Ron Nessen at the liberal Brookings Institution:
An old expression in politics asserts, “There is no such thing as a good surprise.” John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a surprise; possibly, a rare good surprise.
The McCain-Palin ticket comes with a number of risks. But, overall, it provides the Republicans with more positives than negatives.
By choosing the first woman major party vice presidential nominee since Geraldine Ferraro in 1984—and the first woman Republican vice presidential nominee ever—the GOP is reaching out to, among others, disgruntled women supporters of Hillary Clinton.
And make no mistake about it, despite the show of unity at the Democrats’ Denver convention, there are still plenty of disgruntled women supporters of Hillary Clinton. At least some of these women may refocus their enthusiasm on Sarah Palin.
The choice of Palin also neutralizes Obama’s message that he and his running mate Joe Biden represent “change.” The Democratic ticket teams a presidential candidate with limited government experience, who espouses many traditional liberal proposals, with a vice presidential candidate who has been part of the Washington establishment for nearly 30 years.
The Republican ticket teams a presidential candidate sometimes referred to as a “maverick,” who often opposes his party’s positions on major issues, with a working mother who has experience actually running a large governmental unit very far from Washington.
OK now I’m confused. Not about Sarah Palin, but about Joe Biden as Obama’s choice for running mate. Biden was picked partly on the basis of his foreign-policy experience, right? Yet he voted for the Iraq invasion (or at least to authorise it). Isn’t this the issue Hilary Clinton was hammered on by her fellow Democrats? Isn’t this THE big issue the Obama campaign has presented as the central and defining foreign policy question of this election?
Whatever one’s position on the 2003 Iraq invasion it still leaves the question of how the Democrats reconcile this contradiction.
That is a very good point Will. Though logic has not been important in the “hope, change and charisma” campaign so far. Meanwhile, McCain has proposed at least two planks from the “silly closet” [for sure the gas tax holiday, while both candidates have adopted the “energy independence” nonsense].
How the Iraq contradiction plays out may depend on how skillfully the McCain campaign illuminates it.