September 1, 2008
Exclusive: Thoughts on Gov. Sarah Palin - Her Record Compared to Sen. Obama’sPrint This
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Nicholas Guariglia
Upon hearing that Sen. McCain selected Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, I was genuinely surprised. For weeks now, I felt Mitt Romney was the least risky choice. He had been a successful executive in business and politics, brought economic credentials to the table, put some Democrat states like Michigan in play for McCain’s column, and would hold his own in the debates and on the campaign stump.
Palin’s name was floated out as a possibility by some small grassroots groups, but speculation about her all but ended months ago. While the entire media focused on Romney and Pawlenty, the McCain campaign did a terrific job keeping this selection a secret, and the shock that has been generated in the wake of her announcement has succeeded in overshadowing Sen. Obama’s well-delivered and historic convention speech the night prior. In that regard, mission accomplished.
But what will be the final result of this selection? How will this change the dynamics of the race? Will her newness to the national scene undermine Sen. McCain’s attacks on Sen. Obama’s inexperience, or will it bring greater attention to it? Will her gender be seen as a positive, or will it been perceived as a pander to women? Will Hillary Clinton’s female voters, disenfranchised with Obama, relish this choice and flock to McCain/Palin, or will they feel their own candidate’s historical uniqueness is threatened with the ascension of a woman other than Hillary?
Did McCain just nominate a bold and brilliant governor who will come to be beloved by the country, or an individual who will be seen as unprepared for national office? While campaigning and debating, will Gov. Palin show competence on issues such as Iraq and Iran, or will she flop?
The Obama camp was quick to share its thoughts after learning of McCain’s choice:
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies - that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.
In overlooking her current governorship, and in an attempt to belittle her record by mockingly pointing to “small town” America, these are words Sen. Obama wishes his campaign didn’t utter. Expect to hear them again and again from the McCain team. Jen Rubin from Commentary — alluding to Obama’s April gaffe that Midwesterners were “bitter” and “cling” to their religion and guns — called the “town of 9,000” jab “Bitter Gate II.” (By the way, can we please stop putting “gate” at the end of all our controversies?)
One wonders if this is the intended direction Sen. Obama wants his campaign to go: comparing Palin’s two-years of executive governorship of a strategically significant state - the largest American landmass, bordering Canada and Russia, comprising ANWR and countless oil reserves - to that of Obama’s three years in the Senate (and two of them running for president)? Is that truly the insipid and blah debate the Obama campaign wants to have - comparing Obama’s readiness as a presidential candidate who will assume the presidency, with Palin’s readiness as a vice presidential candidate who will assume the vice presidency? Do they really want to lower their man down like that, to that barometer of comparison?
Am I enthusiastic over the fact that, as a governor, Mrs. Palin has not had to go on public record regarding decisions of war and peace? No. Would I have selected her as my personal running mate? Probably not. (But then again, my ideal presidential dream ticket is John Bolton and James Woolsey.)
The fact of the matter is, in this country, we rarely elect senators to the presidency (this year being an obvious aberration). We usually elect vice presidents, the occasional general, and more often than not, governors. And along with Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Sarah Palin is one of the country’s two most impressive and reform-minded, conservative-leaning, young state leaders. She has held elected executive office since 1992 - what was Obama doing then? - and has had a remarkably successful tenure as governor over the course of the last two years, with an extraordinary rise to the governorship before that. She caught lightning in a bottle and ran with it.
In 2004, she resigned her position as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on ethical grounds. She didn’t like that the chairman of the Alaskan GOP - her party, remember - decided to take a seat on the commission while keeping his political position. Even with her job threatened by the party honchos, she remained steadfast, and in the end the chairman resigned (paying state fines) after Palin disclosed he had a business conflict-of-interest.
In 2006, a midterm year renowned for its difficulties for Republicans, she ran to unseat an incumbent Republican, then-Gov. Frank Murkowski. As told by Gov. Palin, Ben Stevens, then the president of the Republican-led Alaskan Senate - and son of Sen. Ted Stevens - told her, “You’re not just running against Murkowski. You’re running against me, my dad, the whole state Republican Party.”
