ike/Palin Comparison

Regarding the pick, here are my two cents. My first reaction was to think the pick was incredibly cynical, aimed at women using the lowest common denominator. Through that lens, early indications are that the pick is a failure. Check out these focus groups post speech:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/michigan-indepe.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/female-clinton-supporters_n_123794.html

But I think there was more to it. We know now that McCain was dying to pick Lieberman. Apparently, all that convinced him to go in a different direction was the fact that he would face an all out civil war at the convention if he picked someone pro choice. Rove attributes the entirety of Bush’s margin of victory in 2004 to the three million evangelicals they turned out who hadn’t ever voted before. McCain probably came to the conclusion, after watching the Democrats avoid a train wreck in Denver, that his last best chance was to rev up the base and try to pull in the remaining, disaffected Clinton supporters. So yes, I believe the pick was purely political. There’s no way to justify it otherwise.

It seems ironic and somewhat twisted that, running for president during an unfavorable time for the GOP brand, the maverick rebel would have to embrace the fringiest part of said brand. However, they yell the loudest. And while I believe the 2008 presidential election was decided three years ago when Americans witnessed the fundamental incompetence of their federal government while an entire city drowned, picking Palin may prevent McCain from the embarrassment of a landslide in November.

That being said, I think the pick will have some disastrous repercussions. The pick not only undermined his core, articulated rationale for voting for him (judgment, country first, mature and measured leadership), it also undermined his core, articulated rationale for not voting for his opponent (where’s the beef, charisma isn’t everything, youth, inexperience).

While I’m an unabashed liberal Democrat, I tend to be dispassionate and analytical about political races. I don’t mean this in any sort of shrill, partisan way, but watching the Republican Convention was a little sad. I’ve rarely seen so many uninspired, old, fat white people in one place. Their chants sound like dirges. And I can’t help but feel like we are watching the last gasps of this version of the Republican Party. After the massive losses it’ll endure in November, the GOP will no doubt regroup around core principles: fiscal responsibility; low taxes; strong defense. And I don’t doubt, that with Democrats controlling all facets of government, some scandal over the course of the next decade will allow the GOP to re-introduce itself to American voters. But right now, John McCain is cowtowing to a base that believes that abortion shouldn’t be legal in cases of rape or incest, the world was created in seven days and the war in Iraq was ordained by a higher power. Good luck winning those arguments with a pissed off general electorate after eight years of the most incompetent administration in the history or our country.