Sarah Palin, Really??

As we prepare for "V.P. to be" Sarah Palin's speech before the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, now may be a good time to take another look at the candidate and her record (or lack of record), and at what this, the biggest choice that a Presidential candidate can make, says about candidate McCain's judgement.

If you don't know much about Sarah Palin you are not alone. Not many people outside of Alaska had heard of her before she was announced as Mr. McCain's running mate. I had heard a pundit mention her briefly as a VP possibility months ago (a sign that I watch too much political punditry). This was when the pundits had a Clinton-Obama primary hangover and nothing but possible VP picks to talk about. The mention was followed by (I'm paraphrasing by hazy memory here), "but she hasn't been in office long, has no foreign policy experience and is under investigation for trying to get her State Trooper husband-in-law fired, so she's a serious longshot." McCain took the longshot, perhaps sensing that his own candidacy is still a pretty longshot, even with the near even polls before the conventions. He took the longshot with the hopes of hitting two constituencies that he's had a hard time wooing, hard-right evangelicals and Hillary Clinton supporters that are still pissed about the primary.

With the evangelicals, he seems to have rolled a 7. By all accounts, they are energized and excited about a campaign that they couldn't give two shits about a week ago. Her daughter being knocked up and the fact that a mother of 5 is actually working instead of being "there" for her children, and at this high of a level, may make some of them a little uneasy with some of Palin's personal choices, but on the issues she's a (pardon the pun) Godsend:
-She vehemently anti-choice
-She believes that Creationism should be taught in Public Schools
-She doesn't believe that Global Warming is man made
-Place any other (far) right wing orthodoxy here...

The issues above, along with Palin not supporting any legislation that would guaranty equal pay for Women for equal work, should make the vast majority of those that put "18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling there is," run for the hills from Sarah Palin. We've learned over time, the last 8 years in particular, that people vote for more then who lines up best with their own personal political platform. People vote based on emotion and connection, and on these fronts McCain likely failed to impress Clinton supporters either.

During the guessing game over Barack Obama's VP selection it was mentioned repeatedly that there could very well be a backlash that would come with selecting a Woman other then Hillary to be his running mate. It might have seemed like he was telling Clinton supporters that any Woman would do, and that they should get on board because this female running mate has the same parts that Senator Clinton does. While McCain wouldn't incur the same backlash simply by not selecting Hillary, they are in different parties and all, choosing someone so obviously unqualified for the job of being "a heartbeat away" from the Presidency (that would be held by the oldest elected President in history), especially with other highly qualified female Republican options, might cause that backlash.

"She has more experience then Obama," is the usual response to questions about Sarah Palin's experience. The other favorite responses are that she has "Executive Experience," which Obama has none of (just like John McCain btw...), or that being a mother of 5 and a Governor shows the ability to handle big challenges. The argument that 2 years as mayor of a "city" of 7,000 and less then 2 years as Governor of Alaska (not quite Bill Clinton's 12 years of "Executive Experience") trumps Obama's 7 years in the Illinois State Senate and 4 in the United States Senate is ludicrous; but that's not the winning fight. Bringing up the point that her hometown newspapers were a bit shocked and concerned about the choice is not the argument to make either. The argument against Palin in the "experience" arena is summed up in 2 words, "NATIONAL SECURITY."

Palin has absolutly no foreign policy experience; the best that her supporters can come up with is that "Alaska's close to Russia," and her "heart will be in Iraq," with her son that will be deployed there on...wait for it... September 11th!

Compared to Palin's record, Barack Obama's foreign policy resume looks like, well, Joe Biden's! He has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He co-wrote the bipartisan Lugar-Obama Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2006. This act deepens non-proliferation work with WMD, including surface-to-air missiles, land mines, and other weapons that may be used by terrorists and rogue states.

Ultimately, Sarah Palin is not who people will go into the voting booth to vote for. John McCain or Barack Obama is the choice that America has. What McCain's choice for VP says about his judgment and decision making ability is what is most important. John McCain's primary argument against Barack Obama so far has been that, unlike McCain, Obama is not ready to lead. These are dangerous, challenging times and there's not time for the next President to learn on the job we're told. What happens if we lose our next President though? Who would have to learn on the job then? Joe Biden, who's met the world's leaders and has personal relationships with many of them. Or Sarah Palin, who governs close to Russia? Who would you trust to answer the phone at 3am?

Barack Obama chose his VP based first on whether Joe Biden could step in and be president if necessary. He definately took political considerations into account, but thought first of how Joe Biden could help him govern the country, or take over governing if necessary. Is it believable to think that these were John McCain's primary considerations when he had met with Palin once before offering her the job? When it seems that the vetting process was so quick and haphazzard that the McCain campaign may have very well been caught off guard by Palin's daughter's pregnancy and by the breadth of the machinations around the "Troopergate" scandal? Was readiness and governance at the center of his consideration, or was it giving "red meat" to the evangelical base and pandering to Clinton supporters?

This is just one more case of '08 McCain being very different then the image of McCain that was created in 2000. The "maverick" of 2000 is so stuck to GOP orthodoxy that he is running against laws that he helped write, and while the selection of Palin is said to be an old, "McCain the maverick" move, he is picking exactly who the far right wing of the party wants him to pick, instead of going with who he really wanted, "Traitor Joe" Lieberman. More importantly, he made a choice that has a whole lot more to do with the next two months of the campaign then it does to do with the next four years of governance. We've had 8 years of an administration that governs to campaign instead of campaigning to govern(some might say we've had 16 years of it). In the words of brother Obama, "Enough!"