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MCCAIN-PALIN = NAIL MCPANIC.
One group of women that has been largely absent from the commentary on Palin are the dozen or so Republican women who really are qualified to be vice president. As the panicky McCain campaign beat the bushes for a woman, any woman, these public servants were just passed over without so much as a by-your-leave.
They include the two senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins; Senator Liddy Dole of North Carolina; Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas; former New Jersey governor and EPA Commissioner Christie Todd Whitman; Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, and of course Secretary of State Condi Rice.
What all of these women have in common is that they are far more experienced and accomplished than Palin—and they are too moderate for the hard core conservative base, especially on the issue of reproductive rights.
As more details come out, it’s increasingly clear to all but the hardest core rightwing that John McCain’s campaign acted in haste, panic, and condescension. As Ann Friedman astutely wrote, “Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them.”
The person who could make this case better than any other woman, if she chooses to become fully engaged, is one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Palin insults not just voters, but other public officials who won broad public support the hard way.
The other wild card that yet to be fully revealed is Palin’s effect on the socially conservative working class vote beyond the Republican hard core. If you look like a down-home woman, does that make you an effective populist?
As John Kerry’s disappointing performance showed, voters pay as much attention to who you are as what you espouse. Kerry could don the populist mantle and rail against “Benedict Arnold CEO’s”--but the several houses, the exotic foreign wife, the upper-class tastes in sports, the fluency in French all allowed the Republicans to portray Kerry as “not-like-you,” which swamped Kerry’s position on the issues.
Will Palin prove to be the converse? Will her very working class life story, choice of hobbies, even the fact of her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy, endear her to downscale voters, even if Palin has failed to embrace policy positions that might help their economic plight? Will the inevitable gaffes of a novice be excused as the learning curve of Everywoman?
It’s hard to imagine very many suburban soccer moms identifying with Palin. Yes, she could be a big hit with NASCAR moms, not to mention Iditarod moms. It’s just questionable whether there are enough of them, and whether her story will compensate for her plain lack of experience. Joe Biden has just as compelling life story coupled with real experience and policies that will make a real difference.
McCain has also taken a huge gamble, not just on Palin’s lack of qualifications and even her lack of vetting. He has decided to run a Rove-like operation in which the Republican base matters more than the swing voters. But the hard core socially conservative base will be a smaller portion of the electorate this year, and swing voters will be harder to fool than they were in 2000 when Bush was reassuring moderates while sending coded signals to the base.
McCain is also betting that his own reputation as a maverick will offset Palin’s far-right views on economic and social issues. But “maverick” can be understood in two very different senses. The first is someone of admirably independent views. The other is someone who makes bizarre, impulsive moves. The past week’s events surely reinforced the latter sense of John McCain.
--Robert Kuttner
COMMENTS (9)
No, all evangelicals will not rally behind Palin, nor McCain.
I am an evangelical. My reasons are as follows:
The least evangelicals can do is to hold John McCain to the same standard as they held Bill Clinton. Adultery by a Republican Navy captain is just as much a sin as adultery by a Democratic president.
For 23 of the 25 years John McCain has been in Washington, we have had a Republican president and/or a Republican senate majority. Abortions are just as available as aspirin. A McCain presidency won’t change anything. Roe V. Wade cannot be overturned. The Rove machine just wants us to think it can. The court decision is actually not a result of activist judges. It is established law. There are no examples of this kind of law being overturned.
You cannot be pro-life and support keeping American troops in Iraq for another 100 years. You cannot be pro-life while paraphrasing the Beach Boys promoting an aggressive war on Iran. God hates hands that shed innocent blood, period -- Proverbs 6:16-18. It doesn't matter whether those hands belong to an abortionist or an infantry corporal.
We Christians have forgotten that our citizenship is first and foremost in Heaven --Philippians 3:20 -- and that Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world --John 18:36. We follow leaders like McCain who are so desperate for earthly glory that they will totally disregard Christianity in order to attain it. What shall it profit a man --(Matthew 16:26) James Dobson now says that he will endorse John McCain. That says it all.
