Matthew Yglesias » VP Who?

Aug 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

VP Who?

Okay, this confirms what I’d only inferred earlier — John McCain’s barely met or spoken to Sarah Palin, and other key McCain aides have never met her at all, with some of his main supporters being as ignorant about her as any normal person would be:

As Chuck Todd says at the end of that clip, this probably won’t matter politically. The Palin choice was a savvy news cycle gambit on one of the few days of the campaign in which VP picks make a difference. If all you care about is “winning” the news cycle, then I guess you don’t need to know the person at all. If you care about governing . . . .

Comments
97

Filed under: mccain, Palin,

97 Responses to “VP Who?”

Bahrad Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
From the Time interview (with the Iraq bit excerpted in the earlier piece):

The Republican party nationwide has a lot challenges. What ideas do you have to bring the party back, to gain back majorities in Congress, to change the platform to appeal to more people?

The planks in our party’s platform — they’re sound, they are solid. They are the right agenda for America. I know the Republican platform is right for my state in Alaska because the planks we can stand solidly on are respect for equality and respect for life and an acknowledgment that it is individual Americans and American families who can make better decisions for ourselves than government can ever make for us. So individual freedom and independence is extremely important to me and that’s why I’m a Republican, and there are planks in our platform that reflect that.
howard Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
these people are so wrapped up in their own world view that they truly have become incoherent: a “gimmicky” pick the day after a statesmanlike address watched by north of 38M people “wins” the news cycle?

one of my fantasies is to become as wealthy as bill gates, buy one of the cable news networks, and fire every single on-air talent and start again trying to build a news network.
G C Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Pat Buchanan said that the Palin pick was the “biggest political gamble I believe just about in American political history.” Interesting thing to say about a candidate like McCain with a known weakness for craps.

Only recently have McCain’s aides urged him to pull back from the pastime. In the heat of the G.O.P. primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.

“He clearly knows that this is on the borderline of what is acceptable for him to be doing,” says a Republican who has watched McCain play. “And he just sort of revels in it.”

Dan Gerstein, a former adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman, in the New York Daily News:

In picking an unknown, untested, half-a-term woman governor from Alaska to be his running mate, John McCain is following in a long line of reckless men who have rolled the dice for a beauty queen. Except in this case, McCain is taking one of the biggest, boldest gambles in modern American political history.

Did McCain roll the dice with the vice presidency?
kay Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
yeah,

forcing me to give birth–the ultimate freedom!
Johnny E Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
OFF TOPIC:

Will Matt or someone please post the link to a 1-3 pages issues chart that accurately and fairly compares the candidates’ (Obama/McCain) views on the major issues? This would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Obama/Biden ‘08

(Matt, this is the last time I’ll post this–I don’t want to spam your blog)
bobbo Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
It seems pretty clear to me that McCain decided he wanted a woman, met her and liked her on a personal level. And when I say “personal level,” I mean he thought she was hot. Seriously. There is no strategy here at all. Just an old man with his personal tastes.
G C Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Did McCain roll the dice with the vice presidency? We know he’s fond of craps.
G C Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Excellent, my first double post on the new Yglesias blog.
kay Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
our system is so broken that this could work. the women in my suburban community because se has “family values” and is “pretty”.
michellekabbott Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Chuck Todd says she has given him a very good day one. That’s not my impression based on the reaction on cable news.
Bahrad Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
You probably think “bobbo” is joking in his comment, but did you see him fiddling with his wedding ring through her whole speech?
vankleggenhorn Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
This feeds the perception of McCain shooting from the hip without regard for the consequences. It’s also in line with his idea of “humor,” along with the $5 million middle class, Obama the celebrity, etc., etc. The guy really is a geriatric adolescent (feel free to use). The man has issues.
JJF Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
A quote from John McCain on NPR this June about the role of the V.P.:

“The vice president really only has two duties. One is to cast a tiebreaking vote in the Senate, and the other is to inquire daily as to the health of the president,” he has said.

That’s the answer to the question that Sarah Palin asked a month ago:

“As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration.”