In just two years, she ran against incumbency, against state hierarchy, challenged corrupt leaders in her own party, and won. She passed ethics reform, fought corruption, created a public savings account with state surplus, slashed taxes, and proved to be a tough and successful negotiator between energy companies vying to construct a national-gas pipeline in Alaska’s North Slope. There’s a reason her approval ratings in Alaska are near 90%. As Jim Carlton of the Wall Street Journal elaborated:
After handily winning, her popularity in Alaska soared as she went on to sack political appointees with close ties to industry lobbyists and shelved pork projects. Gov. Palin has shown similar fearlessness in going after Big Oil, whose money has long dominated the state. She appears, for example, to have forced Alaska’s dominant oil producers, ConocoPhillips and BP PLC, to finally get serious about a natural-gas pipeline - without making any tax or royalty concessions.
“People see her as the symbol of purity in an atmosphere of corruption,” says Anchorage pollster Marc Hellenthal. “She’s more like Saint Sarah.”
In the immediate hours after her selection, there was hope amongst some Obama supporters that Sen. Clinton would condemn the choice of Palin as mere political trickery, nominating another woman in the wake and dearth of Sen. Obama’s odd decision not to ask Hillary to join him on his ticket (and the 18 million votes she brought). Mrs. Clinton put forth her statement, however, and it was not as malignant as some may have wished. “We should all be proud of Gov. Sarah Palin’s historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Sen. McCain,” Clinton applauded.
So aside from chiding Mrs. Palin for formerly being a mayor of a small Alaskan town, what has now become the standard Obama fallback position in the aftermath of this news? It has been to trip into John McCain’s trap, suggesting the nationally unknown Palin is too inexperienced to be a heartbeat away from the presidency (and the potential presidency of a 72-year-old man, to boot).
Coming from Barack Obama, this is, of course, priceless. If that is the avenue Team Obama wants to venture down - comparing the No. 1 guy on the Democrat ticket’s experience to that of the No. 2 guy (well, woman) on the Republican ticket - then that is a debate McCain should welcome with the following inquires: What has Sen. Obama ever run? What business, city, or state has he ever been in charge of? What employees and advisors has he ever had to get the most out of? What cabinet meetings has he ever orchestrated? What corporate agreements has he ever negotiated? What National Guard units has he ever been commander of?
What has he ever vetoed? What budget has he ever overseen? What taxes has he ever cut? What international borders has he ever been in charge of? Other than his daughters, whose safety has he ever been directly responsible for? We know he has voted along party lines 97% of the time, so when has he ever bucked his own party? We know about his relationships with Ayers, Wright, Davis, Rezko, et. al., so what persons of power and prominence has he ever stood up to?
Sen. Obama’s entire career – from community organizing in urban Chicago, to failed political bids, to the Illinois legislator, to 143 days in the Senate before announcing a bid for the presidency – has been one of constant up-the-ladder maneuvering.
Whenever Sen. Obama has sought to ascertain a position of high political prestige, whether he failed or succeeded in that endeavor, he has immediately begun looking to ascertain a position of even higher political prestige. For 12 years, his career has been one of constant campaigning. He seemingly never stops, smells the roses, embraces the political office he has been elected to, and actually governs. His history suggests he is uninterested in such banalities. Obama seems to like the winning, but not the job or responsibility that comes with the winning. With no cheese at the end of the maze, the young lawyer/professor from Southside seems to lose his focus.
So, Barack, besides running for president, what have you ever done? As David Brooks quipped, this election is about the future “and Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.”
Similar jokes could not be made about Palin.
There is a reason why 1960 was the last time the U.S. elected someone from the Senate to the White House. Senators don’t run anything. Governors do. Senators, on the other hand, give speeches, organize fundraisers, and hold occasional committee hearings where they vote “Yes” or “No” on an issue (or in Obama’s case, “Present”). Compared to Gov. Palin’s record, I think the defense rests. Ironically, of the four people on presidential tickets this autumn – McCain, Obama, Biden, and Palin – the only one with executive experience is Palin.
