September 01, 2008

9/1: All About Sarah

As we noted on Friday, conservative bloggers are ecstatic about John McCain's decision to choose AK Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the first time, many conservative bloggers appear genuinely excited about electing McCain (as opposed to merely wanting to keep Barack Obama out of the White House). While a few righty bloggers continue to express reservations about Palin's qualifications, these bloggers comprise only a small minority of the conservative blogosphere.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are almost universally slamming the pick, describing it as a "gimmick" and a "desperation pick." Many are arguing that Palin isn't qualified to be President and that picking her was a "reckless" decision that reflects poorly on McCain's judgment. After the pick was revealed, pro-Obama bloggers immediately began exploring Palin's past -- particularly the "troopergate" scandal and her recent admission that she "[hasn't] really focused much on the war in Iraq." They're also trying to portray her views on global warming (she doesn't believe that it's man-made) and abortion (she opposes it even in cases of rape and incest) as outside the mainstream.

PALIN: There's A New Rock Star In Town

The mood in the conservative blogosphere has noticeably improved since the news broke that McCain had chosen Palin as his running mate:

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Over the past month we have gone from hoping Senator McCain would win to thinking he might actually be able to win. With the selection of Governor Palin most of us are convinced he will win."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "I cannot tell you how excited I am about the Palin pick. McCain lived up to his maverick reputation and did well."
• Michelle Malkin: "There's a new rock star in town. Conservatives are full of Hope that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will bring much-needed Change to McCain Republicanism."
• The Atlantic's Ross Douthat: "At the moment, I'm probably rooting harder for Sarah Palin to succeed than I have for any politician in recent memory."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Not only is this the most galvanizing pick Maverick could have made, but the thought of watching progressives tie themselves in knots over the next two months trying to square the inevitable attacks on the 'bimbo' beauty queen with poor, poor Hillary [Clinton]'s sexist treatment by the media is worth it even if we lose. Imagine the sort of crap that'll be airing against her on MSNBC come mid-October. I haven't cut a check for a candidate since 2004, but I'm suddenly inspired."
• Townhall's Jonathan Garthwaite: "For darn near 18 months, conservatives have been lamenting the shape the Republican Party was in. [...] Republicans haven't been acting like Republicans lately and the grassroots felt betrayed by a Congress that couldn't stop spending, expanded entitlements, and almost granted amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens. In the Presidential [contest] Conservatives never found the modern-day [Ronald] Reagan they were looking for and McCain grabbed the nomination. The 'enthusiasm gap' was starting to look bigger that the Grand Canyon in John McCain home-state. With a single decision, Senator McCain may have changed everything. Selecting a pro-life, pork-busting, gun-loving, down-to-earth, camera-friendly Governor to be his right-hand has changed the mood completely."
• Townhall's Michael Medved: "[Now] I feel vastly more eager, pumped, energized, optimistic about the Republican Convention. In an election that's all about energy shortages and potential energy shortages, the Governor of Alaska has given the best possible birthday gift to John McCain."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Sarah Palin [is] probably the only pick McCain could make who could simultaneously appeal to Hillary supporters who think sexism cost her the nomination, and consolidate large swaths of the conservative base. [...] For what it's worth, most of my readers are going bonkers. They love the pick."

CBN's David Brody also loves the pick: "Picking Sarah Palin may end up going down in political history as a masterful stroke of genius by John McCain and his team. [...] For the most part, social conservatives and the Evangelical base are now about to come fully on board. Obama's enthusiasm gap has narrowed considerably. [...] Also, it's going to be very hard to stereotype Sarah Palin. She DOES NOT fit in a nice tidy little box. She appeals to pro-life Christians but she can also play well with Independents and moderates because of her reformer image, her taxing of big oil, wasteful spending, etc. Plus her husband is a union guy. The campaign can play her as a junior female maverick John McCain. [...] This pick also softens John McCain's image. Look, the guy is a little rough around the edges in public but having Palin at his side will help him. It will probably help him with women voters and not make him look so much like a 'testosterone thinking man.' [...] By picking Palin, I believe the parameters of the contest have changed. Let me explain. McCain loses the experience argument to a degree but he also put a major dent in Obama's 'March to history' theme. Basically, in a way this has become Palin vs. Obama and now voters are going to have to choose what kind of history they want to make."