Makes you wonder if she’s asked McCain about his health today.
bobbo Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I was not fiddling with my wedding ring, though I — oh, you mean McCain. Oh yes he was!
JMG Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Focusing on instant reaction is insane. The question is, how will this pick look on October 29, not August 29. Palin may wear well as a campaign presence. I don’t know, knowing nothing about her whatsoever. Or she may not.
Matt’s point, of course, is that McCain doesn’t know either. When things get tough, he pulls a solution out of the old posterior. That should serve him well in his relationship with Vladimir Putin.
It’s really getting harder to avoid the conclusion McCain is an active menace to the world and the US especially.
KCinDC Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
What are Chuck Todd’s other two important days for a VP? Is one of them the day the VP has to take over for the president?
Fred C Dobbs Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
As the last lines of the Politico article put it:

Another Republican cited a line from “This Is Spinal Tap”: “There is a fine line between clever and stupid.”

In the next 67 days, we’ll learn which side the Palin selection falls on.
mitch Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
My view is that McCain’s first choice pulled out (or they decided against) at the last minute, and they were desperate to choose someone else for Friday (as they promised). Maybe they had someone in mind, but after the convention, they realized it would be a bad choice, and had to quickly make a new pick…
mitch Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
My suspician is that McCain’s first choice pulled out (or they decided against) at the last minute, and they were desperate to choose someone else for Friday (as they promised). Maybe they had someone in mind, but after the convention, they realized it would be a bad choice, and had to quickly make a new pick…
eggsoregano Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I missed the koolaid pitcher on the way here. Can I still get some? Is there any more of the rose colored koolaid? Seems that’s the favorite here.
Mary Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The Washington Post Editorial Board and Charles Krauthammer, good neocons all, have two pieces up questioning McCain’s judgment in picking Palin based on the experience issue. Clearly, this was a rash decision that made a whole new slice of the establishment angry at McCain. I think there must be something seriously wrong with him.
Jeffrey Davis Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
This whole thing depresses me no end. 24 hours ago, the chief Republican talking point was “inexperience”. As the poet saith, “How easily things go.”

The entire party stopped on a dime and did a 180. I suppose if your psyche has been ripped to tatters by accepting torture as a national pastime, then a few more shreds here or there won’t matter. But, still, it’s depressing to see how malleable and phony we are as a species. Convenience. Convenience. Convenience.
Mark S. Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Winning the News Cycle = Making People Wonder if You’ve Lost Your Freaking Mind.

When did McCain sew up the nomination? Early March? You mean to tell me he has had all of this time to think about who he would select and he ended up picking someone he’s talked to once or twice? It really looks like Amateur Hour.
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
What are Chuck Todd’s other two important days for a VP? Is one of them the day the VP has to take over for the president?

