Saturday, August 30, 2008
Backfire
Another post by Sullivan with an interesting look at how the Palin pick could backfire with some of the people McCain was trying to court.
Obama=Palin?
Sullivan makes an excellent point here: comparing Obama to Palin is, at this point, ridiculous. On paper it might work, depending on how you equate her "executive" experience with Obama's legislative experience. But you'd have to ignore two things: First, the fact that since being elected to the Senate (and even before then), Obama has engaged the major issues the country is facing on the national stage. Where are Palin's major policy addresses on...well, anything? From what I've seen so far, she hasn't engaged any foreign policy issues in any meaningful way.
The second thing you'd need to ignore is the last 18 months, that is, Obama's campaign for president. The way he's conducted himself during the primary and the way his team dismantled the Clintons. You want executive experience? Running what may be the smoothest campaign in modern politics and defeating an entrenched opponent with almost every initial advantage takes serious leadership ability. I'm not saying that Palin couldn't have some serious chops (although I'd be surprised if she had anything close to Obama's level of ability), but at this point she's an unknown. Even Obama had four years in DC and some of the best people in the business on his team to get him to this point. And by most accounts it still took him several debates to get to the point where he could compete with Hilary. Palin has the Everest of learning curves ahead of her right now.
The second thing you'd need to ignore is the last 18 months, that is, Obama's campaign for president. The way he's conducted himself during the primary and the way his team dismantled the Clintons. You want executive experience? Running what may be the smoothest campaign in modern politics and defeating an entrenched opponent with almost every initial advantage takes serious leadership ability. I'm not saying that Palin couldn't have some serious chops (although I'd be surprised if she had anything close to Obama's level of ability), but at this point she's an unknown. Even Obama had four years in DC and some of the best people in the business on his team to get him to this point. And by most accounts it still took him several debates to get to the point where he could compete with Hilary. Palin has the Everest of learning curves ahead of her right now.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Who?
McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP clearly indicates a desire to gain the vote of my friend Java, who grew up in Alaska and who worked on a commercial fishing boat for two summers (Palin's husband is/was a commercial fisherman). I think that's really the only vote he was looking to pick up here.
That's not true, of course. McCain clearly wanted to accomplish three things with this pick: First, mollify the right. Palin (reportedly) has solid conservative credentials, both socially and economically. Second, he wanted to cement his own position as a maverick. Palin is definitely a non-traditional pick that gives the Republican ticket its own claim on history (but only if they win). Third, McCain wanted to go after disgruntled Hilary voters. Pawlently and Romney don't help McCain with two of those three.
It's a risky move. McCain has essentially sacrificed his ability to make the experience argument against Obama by nominating someone who's younger and has less foreign policy experience. She could get destroyed by Biden in the debates. And I don't buy the argument I heard on CNN about injecting energy and excitement into the convention next week. Curiosity I buy, but not excitement. She's also under investigation for the firing of an official who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. I have to assume that the McCain vetters looked into that enough to be satisfied that there's nothing actionable there, but the possibility remains of the press corps digging up something on her.
It could pay off, of course. It gives the ticket more outside-the-beltway cred to push the change message, and after watching her speech this morning it's obvious the campaign was looking for her to play the family card. It's kind of funny (but makes a certain amount of sense) that the candidates essentially picked their own party's version of their opponents as running mates.
Overall it seems like McCain has decided the experience argument wouldn't work, and has decided to change the game a bit. Whether or not it works depends on how effective Palin is at bringing in the support McCain needs from her.
That's not true, of course. McCain clearly wanted to accomplish three things with this pick: First, mollify the right. Palin (reportedly) has solid conservative credentials, both socially and economically. Second, he wanted to cement his own position as a maverick. Palin is definitely a non-traditional pick that gives the Republican ticket its own claim on history (but only if they win). Third, McCain wanted to go after disgruntled Hilary voters. Pawlently and Romney don't help McCain with two of those three.
It's a risky move. McCain has essentially sacrificed his ability to make the experience argument against Obama by nominating someone who's younger and has less foreign policy experience. She could get destroyed by Biden in the debates. And I don't buy the argument I heard on CNN about injecting energy and excitement into the convention next week. Curiosity I buy, but not excitement. She's also under investigation for the firing of an official who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. I have to assume that the McCain vetters looked into that enough to be satisfied that there's nothing actionable there, but the possibility remains of the press corps digging up something on her.
It could pay off, of course. It gives the ticket more outside-the-beltway cred to push the change message, and after watching her speech this morning it's obvious the campaign was looking for her to play the family card. It's kind of funny (but makes a certain amount of sense) that the candidates essentially picked their own party's version of their opponents as running mates.
Overall it seems like McCain has decided the experience argument wouldn't work, and has decided to change the game a bit. Whether or not it works depends on how effective Palin is at bringing in the support McCain needs from her.
Obama Accepts
According to the yahoo pundits, who first critiqued Michelle Obama's speech on Monday for not attacking McCain enough then backtracked and called it an excellent set up for the rest of the week, Obama's acceptance speech last night had to accomplish about 18,000 different things, many of them contradictory. By my estimation, he was able to get almost all of them done (almost-according to one of the idiots, the speech was too long. ugh.).
In any case, I thought he did a fantastic job defining himself, his policies and the way he intends to run his campaign. It wasn't quite as inspiring as the "Yes We Can" speech after New Hampshire, or as historic as the "More Perfect Union" speech in the middle of the Rev. Wright fiasco. But it balanced inspiration with substance, drew a line between attacking policies and attacking the candidate, and laid out a reasonable, bi-partisan approach to some of the biggest cultural problems in the country. The section toward the end when Obama spoke about having differences on abortion, gun control and gay rights but still making progress on the issues was ridiculously good. I heard someone comment on both Clintons' ability to deliver big-game speeches. Obama's performance last night cements his reputation as the best big-game speaker in the business.
In any case, I thought he did a fantastic job defining himself, his policies and the way he intends to run his campaign. It wasn't quite as inspiring as the "Yes We Can" speech after New Hampshire, or as historic as the "More Perfect Union" speech in the middle of the Rev. Wright fiasco. But it balanced inspiration with substance, drew a line between attacking policies and attacking the candidate, and laid out a reasonable, bi-partisan approach to some of the biggest cultural problems in the country. The section toward the end when Obama spoke about having differences on abortion, gun control and gay rights but still making progress on the issues was ridiculously good. I heard someone comment on both Clintons' ability to deliver big-game speeches. Obama's performance last night cements his reputation as the best big-game speaker in the business.
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