PALIN II: Going Against The Grain

Although they comprise only a small minority in the conservative blogosphere, several righty bloggers have expressed deep reservations about the pick:

• NRO's David Frum: "[This is] a wild gamble, undertaken by our oldest ever first-time candidate for president in hopes of changing the board of this election campaign. Maybe it will work. But maybe (and at least as likely) it will reinforce a theme that I'd be pounding home if I were the Obama campaign: that it's John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance. Here's I fear the worst harm that may be done by this selection. The McCain campaign's slogan is 'country first.' It's a good slogan, and it aptly describes John McCain, one of the most self-sacrificing, gallant, and honorable men ever to seek the presidency. But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?"
• NRO's Rick Brookhiser: "Either McCain thinks the war on terror isn't serious, or he thinks the vice-presidency isn't. Since the former is obviously untrue, it must be the latter. [...] Palin will also be assigned to pacify conservatives. On the evidence of the numerous emails reprinted here, that will be easily done. Reader after reader said that the base was now energized. You would have thought the base was energized by being in a war. If not, perhaps we need a new base. We have shown the same color-by-numbers mindset that liberals did when they rallied to Obama. Liberals love Obama because he is a Numinous Negro. Conservatives love Palin because she has a Downs baby and an M-16. For both sides, that is all on earth ye know and all ye need to know. You might call it mystical and childish."

On the other side of the blogosphere, while most lefty bloggers were very critical of the pick, a few were impressed by it:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "[Palin] adds a ton [to] McCain's chances. In some ways, she's Obama's worst fears, as she energizes the GOP base in a way like no other pick could have done. Their base is going to be fired up. [...] The last thing we needed was a chance for the Republican Party to re-brand itself around reform and change."
• Open Left's David Sirota: "At first glance -- and this will be negated if bad scandals come out -- the choice is a very smart one, so smart, in fact, that, as an Obama supporter, it scares me. [...] If McCain really does have a chance to win over Clinton supporters, picking Palin is as good a shot as any to try to do that. Palin comes from an energy state, and specifically, an oil and gas state. With Democrats' pathetically (yet predictably) tepid behavior on the drilling issue, the GOP senses an opportunity to exploit it, and you can bet Palin will be making the drilling case, with first-person narratives and anecdotes."

PALIN III: Worst. Pick. Ever.