Probably when she gives her speech on Wednesday and the day of the vice presidential debate.
lampwick Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Must suck to be Romney right now. He swallowed $40 million in debts just to get a shot at the VP, and now he’s been supplanted by a cheerleader.
Jim Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
After a morning and afternoon of mostly negatives about Palin, I turned on the radio and listened to Shields and Brooks on PBS Newshour discuss the choice. It was nothing like I had heard before. Shields (who I thought was a moderate to liberal Catholic Democrat but has always cut McCain alot of slack ["yes, he made that decision but you could tell he didn't like having to do it because of his integrity and honor"] said that it was a great move because Palin as well as her husband are come from working class stock, he is Native American and works for BP in the north oil fields; women, particularly working class women, in the 35 to 54 age group will identify with her; re pro life Evangelicals, she has not just talked the talk about her stand against abortion, but chose to give birth at age 44 to a Down Syndrome baby, so she has walked the walk and evangelicals who were not thrilled with McCain will be thrilled with her. All and all, a “brilliant” Rovian move which makes me wonder if she would have been chosen if Hillary had been chosen to be Obama’s running mate? In the end the “masters of campaign strategy” picked someone (McCain had hardly met Palin at the time he chose her) for their ability to get the votes of the white working class women 35-54 without giving a whit about whether she is qualified to govern if McCain does not make it through his term. This is consistent with the Republicans ability to run great campaigns and govern horribly.
dB Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
If you were a marketing executive for a big retail company, would you completely ignore R&D and product development when you were putting together your next ad campaign? My guess is no. Chuck Todd apparently would. That’s why Chuck Todd is a professor of political communications — a completely empty discipline.
mark Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Yeah, Mark S., it’s either incredibly cavalier of him (possible) or she wasn’t his choice until recently. I agree with Mitch: it looked an awful lot like Pawlenty yesterday.
Deborah Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
3 advantages I’m not seeing much about:
1. The mountain west libertarians. She may play well in that demographic–the response has been awfully east coast.
2. The emerging frame from the Democratic convention of the future vs the past. Jindal might have been better–new, young, with health care experience–but this does get a new fresh face reformer type up there for the Republicans. It might mitigate the past/future frame in a way that Joe Lieberman (my dream pick) would not.
3. Tempting Democrats into being nasty elitists. Dismissing her state, the Miss Congeniality jabs, the “oh Biden will toast her” based on zero knowledge of how she comes across in debates–a lot of followers need to be slapped onto the issues wagon and off the personal poison. Pretend she were a man–she’d be an outside the box pick, sure, and they wouldn’t keep making the PUMA plays, but there’d be less “har har he goes fishing.” How to put this….the assumption of her inadequacy seems to take her gender into account. Bad move.
tai Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
On whether the Palin pick is a gimmick or more strategic, and following up on Jim’s question above: try a thought-experiment. If Obama had picked Bayh, Kaine, or even Hillary as a running mate, would McCain have picked Palin? Not likely. Many pundits are touting this as a real “out of the box” choice for McCain that attests to his maverick sensibilities. But one point that’s being lost here is what a box McCain must have found himself in after Obama tapped Biden for VP.

McCain’s only shot at the presidency relied on the support of one of two key voting blocks: the social conservatives who put Bush in power for two terms or the independents he was successful in attracting earlier in his political career. Had Obama picked a relatively unknown but “change” candidate like Bayh or Kaine, it’s almost certain McCain would have picked one of his buddies (Ridge, Lieberman, Giuliani, or even Romney) and pounded home the experience argument to scare up support among independents. He would have lost support with social conservatives, but this would have hopefully been offset by the gains he’d make with moderates. And the tightening polls before Obama’s Biden pick last weekend suggest that this is exactly the group that McCain was beginning to make inroads with. My sense is that his well of support with the right-wingers is pretty much tapped out at this point.

The Biden pick forced McCain to go back to that well. Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Ridge, etc. would have pretty fairly split independents and blue-collar voters and the loss of social conservatives would have been devastating to McCain in November. So what does McCain do? He finds a candidate who’ll be sufficiently popular among social conservatives who at the same time (and this must have been the hard part) represents the changing face of the GOP, trying to attract as many independents as he can. What this suggests, I think, is just how strategic Obama’s choice of Biden has been in defusing the experience argument. So the Palin pick isn’t gimmicky. But nor does it reflect any real strategy from the McCain camp. More than anything, it reflects the paucity of options for Republicans this election season. Say what you will about the long drawn-out tensions between Obama and Hillary supporters, but this hasn’t been a problem for Democrats in 2008.
Just Dropping By Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
she has not just talked the talk about her stand against abortion, but chose to give birth at age 44 to a Down Syndrome baby

Actually, there seems to be some plausible evidence circulating that it’s not really her baby. Which would help explain why she can so cavalierly dump him on other caregivers while jetting off to run for VP.
tomj Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
This feels like Clarence Thomas or Alberto Gonzales, promoted because they could remember what the party line was and because they didn’t look like Republicans.

Republicans do this whenever they really need to get in a partisan, someone they can control. It is important that they don’t think independently in an objective sense, but are too dumb to figure this out. Finally they have to be able to lie and spin out of any situation once they figure out that they have been exposed as partisan hacks.

But currently, she seems more advanced than Thomas and Gonzales, she was elected, but from a position of weakness, and her over-reach is freshman in skill.
Adam Villani Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
This feels like Clarence Thomas or Alberto Gonzales, promoted because they could remember what the party line was and because they didn’t look like Republicans.

