As you'd expect after such a surprise pick, I've heard a lot of reactions to the Sarah Palin pick flying around - some supportive, some skeptical.
Most of the responses seem to focus on Palin's inexperience and how it will affect the campaign. I've heard people say Obama's inexperience will make it hard for him to attack Palin for being inexperienced (see below), and I've heard people say Palin's inexperience will make it hard for McCain to attack Obama for being inexperienced (see below!). There is, of course, a big difference between the impact of "inexperience" on the top of the ticket and "inexperience" on the bottom, but McCain's nominee was always going to face extra scrutiny on this count because of McCain's age, something his campaign obviously realized. And maybe, in Palin's case, the argument's not about experience itself. Maybe "picturing a young, attractive, kooky, female governor from Alaska who has an accent straight out of Fargo in the White House is going to be a much bigger leap for many voters than picturing Barack Obama there."
To some, of course, all this analysis can be a bit overwhelming. To quote Palin's father Chuck, "I'd rather go moose hunting than be involved with politics."
Law profs have been among those blogging it up. Orin Kerr is "cautiously optimistic" about Palin and wonders if a norm is shifting and tickets with two white men are going to become relatively rare. Jim Lindgren points to an online forum for Hillary supporters who are apparently gushing with support for Palin. On the other hand, David Post is betting that she'll make a major gaffe during the campaign, and Dan Markel voiced the same thought that's been in the back of my mind: whether picking a comparative unknown might eventually lead to the same sort of backlash that doomed Harriet Miers. (Choosing a running mate isn't so different from nominating Supreme Court justices or Cabinet officials, after all: it's the first indicator of what personal qualities a presidential candidate might look for in such an appointee.)
Forwarded from the Pforzheimer House email list: Palin wrote an op-ed in January for the New York Times which opposed placing polar bears on the endangered species list.
And over at fivethirtyeight.com, Steve Quinn muses that Palin might bait Joe Biden into a particularly devastating gaffe in the vice presidential debate, while Nate Silver probably has the quote of the day: "Palin is the most manifestly ordinary person ever to be nominated for a major party ticket." Whether that will work in her favor (and McCain's) remains to be seen.
At the end of the day, I still think picking Palin was a smart move, but it's definitely also a gamble.
... says the New York Times.
She'd been mentioned a lot earlier this summer but had unaccountably fallen off the radar over the past week or two. But I think she's a pretty smart pick, as a Washington outsider and especially as someone who mirrors McCain's "maverick" storyline. She's challenged Alaska's Republican establishment and - get this - personally killed the Bridge to Nowhere. It'll be interesting to see whether the campaign tries to ignore the Ted Stevens controversy or actively campaigns on it (citing the fact that Palin supported the probe into Stevens's finances).
Romney was probably just too rich to be picked (imagine Housegate II). I don't know that much about Pawlenty, positive or negative. Lieberman would have been a dramatic and gutsy pick: it would have strengthened McCain's appeal to independents immeasurably and made it easier to cast Obama-Biden as far-left liberals, but it would have outraged the conservative base (as Palin notably does not). And it would have made for a very awkward convention in St. Paul.
I'm unconvinced that this makes it a slam dunk for McCain to bring in disaffected Hillary supporters, but picking a woman certainly couldn't hurt.
My thoughts on Obama's speech and the DNC to follow later today. (See, this was exactly why McCain announced today! The one way to draw the spotlight 12 hours after Obama's speech. A few people speculated that he'd do it yesterday, overshadowing the speech, but that would have looked really bad. Better to do it today.)
Posted by: Adam Hallowell in Untagged on
Aug 26, 2008
I didn't get a chance to see too much of the coverage yesterday, as I was traveling to semi-rural Pennsylvania dial-up country for a week or two back home. At least it will be an interesting vantage point for convention-watching. Nick has a good list of policy issues to look for (though I noticed it didn't include foreign policy - does Biden have that nailed down already?) but over the next few days it will also be interesting to follow the personal strands of the conventions. And by that I don't mean selling the candidates as likeable people (though Michelle and the kids seem to have done a great job of that last night); I mean making the case on personal qualities relevant to political style.
The Economist magazine has a nice feature article this week on Obama, praising him for his "essential pragmatism" but pointing out the flip side of that, a "go-along-to-get-along attitude" and a disinclination to rock the boat, even in Chicago's less-than-spotless political machine. That's understandable, even an asset, in a legislator, but it's tougher to see how that stance would play out in the executive branch. This week I think Obama needs to subtly but strongly confront the idea that he's, not a flip-flopper (because that connotes more bending to polls than is the case), but a politician constantly currying favor with other legislators. He needs to overcome the criticism that his general message of change (long a big winner for him) may hide the fact that (as The Economist wrote elsewhere) "he has never exhibited political courage by daring to take on any of his party's powerful interests." This is true of many politicians, understandably, but one it's certainly not true of is John McCain. In fact, his role as the Original Maverick is probably the most pithy and coherent message he's had this summer (which is why we saw it ad nauseam during the Olympics). It's a good line, even if it is a little too close for my taste to Hillary's "experience of change" mantra from the primaries.
Hillary will be another big personal story to watch, especially with her speech this evening, to see what tensions remain on that front. I'm not imagining that she'll be openly combative on the podium, of course, but it's possible that her support of Obama may sound less than full-throated. That sort of dissonance is why I think the decision to officially place Hillary's name in nomination for the roll-call vote this evening was very poor strategy, unnecessarily reopening old wounds. That move, incidentally, was championed by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who of course remains resolute in voicing support of Obama, as reported by our steadily shrinking area newspaper. And the paper noted another Pennsylvania storyline this evening: Sen. Bob Casey Jr. will speak this evening, reviving memories of how his pro-life father was denied the chance to address the 1992 Convention.
Issues are largely what matter at the end of the day, but there will still be people on the podium this week, and those people are what America watches conventions for.
Posted by: Adam Hallowell in Vice President on
Aug 22, 2008
I agree with Sam that the drumbeat of running mate speculation is starting to get a little monotonous. But I think the delay might actually be good strategy for Obama, for a couple reasons.
1. Building up a crescendo of press speculation is a good way to cut through the Olympics coverage. Naming a running mate is one of the biggest moments of a presidential campaign, and when the nation's collective attention is focused on Beijing, it's natural that Obama would need to do a little more than he otherwise would to draw that attention. That's why Obama hasn't opted for a drop-of-the-hat announcement: it's easy to picture it getting lost amidst the excitement of Phelps Phest, for instance. Keeping the VP choice on everybody's mind for a week is definitely the best way to undermine that focus on the Olympics. (This issue didn't come up in 2004, by the way, because Kerry named Edwards as his choice on July 6 - and the DNC was two and a half weeks before the Olympics that year, after all.)
2. Sean Quinn at FiveThirtyEight.com points out that, right now, McCain has handed Obama perhaps the best sound bite he's had for a week or two by forgetting just how many houses he owns. It's a bad gaffe, and why shouldn't the Obama campaign milk it for all it's worth for a few days before announcing his choice?
A further observation from FiveThirtyEight (a personal favorite, due to their detailed electoral vote projections and thorough polling analysis): the buildup makes it much more difficult for the Obama to unveil a surprise. A dark horse candidate risks being anticlimactic after all the speculation. That's compounded by the Obama campaign's offer to text message his choice to anyone who signs up: millions of people "furiously checking Wikipedia" is not the best way to build a narrative for your running mate.
If I had to guess who the pick is, by the way, I'd probably say Tim Kaine, mainly just because of Virginia's role as a swing state. But I really have no idea who Obama has picked - and I think he might want it that way for a few more days.