I for one am not going to vote for a man who hires Karl Rove to help pick Sarah Palin simply to get my vote. In 2000 the republicans counted on evangelicals not thinking for ourselves. They were right. In 2004, they counted on us not thinking for ourselves again. Again, they were right. Not this time. I'm thinking for myself, and encouraging my fellow church goers to do the same.
She is someone who wants to teach our children abstinence when this teaching did not work in her own home.
I have heard other Christians excusing Palin because her daughter is going to marry the baby’s dad and because she is keeping the baby, they are using that as an excuse for pre-marrital sex.
Palin is a member of the NRA, so you can literally say shotgun wedding, if not that she could call in a favor just like she wanted for her sisters ex-husband.
Perfect example of "do as i say not as i do" let me change the laws to what i think its correct even though its not what i will personally do. And best of all the Christians organizations are excursing her.
Religion and politics is a dangerous mix, this is just a good reminder as to why we have separation of religion and state.
I am devoted, active, and evangelical.
And I will not vote for John McCain for president.
Posted by: Kb | September 2, 2008 2:36 PM
"MCCAIN-PALIN = NAIL MCPAINC"
I think you may have meant:
MCCAIN-PALIN = NAIL MCPANIC
Posted by: Jer | September 2, 2008 3:12 PM
"Will her very working class life story, choice of hobbies, even the fact of her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy, endear her to downscale voters, even if Palin has failed to embrace policy positions that might help their economic plight?"
Sure, her story is compelling and I'd love to hang out with her and watch the SpringerFest unfold. And I love to see her compete on Survivor. Do I want her to beat one heart attack away from the presidency? Hell NO!
Posted by: CParis | September 2, 2008 3:50 PM
Who knew that the Titanic was a republican ship. Are there icebergs in Alaska?
Posted by: Rob Christofle | September 2, 2008 4:09 PM
I wish abortions were broadly available! Here in reality, there are vast swathes of the country where, due in no small part to organized violence and intimidation on the part of self-described pro-lifers, there are no abortion providers at all.
Posted by: rufustfyrfly | September 2, 2008 5:06 PM
Are there icebergs in Alaska?
Yes, there are.
But Palin's pro global-warming agenda should solve that problem pretty quickly.
Posted by: Jinchi | September 2, 2008 5:19 PM
"“Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them.”"
Professional feminists have a set of three or four issues. They don't really tend to investigate whether or not a candidate is likely to work to their advantage beyond those few, so I can't take these protestations too seriously. I think liberal feminists do indeed mostly vote for someone who "looks like" them. That's why Democrats advanced the plutocratic Hillary and tried to put her over on everyone else and it almost worked.
Republicans have themselves said over and over again that they want Palin to solidify their social conservative base. On that basis, I don't see what's insulting about their choice.
Whether Democrats like it or not, the bottom line question seems to be something like: "are holdouts not voting Democrat/ Obama in swing states like PA and Ohio put off by things like pro-life political positioning?"
I kind of doubt it, so I don't see what "feminist election, part deux" really gets you other than maybe Bush Trois.
I would like to see Obama find a way to rise above the low horizon Republicans (and not a few liberal pundits) obviously want to play this one on.
Leave the mooseburgers on the grill and get out of each other's back yards already. If not, it seems clear to me that Palin wins. She's on the ticket to take advantage of Democrat's by now *fully* well deserved reputation for navel gazing.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 2, 2008 6:01 PM
I think she and her family would not be good representatives for family values. Although I can sympatize with this family dealing with an errant daughter's pregnancy, I do not think they are good role models for our country. I can just imagine more young girls thinking it is just fine to become pregnant like Bristol Palin. I also have to wonder if the girl would be in the situation she is in if her mother had been around a little more to keep an eye on her.
Posted by: Margaret | September 2, 2008 8:59 PM
Hutchison, not Hutchinson.
Posted by: Swift Loris | September 2, 2008 11:21 PM