I always got the impression that Gonzalez got the job primarily because he was a close friend of GWB who had a similar disregard for the rule of law, and the “see, look, Latinos can be Republican, too” aspect was just sort of frosting on the cake.

Clarence Thomas, though, was definitely a “look, we found a black Republican!” choice.
JonF Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Re: Jindal might have been better–new, young, with health care experience–but this does get a new fresh face reformer type up there for the Republicans.

If McCain seriously considered Jindal at the end, Hurricane Gustav put a stop to that. There is no way Jindal could show up in St Paul to party with a hurricane ravaging his state. And if the hurricane does turn into a major disaster the effect would be horribly bad, dredging all the bad Katrina memories too. Together with his youth and his general flakiness and weird appearance (come on, Jindal looks like he hails from the Indian branch of the Addams Family), this would be the end of McCain presidential hopes.

Re: Dismissing her state, the Miss Congeniality jabs, the “oh Biden will toast her” based on zero knowledge of how she comes across in debates–a lot of followers need to be slapped onto the issues wagon and off the personal poison.

As far as Alaska, the slogan need to be “Sarah Jindal, governor of the most socialistic state in the union”.
howard Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
jim, it is my belief that as it seeps into the public mind that john mccain has barely met the person he proposes to put one heartbeat away, the sheer irresponsibility of that choice will overwhelm whatever roveian targetted demographics anyone thinks she might bring on board.
Dan Kervick Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I don’t think we can complain about the Sarah Palin pick giving the news cycle to John McCain when Matt himself has given us ten posts today – ten! – about Sarah Palin and/or Alaska. Never before have I seem Matt so manically obsessed with a single person.
SLC Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Aside from everything else, this pick highlights the difference between Senator McCain and Senator Obama as to their gambling habits. Senator McCain is notorious for being a high stakes craps shooter in Las Vegas. Senator Obama is a poker player whose reputation therein is rather conservative. This reflects their choice of VP candidates as McCain rolls the dice with Palin while Obama bets conservatively with Biden. In poker terms, the Palin looks like McCain is drawing to an inside straight.
big truck Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Obama’s new Ayers line: I know him about as well as John McCain knows his VP.
El Cid Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I also would not let McCain off the hook by declaring that this is ‘just political’, and assume that Palin’s extreme fundamentalist right wing beliefs do in fact indicate how the McCain administration would govern.
Soullite Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Good luck holding on to those backlash voters who have been through a custody battle or a divorce. Palin is a woman who’s claim to fame is that she used her office to get her sister’s husband fired, just so her custody battle could go easier. When called on it, she pointed to her sisters accusations, only made when after she entered said custody battle, that he was abusive.

John McCain just fucked up big time. He’s dreaming of winnin over a few extra % points of the women’s vote, but he likely just lost a lot more of his base male vote in the process. Every guy has dated a woman like Palin, and every guy has had to endure breaking up with her. She’s the kind of woman who throws a brick through your windshield, and when you call the cops she tried (all too often successfully) to have you arrested for abuse instead.
tomj Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Compare Palin’s roll-out with Biden. We got immediate support from all of those on the short list. Do we have any reaction from McCain’s supposed short list? No. Not even from surrogates of those on the short list. Everyone has gone to ground. THAT is the story.
tomj Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
big truck,

Is that your line, or did Obama say it? Sounds good, but not quite true.
Ed Marshall Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Deborah is really smart. I miss the old atlantic system because I could pay watch the new comments on the front page without checking every last thread. Deborah, El Cid, Dan K(something) are why I read the thing more than Matt Y.

