Editorial from a leading right wing Australian daily owned by the same person who owns FOX News
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McCain strikes with a calculated risk
September 01, 2008
ARE the surprises over in the campaign for this year's US elections? Almost certainly not - even the presidential result is still very much in doubt.
John McCain, who will be nominated for president by the Republican national convention this week, has managed to surprise Americans and global onlookers with his weekend announcement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Vice-presidential choices are not normally pivotal in White House elections, but Ms Palin's selection has obvious risks, as the US political and media establishments were quick to point out yesterday. She's never really been on the national stage before, and her conservative moral positions will attract some voters and repel others. But Ms Palin is popular in her state - a quality that could catch on nationally - and there are other, more tangible reasons for thinking the McCain decision could be judged a masterstroke after the US voters deliver their verdicts on November 4.
A year ago, the conventional wisdom insisted that Barack Obama and Senator McCain were unlikely to be their parties' nominees. An astonishing primary campaign season turned that idea on its head. Now the standard-bearer of the Republican party has played his vice-presidential card in the direction of two demographics that are important for him - the conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, who pollsters say suspect his reliability in their moral causes, and women, among whom Democratic candidates usually do better than with male voters. And it could be argued Ms Palin, 44, will have more appeal for young voters than does Senator McCain, who turned 72 last week. The Alaskan is a counter to the Obama camp's claim that only an Obama presidency can provide relief from "business as usual" and the legislative gridlock in Washington.
Ms Palin comes with an undeniably "clean government" label. She gives Senator McCain traction as a president who could achieve reforms, rather than one who would merely represent four more years of the Bush administration. This is because she has been willing to challenge the powerful, even in her own party. The daughter of a schoolteacher and a school secretary, she started small, winning a council seat in the little city of Wasilla at the age of 28, and defeated a tough incumbent mayor four years later.
The then Republican governor Frank Murkowski, a powerful figure and previously a US senator for 22 years, appointed her to the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003, but Ms Palin soon resigned in protest at sleazy ethics among other Republican commissioners, and forced an ethics investigation of one member, the state's Republican party chairman, over conflicts of interest with oil companies that ended in a fine for him. In 2006, she took on Mr Murkowski himself, easily defeating him in a Republican primary. She then took the state's top office in an upset defeat of a Democratic ex-governor.
Her arrival on the US national scene completes a fascinating mix in the rival tickets for the White House. Senator Obama, famous for offering relative youth and freshness but under attack for lacking executive political experience and international expertise, chose as his running mate Joe Biden, who's been in Congress even longer than Senator McCain. Senator Biden, from a battling family, is supposed to lure the working-class supporters of Hillary Clinton. Senator McCain, who is portrayed by some opponents as too old to start in the world's most powerful job and who lacks executive political experience, has opted for gender and age balance and a degree of executive experience with Ms Palin. Each ticket is now in a glasshouse. Senator Obama will have to convince undecided voters he is ready for the Oval Office. Ms Palin will have to convince them she is ready to be one heartbeat away from the same work station. Unlike Senator Obama in July, she is unlikely to have time for a pre-election tour of trouble spots and European capitals in search of foreign-policy credentials.
The subtle digs have begun. The Washington Post editorialised yesterday: "At first glance, there appears to be much to admire in Governor Sarah Palin ... she is a talented and upbeat person who excelled in basketball and beauty pageants, music and moose hunting." It was then conceded that "since entering politics, she has shown independence and a clear moral compass" before the Post wound up with "once the buzz over Ms Palin's nomination dies down, the hard questions about her will begin".
If the Governor from faraway Alaska, population about 684,000, proves a plus for Senator McCain's presumed last bid for the White House as a non-incumbent, then doubts about his sometimes bristling temperament and quirkiness could be forgotten. US voters often place importance on the comfort factor in their candidates - on whom they can identify with and don't mind being beamed into their living rooms on television. If Ms Palin avoids disastrous gaffes due to inexperience, the confident mother of five with a commercial fisherman husband is likely to win millions of fans among ordinary voters. Conservative Republicans will be more motivated to vote. At the least, Ms Palin has probably ensured Senator McCain will have a good convention in Minneapolis-StPaul this week to match the Democrats' show of post-primary unity in Denver last week.
theaustralian.news.com.au |
