seems to be having now as it sinks in. The concerns I’ve mentioned here—about her readiness and her credentials—are the kind of thing that many conservative voters take seriously.
Now, as I said, there are pros too. Maybe Palin will be a terrific candidate and vice president. But let’s not underestimate the potential downside.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am
I am not the only conservative who thinks this was a bad idea.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
FYI
Focused–The Sequel
Posted by Joe Klein
TIME-Another week, another Frank Luntz/AARP focus group of undecided voters–this one in Minneapolis and with some bad news for John McCain: they don’t like the choice of Sarah Palin for vice president. Only one person said Palin made him more likely to vote for McCain; about half the 25-member group raised their hands when asked if Palin made them less likely to vote for McCain. They had a negative impression of Palin by a 2-1 margin…a fact that was reinforced when they were given hand-dials and asked to react to Palin’s speech at her first appearance with McCain on Friday—the dials remained totally neutral as Palin went through her heart-warming(?) biography, and only blipped upwards when she said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere–which wasn’t quite the truth, as we now know.
Then there was this, from a woman named Teresa, who went to the Democratic Convention as a Hillary delegate and is leaning toward voting for McCain–obviously the target audience for the Palin pick: “His age didn’t really bother me until he picked Palin. What if he dies in office and leaves us with her as President? Also she leans toward the rigid right, and I always thought he was a moderate…You know, I change my mind almost every day, but right now I”m wondering where the John McCain I really liked in 2000 went, what happened to the moderate? This John McCain has the look of someone who is being manipulated–probably by Karl Rove.”
Teresa still wasn’t willing to vote for Obama, whom she considers too inexperienced, but she was clearly wavering. Afterwards Luntz, good Republican that he is, made the case that Palin could win all these people back with a good convention speech, but that seemed far-fetched to me. They really saw this pick as a gimmick–and one that reflected badly on John McCain’s judgment.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:48 pm
McBush to women:
I think so little of you that I truly believe I can put any woman on the ballot, even a mere mayor of a town of 7,000 (Gov. Palin’s major experience), and you will automatically vote for her.
You, women, are incapable of noticing how I am manipulating you, and so each and every one of you tempted to vote for Sen. Clinton will instead turn to me.
It matter not that I will be the oldest person, if elected, to take office. It matters not that Gov. Palin is actually less qualified, on paper, that Dubious was in January 2001.
You will follow me because you are unable to think of doing anything else.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
So ironic that our first woman president could be Palin.
I never would have imagined this in a million years.
I will give her some credit for working closely with Democrat leaders in the state legislature on legislative reform. The Republicans in the legislature sure weren’t interested.
She may be just the person to take the fall for the coming economic woes…
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 am
I really don’t think that Palin is going to attract very many Clinton voters, if any. What Palin has done, however, is to invigorate the conservative base AND to really excite the general populace of women. I’ve never seen my wife so excited about a candidate. She said how proud she was that there is now a woman in the political lime-light who she can actually respect and that America and the world can respect. Not a mean, snide, crooked, far-left wacko like we’ve had to suffer so far. And she’s right. All of the conservative women who might have had something else to do on election day will now be more likely to make a stop at the voting booth. McCain’s pick wasn’t targeted at Clinton’s left-wing voters, but it will mobilize the base and that’s all he’s ever needed to do to win.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I’m inclined to agree with you Aubrey.
Palin appeals to the lowest common denominator. This may be just enough to win.