I was more or less in the “where the fuck did this bimbo come from?” camp, but if Deborah says watch out, watch out.
Austin Avery Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I don’t remember ever agreeing with Karl Rove, but if you replace Kaine with Palin here, I have to say he’s on the money:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNu1uRcs87I&eurl=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×177694
Kwaayesnama Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
The vice president is one breath away from becoming president. When the president is 72 with health issues she is 1/2 a breath away! This is the person that will protect this nation from extremists? Excuse me!
howard Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
tomj, i’m pretty sure it’s big truck’s line, but it’s brilliant!
Chris Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Sure, if you consider it “winning” a news cycle to spend the day making people ask, “You picked *whom* to be your running mate?” followed by, “Oh, seriously?” – and “Who the hell is *that*?” – and “Wow, is 28 years the biggest gap between running mates ever?”
neil Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
How to put this….the assumption of her inadequacy seems to take her gender into account.

Maybe it’s wrong to assume she’s a token pick, but if she is, it seems somewhat reasonable to think that she’s likely inadequate.

But I do think it’s possible that McCain is counting on women forming a backlash against his opponent based on sexist mistreatment of his running mate. If he just can capture some of that Hillary-in-New-Hampshire magic…
ml Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Isn’t it possible that this is all a trap. Consider the following:

1.) Tommorrow is the last day people can contribute before McCain is limited to federal funds and this move plays well with base donors.

2.) Palin is under investigation for credible abuse of power allegations, and it is almost certain she has made false statements in the course of this investigation.

3.) Given Palin’s past disagreements with the party establishment, this move allows McCain to get his ‘maverick’ cred back, deserved or not.

4.) This move seems to be a play for alienated women voters who are bitter about HRC not being considered for the VP slot, and enables McCain to say he was willing to choose a woman for VP.

5.) It draws dems into talking about the importance of experience, and some dems into making sexist comments.

6.) It enables McCain to win the 24 hour news cycle today after a great speech by Obama.

7.) It allows the McCain campaign to instruct Palin to withdraw at a future date and win that cycle as well.

8.) It allows the McCain campaign to win a second future news cycle when they announce a new VP.

9.) By all accounts McCain and Palin have only spoken twice, briefly before today.

10.) Palin’s abuse of power investigation provides the perfect cover to have her step down

11.) Palin doesn’t believe in Dinosaurs

12.) Palin comes from a state in McCain’s column already.

13.) We’ve seen this move before with Harriet Myers, where we Dems blew up at the pick, making the next guy look like gold, even though he’s arguably more dangerous.

–> She won’t ever debate Biden
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
No. Not even from surrogates of those on the short list. Everyone has gone to ground. THAT is the story.

Worse than that – Pawlenty and/or Romney’s surrogates are apparently giving anonymous quotes to any reporter who cares to speak to them about how pissed off their boss is.
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
7.) It allows the McCain campaign to instruct Palin to withdraw at a future date and win that cycle as well.

8.) It allows the McCain campaign to win a second future news cycle when they announce a new VP.

Indeed, that worked tremendously for McGovern. He certainly looked like a mensch when he unceremoniously dropped Eagleton from the ticket. And then when he finally got poor Sargent Shriver to agree to be his running mate after everybody else in the party said no, his path to the White House was clear.

If Palin had to withdraw the whole thing would be a major disaster for McCain. The point with Miers wasn’t that Bush came out of it looking good. He did not. He came out of it looking like an idiot. The point was that conservatives got what they wanted, because they got a much more conservative nominee.

The upshot of Palin withdrawing might be a more solid VP nominee (although if I were Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge, I would like Ted Kennedy and Ed Muskie in 1972 say no thank you in the wake of such a debacle), just as Shriver was a more solid pick than Eagleton. But it wouldn’t matter. The upshot would be that McCain would look like a total and complete fool, and his campaign would be utterly crippled. Bush didn’t have to win an election with Sam Alito as his running mate two months after the Miers fiasco – he just had to get Alito through the Senate, a very very different task.

So, in summary, your conspiracy theory is nonsensical and ridiculous.
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Further point:

Sometimes Republicans just make stupid mistakes. Harriet Miers was not a conspiracy planned from the beginning. It was a stupid mistake which Bush managed to retrieve.

Many other stupid Republican mistakes aren’t retrieved at all. The Republicans are not super geniuses who have everything planned out ahead of time. The McCain campaign has for a long time been all about winning the daily news cycle rather than creating any kind of long term narrative. That was working for a while, but Obama and the Democrats demolished virtually all of those things in the convention.

