I have to admit...
...that when Sarah Palin emerged on that Dayton stage, to the strains of the theme music from Rudy, with all the flags waving and the crowd cheering, and as she smiled broadly and waved to the adoring masses, I was totally ready to shed my undecided status, run out onto the field at Notre Dame Stadium, walk proudly into a voting booth on the 50-yard line :) ... and cast my ballot for the McCain-Palin ticket.
The feeling passed. :) But the Rudy music was a brilliant touch, at least for this ex-Domer, and helped create a more goose-bump-ish moment than anything at Invesco Field last night. It was a better musical choice than anything the Dems' convention deejay came up with, certainly. (The musical selection at the DNC was consistently pretty awful, no?)
That said... take a listen to what that noted liberal Obamaphile, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online, had to say about Palin in a scathing critique this afternoon:
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan -- to whom, thanks for the link, BTW.)
Ponnuru (who, for those with malfunctioning sarcasm detectors, is most definitely not an Obama guy) also calls Palin a "token," asking: "Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?" Well, no. Of course, Obama wouldn't be the nominee if he weren't black, Hillary wouldn't have nearly become the nominee if she weren't a woman (and an ex-president's wife), Biden wouldn't be the veep nominee if he wasn't an old white guy, McCain wouldn't be the GOP nominee if his plane hadn't gotten shot down, Romney wouldn't ever have been considered for the presidency or vice presidency if he didn't have a gajillion dollars, Bush wouldn't be president if his dad hadn't been president, etc. etc. Nobody in national politics advances purely on political merit. But this case is a bit different than most of those, because Palin wasn't chosen by the voters; she was hand-picked by one man. That makes the "token" charge more likely to stick.
Some women will see the pick as condescending, and be offended. Others will be thrilled. Still others will have mixed feelings. Among the women on the unhinged-feminist PUMA fringe, I imagine there will be something of a split: some will slam McCain, while others will praise the Palin pick and feel that it vindicates their belief that Obama's a male chauvinist jerk -- after all, he didn't pick a woman, and McCain did!
The supreme irony there is that, if Obama had picked a woman with experience equivalent to Palin's -- or even vastly superior, a la Kathleen Sebelius -- there would have been near-unanimous howls of protest from these same PUMAs, who would have regarded such an pick as a shameless and condescending act of tokenism by Obama. For them, the only acceptable female choice on the Democratic side was Hillary. But McCain -- for whom Hillary herself was obviously not an option -- will probably get a lot more credit from some of these folks, at least at first (e.g., until they learn Palin's position on abortion), for doing precisely the same thing they would have denounced Obama for doing.
Meanwhile, with regard to my prediction that the Obama campaign wouldn't play the "experience" card offensively, and that the McCain camp would stop explicitly playing that hand as well, the initial returns are not looking good.
The feeling passed. :) But the Rudy music was a brilliant touch, at least for this ex-Domer, and helped create a more goose-bump-ish moment than anything at Invesco Field last night. It was a better musical choice than anything the Dems' convention deejay came up with, certainly. (The musical selection at the DNC was consistently pretty awful, no?)
That said... take a listen to what that noted liberal Obamaphile, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online, had to say about Palin in a scathing critique this afternoon:
Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain's age raised the stakes on this issue.
As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins.
And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan -- to whom, thanks for the link, BTW.)
Ponnuru (who, for those with malfunctioning sarcasm detectors, is most definitely not an Obama guy) also calls Palin a "token," asking: "Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?" Well, no. Of course, Obama wouldn't be the nominee if he weren't black, Hillary wouldn't have nearly become the nominee if she weren't a woman (and an ex-president's wife), Biden wouldn't be the veep nominee if he wasn't an old white guy, McCain wouldn't be the GOP nominee if his plane hadn't gotten shot down, Romney wouldn't ever have been considered for the presidency or vice presidency if he didn't have a gajillion dollars, Bush wouldn't be president if his dad hadn't been president, etc. etc. Nobody in national politics advances purely on political merit. But this case is a bit different than most of those, because Palin wasn't chosen by the voters; she was hand-picked by one man. That makes the "token" charge more likely to stick.
Some women will see the pick as condescending, and be offended. Others will be thrilled. Still others will have mixed feelings. Among the women on the unhinged-feminist PUMA fringe, I imagine there will be something of a split: some will slam McCain, while others will praise the Palin pick and feel that it vindicates their belief that Obama's a male chauvinist jerk -- after all, he didn't pick a woman, and McCain did!
The supreme irony there is that, if Obama had picked a woman with experience equivalent to Palin's -- or even vastly superior, a la Kathleen Sebelius -- there would have been near-unanimous howls of protest from these same PUMAs, who would have regarded such an pick as a shameless and condescending act of tokenism by Obama. For them, the only acceptable female choice on the Democratic side was Hillary. But McCain -- for whom Hillary herself was obviously not an option -- will probably get a lot more credit from some of these folks, at least at first (e.g., until they learn Palin's position on abortion), for doing precisely the same thing they would have denounced Obama for doing.
Meanwhile, with regard to my prediction that the Obama campaign wouldn't play the "experience" card offensively, and that the McCain camp would stop explicitly playing that hand as well, the initial returns are not looking good.
posted by Brendan Loy at
8/29/2008 11:58:00 PM
