The pieces of the speeches I caught — by the Texas railroad commissioner, by Giuliania and Palin — all played the fear and conspiracy card, painting the world as a far more dangerous place than it is while demonizing the notion of allies and international consensus. That matches the Bush approach and sets up a McCain administration likely to engage in a series of foreign misadventures.
Tag: presidential election
Sarah Palin’s speech: First impressions
She cuts a strong figure — a very powerful speaker, far better than her running mate, and she does a good job of telling her story and framing the issues to her advantage.
That said, the general contours of the fall campaign were set — at least as far as the vice-presidency is concerned:
- A mom just like any other
- An accidental candidate who came to politics through the PTA
- A budget hawk
- A reformer
- Executive experience (the use of this trope is an interesting one because it relies on the false notion that all gubernatorial and mayoral experience is the same — as if the mayor of Jamesburg should be running for president; it also places her experience higher on the hierarchy of candidates — she is the only one with any kind of executive experience).
- The liberal, left-wing media — watch for the press to be a major theme
In the end, the Democrats better take this woman seriously but also remember that the election must be a choice between John McCain and Barack Obama, between the Bush legacy and a necessary new direction that restores the ability of government to help Americans.
The Democrats need to take this woman seri
Eyes on the prize
This piece from The Washington Independent is an intelligent look at the pitfalls facing Democrats if they focus too much on Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin — who they have been likening to Dan Quayle — and not on John McCain.
Even as Democrats attacked Quayle and his candidacy deteriorated, the GOP strategist Lee Atwater and his team kept their guns focused on Dukakis. They
painted him as weak on defense, in favor of high taxes and out of touch with mainstream values as a “card-carrying member of the ACLU.”In the end, this was what mattered most to voters. The strategy worked. The Republicans trounced the Democrats. Bush won 53.4 percent of the popular vote and a whopping 426 electoral votes—all with Quayle on the ticket.
The lesson for Democrats is that “they should be cautious.”
If they allow Palin to distract them from their main target — McCain and his support for the unpopular economic and military policies of President George W. Bush — they might just find themselves like Dukakis and Bentsen in 1988, on the losing end.
McCain raises questions about his qualifications
Some interesting thoughts on Sarah Palin and John McCain from the newspapers, as she gets ready to give her vice-presidential acceptance speech.
From The San Francisco Chronicle:
The more we learn about Sarah Palin, the Alaskan governor John McCain has tapped as his running mate, the more we wonder about the presumptive GOP nominee’s judgment.
The revelations of the past few days suggest that McCain’s campaign did not sufficiently scrutinize her background before making the surprising pick. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine that the campaign would allow her to trumpet her opposition to the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” public-works boondoggle as evidence of her reformer credentials – when she supported the project when she was running for governor.
After just the first few days of vetting from the press, here’s what we’ve learned about the 44-year-old Palin: That while it is hard to find solid statements from her on foreign policy, economics or national security, it is easy to find her yet-to-be-explained connection with the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party. She obtained her first passport just last year. She claims to be an energy expert, but she started her campaign by denying the existence of human-caused global warming. Her views on abortion, sex education and gay rights are to the right of the mainstream – which has, apparently, had its intended effect of exciting social conservatives who were heretofore ambivalent about McCain.
Palin is under investigation for ethics violations in connection with allegations that she may tried to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper.
Was McCain so keen to reclaim his “maverick” image that he decided it would be worth the risk of bringing on an unknown who he had only met once? And in a race where McCain’s age has been an issue – he once said he would be sure to pick a vice president who would be ready to lead from the moment he steps into office – does he really expect Americans to be comforted by Palin’s readiness?
Does he even care? Eugene Robinson, in The Washington Post, offers an answer:
We learned last week that John McCain is not who he is — not, at least, who he claims to be. The steady, straight-talking, country-first statesman his campaign has been selling is a fictional character. The real McCain is either alarmingly cynical or dangerously reckless.
You will recall that McCain gave the same prime criterion for choosing a running mate that every presidential candidate gives: someone who is ready to step in as president if, heaven forbid, the need arises. Barack Obama echoed those words before picking Joe Biden, who is about as prepared as a vice presidential candidate could ever be.
You will also recall that McCain and his supporters have been lecturing us about the grave and urgent dangers our country faces — Islamic fundamentalism, the resurgence of Russia and other geopolitical threats. In a menacing world, McCain says, he will keep America safe.
So, at 72 and with a history of cancer, how could McCain choose a vice presidential nominee who has, let’s face it, zero experience in foreign affairs? Being the nominal commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard doesn’t count, unless you think Vladimir Putin is about to order an invasion across the Bering Strait.