And when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so obviously the McCain people saw the solution to this as being to pick a VP who would win them a news cycle. Mission accomplished, sort of. But the basic fact is that they weren’t really thinking past today. (And even today things have probably gotten uglier than they were expecting).

This whole pick came totally out of nowhere. It’s not just that Palin is obscure and not really known outside her home state. The same could be said of most of the governors both candidates were looking at – Kaine and Sebelius on Obama’s side, Crist, Jindal, and Pawlenty on McCain’s. But all those people were, at the very least, repeatedly mentioned in the press as possible running mates, and wouldn’t have been too surprising had they come. Palin wasn’t talked about at all. She didn’t get any invitations to the ranch to chat with McCain. The whole thing was ginned up at the last minute to win the news cycle today. It’s astonishingly irresponsible.

The best result for the Republicans here is obviously not that her scandal erupts big time and she has to withdraw. That would pretty obviously be the worst result for McCain. I can’t imagine why anyone would think otherwise. Basically, McCain will have made an ass of himself, and then still ended up with Romney, or whoever, as his running mate. The best result is pretty clearly that she charms the nation, proves somewhat less lightweight than expected, and brings in a few not-very-political women voters.

Don’t look for conspiracies everywhere. Usually things are just as they appear.
ml Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
John, I think this is very different. The point isnt that mccain needs to look like a mensch to win the cycle
its that he needs to dominate the news at a time when obama should to win it. I’m not saying it’s a winning strategy for McCain even if it’s true, I’m saying this pick is too good/fucked up to be true, so I call shenanigans. We should be careful not to get sucked into talking up the importance of experience or saying anything sexist.
ml Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Well John, I’m not sure you know what a conspiracy means. A conspiracy is an agreement by 2 or more people to break the law at some point in the future. I am saying that this is too good to be true and they may be engaged in manipulating the press/news cycle.

I hope you’re right, but I think there’s a good chance you’re not.
big truck Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
tomj,

It’s my line. Didn’t mean to confuse anyone, sorry!
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
John, I think this is very different. The point isnt that mccain needs to look like a mensch to win the cycle
its that he needs to dominate the news at a time when obama should to win it.

How on earth does McCain having to pick a new vice presidential running mate because his first running mate had to withdraw because of a scandal that was already public at the time he picked her cause him to “win the cycle”? Is the assumption that any publicity is good publicity?

The Eagleton fiasco certainly got McGovern a great deal of press attention. It was just terrible press attention that made him look like a fool. Things have changed since 1972, but they haven’t changed that much. I don’t understand what advantage is supposed to accrue to McCain from having his running mate, who was brutally mocked for being totally unprepared to be president, then have to withdraw because of a tawdry abuse of power scandal in Alaska. How on earth is that good for McCain? What is good for McCain about it? If that happens, Obama won’t need to dominate any news cycles, because the McCain campaign would be imploding before our eyes. At that point, who would even want to be McCain’s running mate? Romney and Pawlenty are pissed off. There are no obvious elder statesmen to turn to. Someone like Rob Portman would likely be the Sargent Shriver of the present day Republican party. And, presumably, if he were picked, people would say “well, after the Palin disaster, that’s a sensible pick. But what a fiasco!” And it’s not like someone like Portman would actually bring in any votes. All he would do is staunch the bleeding.

Basically, I don’t understand why the scenario you lay out would leave McCain in a better position at the end of it than if he had just picked Mitt Romney to begin with.
Chris Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
ml, I wouldn’t put something like this past Rove. It would get McCain the conservative support and donations he’s been missing all along. If Palin is perceived as being forced out by a scandal (blamed on the democrats of course), he keeps that conservative good will . . . unless they figure out they’ve been duped.

Hope it doesn’t happen.
ml Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
To the extent dems are baited to talk up experience and/or make sexist gaffes, it is better for him vis-a-vis bitter HRC supporters than not considering a woman and picking one of the people he actually met with at length.

