Palin is a gimmicky prop

A comment to the last post reads: "I'd love you hear your ideas on how Obama-Biden can neutralize this republican shot in the arm, while still courting women voters. Also, how comfortable are you of Palin's ability to lead the country? Did McCain show a lack of judgment in this regard?"

A "Republican shot in the arm" indeed. John McCain needed precisely a shot in the arm. When I heard the news about Palin I was outside a panel at APSA in Boston. So I got to tell a few people as they came out and get their assessments. The first person I told had a reaction which was mine precisely: "Oh, so McCain does want to win!" The next was also interesting: he thought Palin could turn into a liability, a Geraldine Ferraro all over agin.

I think both are right. I think McCain had to go outside the box, outside of the Romney/Pawlenty yawn-fest. McCain can not back into the White House, these summer polls notwithstanding. When asked for my pick the evening before, I said that Romney/Pawlenty would not surprise me, but that Palin or Huckabee would show that McCain wants to win. The reason Huckabee would have been better is because he is a tested campaigner. He has experience in the bright lights. He can bring in a lot of votes and excitement in corners of the GOP.

On Meet the Press this morning, the comatose Andrea Mitchell opined about Palin:

She is not appealing to the same women who were really voting or supporting Hillary Clinton on ideological issues, but they think that they can peel off some of these working class women, not college-educated, who--the blue collar women who were voting for Hillary Clinton and may be more conservative on social causes.

That's right. So much of national politics comes down to culture. True-blue Hillary ideologues are not going to support McCain over Palin. But Palin does have cultural bona-fides to appeal to the lower-class Dems who supported Hillary but not because of her feminist roots.

This evening I got the feeling that it's all downhill for McCain-Palin. I just think everything has gone so well this weekend for them. I mean, Palin got such a great reception, that I think it will become apparent, even relatively quickly, that she can't meet the high expectations. She's going to make gaffes. She's just going to. McCain's team better start planning now what to do when that happens. Her showing up and giving McCain a fresh face and incredible backstory will only last so long. And what happens when wears off? The press will gleefully tear her apart. Precisely what Hillary was hoping they would do to Obama. But Obama is a white-wine liberal, a Harvard Law man. He is one of the elites' own. Palin's angle is appealing to the working stiffs. The conclusion to this syllogism should be crystal-clear: the press will have no compunction in tearing her to shreds when given the opportunity.

So Obama/Biden should bide their time and focus on looking presidential. Obama had an edge on Hillary--he looked presidential. I forget who it was who had a sister teaching politics, I believe, and who insisted at the beginning of the primary season that "America will elect a black man first before they'll elect a woman--you watch and see." We watched and saw it happen on the Democratic side. The press is ga-ga right now for the Alaskan beauty queen. But the novelty will wear off. Again: then what? McCain's choice was more important than Obama's because McCain's a geezer. No one in their right mind would ever dream of insisting that Palin is qualified to be president. And the argument, "So Obama isn't either," would hold good for me two years ago--it doesn't hold now. Obama earned the right to be president with his grueling slug-fest that deposed the reigning heavyweight champion of the Democratic Party. Campaigning is a lot like what you have to do as president. So don't tell me Obama isn't ready, he is. Palin will have two months of very hard campaigning before the election. She can't grow into it. There's no room for error. If she really did try to get her sister's ex fired, that could be the October-surprise of all October-surprises.

The one thing McCain was smart about was getting a solid conservative, to generate excitement with the base that he just doesn't generate on his own. Today on MTP, Mitchell also said:

And in terms of the abortion issue, it has so fired up the base. The evangelical base, the, you know, the foundation of what John McCain needs, the people who came out in Ohio and elected George, you know, George Walker Bush, this is the, the key group that now is so energized. They were sitting on their hands, they were not excited about the other alternatives. They would have completely rebelled with Joe Lieberman.

Mitchell, of all people, was actually more in tune that Republican "strategist" Mike Murphy, who said:

[I]f we get into a social issues debate with those particular swing voters, we're in big trouble. I believe that McCain cannot win in this environment without ticket splitters, people who vote for him for president but vote Democrat down the ticket. He may need as many as one out of five of his ultimate voters to be a ticket splitter. So the question is in a bad base year for Republicans, if we get caught on pure base issues--I agree, the evangelical vote loves her, but I, to the point I said earlier, I'd rather have lukewarm evangelicals and a whole lot of voters.

This is the failed median-voter model of elections which has been so thoroughly disproven in the last two presidential elections. Of course, each election is a new situation, and if any election would follow a median-voter model, it would be this one. But it is insanity for Republicans to be more concerned with the lakefront set--these largely mythical independent voters, who will probably go with the tide and vote Obama anyway--than the lower-class cultural voters and married people, who vote in much larger numbers anyway. Focus on the base, get them excited--this sound principle has not gone out the window no matter who is running.

David Gregory (who I'd see in my Starbucks when I used to live in DC) said:

A lot of the working-class voters in states like West Virginia or Ohio, where she was debuted, or Pennsylvania were Democrats primarily for economic issues if not social issues. Obama still has an advantage there, even if he hasn't grabbed the issue completely. I think Sarah Palin helps John McCain get it.

Well, there's no freaking way Obama's going to win West Virginia. Obama has given up on it completely--he hasn't even opened up a campaign office there yet. This is why Hillary would have been a better nominee--WVA and Arkansas would be states she could move into the Democratic column, but Obama doesn't have a chance.

Here's the ultimate truth about Palin: she's an affirmative action pick. She undercuts McCain's "experience" and "judgment" motifs. This is not clear now, but it will be when Palin's novelty fades. Voters can sense gimmicks. They can sense desparation. McCain is desparate to win, but Palin is a gimmick. She's a prop. Unless she has a flawless two months, in which case it was a brilliant move. I doubt it. But then again, I doubted that the inexperienced Obama could muscle his way to the top of the greasy pole.