McCain-MILF ‘08

Palin in Comparison

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
8/30/08

It was, to put it mildly, a goofy choice.

They found a young mother of five who hailed from the mighty metropolis of Wasilla, Alaska named Sarah Palin, and the only proper noun in that sentence I didn’t have to Google was “Alaska”. I have heard of that before. Wasilla is about 30 miles north of Anchorage, making it, by Alaskan standards, a suburb. Electricity, sewers, running water, all the modern amenities, but a climate like Seattle with a hangover.

As for Sarah Palin, well, it was a goofy choice.

When I heard that the VP pick was female, in her forties, and a first-term governor of Alaska, my first thought was “expendable”. None of the party heavy weights wanted to sink with McCain, and indeed, even the rag-tag band of opportunists who ran against McCain in the primaries – Rudy, Mittens, Sneezy, Grumpy and Dopey – all seemed to have passed on the opportunity. Governor of Alaska isn’t exactly a high profile position for the politician who wants national prominence, and usually the only time an Alaskan politician DOES get famous, it’s because he got caught with his hands in the till, or his wife’s sister, or up Exxon’s ass.
 

It wasn’t like she was training for this her whole life, and this was her brass ring. When offered the job, she reportedly asked, “What does a Vice President do?” It’s a question that many have asked, but not usually by anyone considering the position. Now that I think about it, not many have bothered answering that one. “Sits around waiting for the President to die” is the job description.

For a mother of five, she IS cute, which brought up the concept of “VPILF”, a concept oddly missing from the public consciousness during the Cheney years. It was exacerbated by an innocent but provocative photo of her in a pose and a state of dress that no rational person would ever want to see Dick Cheney in. Or Spiro Agnew. Or even Dan Quayle.

And “cute” makes for great foreign policy. Vladimir Putin would take one look at her, and that old Russian softie would just melt. She could just bat her eyes at Speaker Pelosi, and the House would give her everything she asked for, even though the Vice President doesn’t even have the right to ask the House for the correct time.

The Republican faithful, of course, were ecstatic. They needed something to counter what they saw as the novelty value of the Obama candidacy, and there’s nothing more novel then to try something first tried over twenty years earlier. (Quick: name the SECOND woman into space). The faithful rapturously exclaimed that she had a 90% approval rating, failing to note that it had tailed off fairly quickly from the honeymoon period into the mid sixties and was still dropping. (Here in California, Arnie worked his way UP to the mid sixties after a bad start, but
political gravity has since caught up to him. Gaining twenty points to a 65 percent approval rating is far more impressive than falling to that same level).

According to Slate Magazine, some right wing blogger named Elephantman had championed her cause to be VP for several years, believing that the GOP and America needed a VP candidate who was into “Zionism, and fighting socialism”. The radio gasbags, including Rush Limbaugh, took up the chant, and the docile and easily led McCain agreed to her as his running mate.

Goofy, goofy, goofy.

Her fellow Republicans were underwhelmed, especially the few who knew her. Alaska State Senate President Lynda Green, who also hails from Wasilla, said “She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” House Speaker John Harris, the Republican House Speaker was effusive: “She's old enough. She's a U.S. citizen.”

One of the strangest things is that even as the GOP tries to pretend that she is a fearless crusader out to root out corruption, she’s already under investigation for two scandals in the brief time she’s been in office. She completely wrecked Wasilla’s revenue base while she was mayor, necessitating a four-fold increase in taxes, and in the twenty months she’s been governor, she has gotten embroiled in a scandal of abuse of power, cronyism and corruption. I can’t wait to hear the outcries from oh-so-moral right wingers who, for ten years or more, have howled that the Clintons misused state troopers and misused their office to unfairly fire people. The Republicans in the state house voted 12-0 to authorize a special prosecutor to investigate the charges. She’s accused of improperly firing the state Public Safety Commissioner for refusing to fire a state trooper who was guilty of divorcing Palin’s sister.

She’s a fundamentalist whack job, for outlawing abortion and bringing Jesus into government (causes McCain apparently now agrees with), and regards the environment with much the same warmth and regard as Dick Cheney. That isn’t goofy by GOP standards–they’ve been throwing such creatures at us for years–but what is goofy is the assumption that because she is female, Hillary Clinton supporters, who are mostly liberal, overwhelmingly pro-choice, environmentally conscious and for accessible medical care, worker protection, materity leave and the rest will flock to her. It’s a bit like saying that white males who would never vote for Barack Obama because he’s a liberal will now support his ticket because Joe Biden is white.

It’s goofy, and it reeks of sheer desperation.

One theory is that she might blunt the effectiveness of Joe Biden in the vice presidential debate, because they both have sons in Iraq, union backgrounds, and because she’s a girl. (Her nickname is “Sarah Barracuda”, but this is how GOP leaders think). Joe says something mean, she quivers her lower lip, and the election is over. But Biden is a pretty smart politico; he’ll just treat her respectfully, and dismantle McCain, instead.

Just last week, I noted that interesting VP picks can really backfire, and at best become a running joke for admins saddled with such. I mentioned Agnew, Eagleton, and Quayle.

Now we can add Sarah (Not the Monty Python) Palin to the list.

Goofy.