To the extent it pumps cash out of the base on the last day before he’s limited to federal funds, it’s better for him than if he picks someone the base is tepid about on that last day.

To the extent the 24 hour networks would be talking about how awesome Obama’s speech was but instead are puzzling over this puzzling pick, it’s better than if he went conventional.

That said, she doesnt seem viable in the long run, and they are professionals. They might miscalculate, but they’re calculating.
big truc Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
ml,

I think your scenario’s far-fetched. Is it even possible to recall your VP after the convention? Even if it is, it would be incredibly humiliating for McCain, probably instantly losing him the election.

But you’re very right to point out the potential booby traps Palin is rigged with. Appearing to bully her could piss off women, and every time an Obama surrogate points out her pathetic resume, you can be sure the Republicans are filing the soundbyte away for future use against Obama.

I think the best bet for Obama/Durbin is to play lightly with Palin, ask her lots of polite questions that force her to betray her policy ignorance, and let her hang herself in the media circus.
Ed Marshall Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
She was a Buchanan 2000 supporter. Maybe she is a total ignoramus on foreign policy as supposed, (and that’s bad) but what sort of Buchanan 2000 supporter didn’t say something bad about Israel.
John Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I think your scenario’s far-fetched. Is it even possible to recall your VP after the convention?

C.f., once again, Eagleton. It’s possible until the electoral votes are cast. The RNC could name a new running mate. But, yeah, it would be a total fiasco.

There are some traps, but I think the best response is mostly to ignore her. It’s not her fault John McCain is an idiot.

By the way, did anyone see these quotes from Palin’s home paper?

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her the news.

“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”

Green, who has feuded with Palin, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that’s far from guaranteed.

House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez, was also astonished at the news. He didn’t want to get into the issue of her qualifications.

“She’s old enough,” Harris said. “She’s a U.S. citizen.”

And those are the Republicans!
Bryce Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 1:10 am
How long until “picked the Palin” replaces “nuked the fridge”…
carsick Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I like Chuck Todd but conventional wisdom doesn’t account for over 38 million people watching an acceptance speech. Things are changing. I think McCain was still thinking the Bush/Rove rules still worked.
too many steves Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 1:32 am
John, re: the quotes from her hometown paper, if the GOP establishment in Alaska hates Palin, that’s a huge point in her favor.
Matt D. Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Well, according to CNN…

She enters an already historic election, knowing well two of the biggest things McCain needs her to do: shore up votes among social conservatives and win over disaffected Hillary Clinton-supporting Democrats, many of them women.

PUMAs strike again!

Seriously though, it looks almost like McCain bought his own FUD and blew his VP pick targeting a mostly-fictional demographic. Go team McCain.
roger Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 2:19 am
I couldn’t help laughing all day. McCain has jumped the shark. It would have been a very clever idea to have a woman vp. There are, as it happens, a lot of Republican women with national profiles. There’s Libby Dole. There’s Kay Baily Hutchenson. There’s Christine Todd Whitman. He could even have scored by promoting some CEO, like Carla Fiorina, formerly of Hewlett Packard, a big McCain fan.

These are serious women, whatever one might think of their politics. This pick says both I love me them women and all women are really alike, aren’t they? It is an insult to American women, and I can’t believe it won’t be felt that way. The VP spot is something a little different from wining the lottery.

Only an insulated, country club set of corrupt old guys could have thought that this was a great gambit. It is – for a sit com.
Ed Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 4:01 am
The Palin pick reminds me alot of the 1984 Ferraro pick, but it may turn out that Dan Quayle will be a better analogy. Neither are good precedents.

I wasn’t crazy about the Biden pick either. The best analogy I can think of Alben Barkeley, but there are similarities to the 1972 Eagleton pick too, but hopefully without the history of mental illness.

McCain’s pick was riskier, in having more potential upside and more potential downside, which indicates that the overall odds at this point still favor Obama.
bob h Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 7:20 am
The McCain-Pallin body language is peculiar. She obviously feels uncomfortable embracing or kissing him. It is as though she finds him repulsive.
John Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 8:19 am
John, re: the quotes from her hometown paper, if the GOP establishment in Alaska hates Palin, that’s a huge point in her favor.