At a time when the nation also confronts enormous challenges at home, Palin has, um, slightly more than zero experience in domestic affairs. The reason most people move to Alaska is that it’s different from the rest of the country. Salmon fishing and snowmobile racing are not front-page news in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida.
McCain’s political calculation in choosing Palin is obvious. Social conservatives, who had been unexcited by his candidacy, are ecstatic that he has picked a running mate who staunchly opposes abortion, favors the teaching of “intelligent design” in the public schools and generally embraces the agenda of the religious right.
I have my doubts about the other objective of McCain’s gambit: to win the votes of blue-collar women who supported Hillary Clinton. For one thing, these voters disagree sharply with Palin on most of the issues. For another, initial indications are that many women were insulted at the notion that they would automatically swoon over any candidate who happened to have two “X” chromosomes. Republicans tend to have a comically simplistic view of how “identity politics” works. They should recall how African Americans reacted when Clarence Thomas was named to the Supreme Court.
Whatever the political impact, so much for the John McCain we thought we knew. In choosing Palin, he cynically did the kind of thing that his party is always accusing Democrats of doing: He selected a running mate based on her potential ability to appeal to targeted segments of the electorate rather than for her honestly assessed ability to lead the nation should the occasion arise.
The other thing we learned about McCain is that he is willing to take an enormous gamble based on limited information. He only met Palin once before summoning her for a final interview. He realized he needed to shake up the presidential race, and that’s what he did. But we are reminded, if we did not realize it before, that the three things not to expect from a McCain presidency are caution, prudence and a willingness to always put the nation’s interests above his own.
From E.J. Dionne Jr., in The Washington Post:
Conservatives have complained that we barely know Obama. This is nonsense.
Obama has been put through the journalistic wringer since he entered the public
spotlight four years ago. We have been given fewer than 70 days to get to know
Palin.
The New York Times offers this:
Mr. McCain’s supporters are valiantly trying to argue that the selection was a bold stroke that shows their candidate is a risk-taking maverick who — we can believe — will change Washington. (Mr. Obama’s call for change — now “the change we need” — has become all the rage in St. Paul.)
To us, it says the opposite. Mr. McCain’s snap choice of Ms. Palin reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after conservative activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party if he chose who he really wanted — Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
And, the paper added,
For Mr. McCain to go on claiming that Mr. Obama has too little experience to be president after almost four years in the United States Senate is laughable now that he has announced that someone with no national or foreign policy experience is qualified to replace him, if necessary.
But it is this closing statement that really sums it up:
To address those many problems, this country needs a leader with sound judgment and strong leadership skills. Choosing Ms. Palin raises serious questions about Mr. McCain’s qualifications.
Obama’s theory of government
I want to get back to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech from last night because I think it deserves a little more attention, especially with much of the media being focused on McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his vice-presidential candidate.
Let’s cut through all the peripheries — the exceptional delivery, the massive crowd, etc. — and look at the meat, as they say.
After outlining why most Americans say that the nation is heading down the wrong road — war and joblessness, increasing bills and foreclosures — he reminded the crowd of a very important point:
America, we are better than these last eight years.
He’s right. But what does that mean?
The criticism of Obama has been that his message of hope and change has lack specificity. That is a media meme built on a line of attack used by Hillary Clinton during the primaries and picked up by the GOP, but anyone who has been paying attention knows that Obama has offered a far more detailed plan for the future than his Republican opponent.
That said, it was important that the speech find some way of combining his soaring rhetoric with his specifics — which I think he accomplished, an opinion with which most observers agree.
He defined the mission of government, the “American promise,” as saying
each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.
Ours — ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.
That’s the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.
It is a theory of government that says we are only as good as we treat other people and it is government’s job to act as our surrogate.
It is within this framework that Obama offers his proposals, some quite progressive and some I find troubling. He’s talking about a tax cut for the middle class and small businesses, which seems sensible at a time of economic meltdown. And he is pushing for alternative fuels — though his openness to nuclear power is difficult to understand.
He promised equal pay for equal work and health care for all — something that the Republicans do not view as important.
Ultimately, he made the strong case that he best understands the troubles we are facing and that the Republicans do not, cannot and never will in a way that neither John Kerry nor Al Gore did.
Following the speech, I told Annie that, for the first time, I felt that Obama was likely to win, that he would win over the electorate and that McCain ultimately would be shown to be out of touch. I even started thinking that the election might not be as close as people think.
I have a more sober reaction today — after hearing from some Obama opponents — but I still sense that the Democrat will win the White House come November.
Hank Kalet 