As my good friend and colleague Ryan Mauro joked, “It’s a little like the pot calling the kettle back.” Former Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, has disparaged the choice of Palin, saying “It takes the whole experience issue off the table.” Peter Scoblic of The New Republic makes his anti-Palin case, as well, pontificating the following:
The next president will have to finish the denuclearization of North Korea; prevent the nuclearization of Iran; organize a departure from Iraq that maintains some level of stability; defeat a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan; establish, nurture, and make the most of a relationship with Pakistan’s new leaders; and confront a revanchist Russia…
Could a better case against Barack Obama be made than the above quotation? Is the irony lost on good old Pete? On what grounds does Team Obama question the readiness of McCain’s potential vice president – who would at least, while in office, fill the role of “student in the background” to McCain’s “teacher in the forefront” – when a) the 143-day novice Obama, not the tenured Joe Biden, rests atop the Democratic ticket and b) Palin is, judging from our nation’s history, already more qualified to hold higher executive office than Obama himself anyway?
In the end, like Obama, McCain was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Sen. Obama’s selection of Joe Biden was a good one for him, but it did not come without its detractors. Biden highlighted Obama’s inexperience, they said. His long time in Washington undermined that whole “change” thing, they swore. A lot of this criticism was unwarranted. Had Obama selected someone like Evan Bayh or Tim Kaine, the Republican charge would have been “not one, but two people without experience.”
Biden brings at least a semblance of foreign policy authority to Obama’s ticket and I commend him for it. (Although with voting for the 1980s nuclear freeze and against Reagan’s defense buildup; against the original Gulf War in 1991; for the Iraq trifurcation into ethnic enclaves and against the successful troop surge in the present; and against labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards “terrorists” as W. Thomas Smith, Jr. has so convincingly pointed out, one might be able to question Biden’s “authority” on these matters altogether.)
Likewise, had McCain selected a well-known Romney, we would be hearing endlessly how “rich” the two men were, and how many homes they collectively own. We would be hearing how out of touch a McCain/Romney ticket was, and how much the two hated each other during the primaries.
Rather, McCain picks the down-to-earth Gov. Palin – a likeable historic “first,” the wife of a fisherman, and mother of five, with a son at war – who hunts Caribou, eats Moose burgers, races snow mobiles, belongs to the NRA, and has a beauty contest trophy somewhere on a shelf, and McCain is subsequently castigated for his naiveté.
A can-do independent governor, with a solid maverick record, a deep knowledge of energy exploration – and someone with more executive experience than anyone else in the race – seems like a good selection by my estimation. And it is a good selection particularly for McCain, who is attempting to take the mantle of change from Obama with a reform/maverick platform. The selection of Palin both compensates for McCain’s weaknesses and emphasizes his strengths. What other vice presidential option could that be said about?
On issues alone, she will excite conservatives unlike anything we’ve seen since Reagan (in the one day after her announcement, the McCain campaign has raised $4 million online, more than six times its previous daily record). A large reason public identity with the Republican Party has dropped sharply in the past decade has been due to the conservative movement’s grievances with its own elected Republican leaders, who, in adopting pork-barrel projects, big government programs, high deficits, and greater federal spending, have betrayed many of the tenets of conservatism. Palin has a proven record of challenging that. What other vice presidential option could that be said about?
On character and personal story alone, she appeals to independents and moderate Democrats unlike anything we’ve ever seen – literally. The first female on a national ticket, Walter Mondale’s 1984 running mate Geraldine Ferraro, was a smart and quick-witted candidate, and remains a lovely woman. But today, with instant communications and dispersed information, more people will be able to identify with Palin. I do not personally care whether or not she has kids (she of course does), or whether or not she drives herself 45 miles to work each morning (she does). For many voters, however, stories of this sort will form a connection. When Jonathan Alter of Newsweek is saying she might potentially be “History’s Hockey Mom,” there is a chance that something large could resonate.
That Obama’s team and the mainstream media have criticized this selection so viciously erases any doubts I might have initially had: McCain might be on to something, here. If she can hold her own on foreign policy, and come across not necessarily as a plausible president immediately, but simply as a plausible vice president who could perhaps one day be president, then McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin will be a grand slam.
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