I guess. That they couldn’t swallow their dislike of her and say something nice to the paper when she was just nominated to be made no longer their problem does not seem to me to be a point in her favor.

I wasn’t crazy about the Biden pick either. The best analogy I can think of Alben Barkeley, but there are similarities to the 1972 Eagleton pick too, but hopefully without the history of mental illness.

Lyndon Johnson was the same sort of pick as Barkley – both were Democratic leader in the Senate. I’m not sure why you think that, though, and particularly not sure why you think of Eagleton. The picks that come to mind for me are Hubert Humphrey, Ed Muskie, and Walter Mondale – picking a solid, experienced Senator from the party’s ideological mainstream. It’s a totally cautious, conservative pick, and one that shouldn’t hurt him so long as Biden can keep from any embarrassing gaffes for the next two months.

It certainly is a very different kind of pick from McCain’s.
Jose Padilla Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 8:36 am
If McCain wanted a pro-life, conservative female VP, why not Liddy Dole? She’s very experienced and she’d have helped him in N. Carolina, Virginia and Florida. More importantly, she would have kept alive the Republican streak, dating back to 1976, of having a Bush or a Dole on the Presidential ballot –somthing that I think said a lot about the Republicans.
RichardJ Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Probably the “how many homes do you have” issue got to McCain, and he dumped Romney; picking Mitt made a lot of sense even if they do hate each other. But why Palin? Can McCain still claim he puts country first, when he would to this to win an election??
John Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 9:18 am
This article suggests an unsurprising account of how this came about.

Basically, McCain really really wanted to pick Lieberman. His advisors told him he couldn’t, and he finally agreed last Monday. Then he was going to pick Pawlenty or Romney, but he thought they were both boring, and wanted to find someone exciting.

Thinking that Palin might be an exciting “maverick,” McCain secretly got “lawyers” to vet her (she hadn’t been vetted before this week!), without telling his own senior campaign staff. Then he got her to fly out to Dayton and picked her.

So, basically, this was a last minute pick which McCain concealed from his own top advisers, and she’s barely been vetted…
RichardJ Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 9:25 am
So he finally decided he needed a point guard more than a boring power forward. (And someone not tall….)
Luke Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 9:29 am
We’re attributing way too much rationality to the thought process. I’m betting they had a list of attributes they’d like in a VP, and either a) Jindal said no because of Gustav or b) they ruled out Jindal because of his ethnicity and moved to door #2.

I think this is more Eagleton than Quayle. I’d be willing to bet that the McCain camp was largely unaware of the ethics violations.

I also think Biden will make her cry during the debates, and the ensuing discussion will challenge our nation’s historic records of inanity.
John Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I think this is more Eagleton than Quayle. I’d be willing to bet that the McCain camp was largely unaware of the ethics violations.

There seems to have been practically no vetting. The chances of this totally blowing up in their faces seem high.
Audie Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 10:09 am
It’s highly doubtful that Gov. Palin is ready for prime time. The choice proves—- if anyone needs proof—- that McCain is a ’shoot first and ask questions later’ person; a loose cannon, not a maverick. It’s terrifying to think that if McCain actually becomes president, George W. won’t hold the title of worst president ever for long.
Mystery Dyke Squadron (Bombing Division) Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 11:11 am
What, do you think that while in the Army he met all his whores before he fucked them?

Palin serves a function and given all the attention she’s received she’s served it well. That’s all he wants her for, not the “personality”.
carsick Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 11:19 am
The defining of Palin has begun in earnest. My local paper described her this morning as an “energy expert”. She’s an energy expert as much as the single A IronPigs pitching coach is a MLB expert. I hope they can get Hilary to go after her soon because the defining has already begun.
Luke Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
MDSBD–did you catch how, whenever Palin spoke, McCain stared at her tits and played with his wedding ring?

This is the first time a candidate has hungrily wanted to fuck his running mate since Dole/Kemp.
RichardJ Says:
August 30th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Well Luke, suppose he had picked Charlie Crist????
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VP Who?

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