Most liberal bloggers are savaging the pick:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Two years ago, Palin was part-time mayor of a village of 6,000. Today, she's supposedly ready to step in to run this country in the eventuality that Sen. McCentury can no longer perform those duties? Right. This was a sop to the Right, which was unwilling to accept a pro-choice Republican on the ticket, and a pathetic and hilariously desperate effort to grab the 17 holdout PUMAs (who are fake Democrats already willing to vote for McCain anyway)."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The whole thing just feels like a joke. This is a really, really bad move by McCain. Palin isn't believable as President. She isn't believable in delivering any attacks on Obama, which is why she didn't [during her introductory speech]. She defeats McCain's entire argument to become President: judgment and experience. Further, she is completely unknown, thereby making her a generic Republican in a year when generic Republican polls about 10-20% behind generic Democrat. [...] Man, this is a terrible pick. Right now, my gut says that Obama will be up by around 8% even after the Republican convention. I could be proven wrong, and this might actually work for McCain. However, Palin completely lacks believability as President, and the choice defies any reason apart from an obvious, pandering political ploy to try and win women voters. Overall, that will probably result in a net negative for McCain's popularity. He is in real trouble right now."
• TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is a gimmick, a desperation pick. It's a last-ditch attempt for McCain to be a maverick again and recapture his reformist credentials. Despite her image, Palin has ethics problems of her own, and she and McCain share George W. Bush's conservative politics. Worst of all, though, her lack of experience raises serious concerns about her basic fitness for office, and McCain's willingness to put his campaign before the good of the country."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "What a bizarrely contrived and calculated choice it is. I mean, aside from six years as mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,715) -- about which I'm sure we'll be hearing much, much more -- her political experience consists of 21 months as governor of the fourth smallest state in the union. That's it. But she's a woman! And pro-life! And opposed to corruption! And maybe all those disaffected Hillary supporters will vote for her! And she won't upstage the old man! It's hard to think of a more intensely cynical, focus-grouped, poll-driven, base-pandering VP choice in recent memory. Even Dan Quayle isn't in the running. This is ridiculous."
• Daily Kos' Trapper John: "By picking Palin, McCain revealed his desperation to make a splash to rival the genuine excitement generated by the Obama campaign. But desperation leads to poor decisions -- and McCain's Hail Mary, like most last second desperation moves, is destined to fail miserably. He's smeared himself with the pungent mud of Alaska Republican corruption, while cutting the legs out from one of his most reliable attacks against Obama. And he's presented Americans with the prospect of electing a dangerous neophyte to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, behind a man whose life expectancy is less than two presidential terms. We all expected McCain to pick someone underwhelming to run with him. But we never could have expected a pick worse than Quayle. Yet that's what we got. Thanks, John!"
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "This is a crazy pick. In particular, it goes against the image McCain is trying to paint of himself as the serious, sober-minded choice in difficult times. This is not a 'country first' pick, it's an 'I have a personal beef with Mitt Romney' pick. Nor does a VP whose most noteworthy quality is that she's less corrupt than other Alaska Republicans do anything to distance McCain from Bushism -- we've now gone from one alleged maverick who agrees with Bush about everything to two alleged mavericks who agree with Bush about everything. And that's all really the best case scenario -- normally VP choices don't make much of a difference politically, but a VP candidate with no experience dealing with the national media who the candidate himself has barely spoken to risks an Eagelton Scenario. Nobody's going to care in two months about the good coverage on the morning of August 29, but they might care about some horrific gaffe or skeleton in the closet."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "The nicest thing for me about the Palin pick is that I don't even have to think twice about her to know I oppose her -- I simply am done supporting religious nutjobs. I went along with the silliness when I was a Republican because I respect the give and take of coalition building, but now that I am not in the GOP, I don't have to tolerate the BS. Think evolution is 'just a theory,' you are not getting my vote. Think abortion should be illegal no matter what, even in cases of rape and incest -- not getting my vote. Think intelligent design should be taught in science classrooms -- not getting my vote. So for me, at least, I don't have to even bother with the issues of experience and her complete lack of knowledge regarding foreign affairs and well, hell, the fact she didn't even know what the VP did a few weeks ago. I don't have to think about any of that, as her extreme religious views already disqualify her in my eyes. No more social conservatives. Ever."

PALIN IV: The Height Of Irresponsibility

Many liberal bloggers are portraying the pick as a reckless decision that reflects poorly on McCain's judgment:

• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "[I'm] struck by McCain's willingness to gamble not just with our country, but with his own campaign. He has chosen as his running mate someone he has barely met; who has no experience dealing with the kind of scrutiny she is about to face; who has, by all accounts, not been fully vetted; and who is in the midst of a scandal. That is a shockingly reckless thing to do."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Just after McCain announced his pick, a number of commentators -- some independent analysts and others Republican partisans -- said that this was McCain reverting to form. He's a gambler, he likes rolling the dice, playing craps -- to use the most chosen metaphor. [...] But is that the temperament one wants in a president and commander-in-chief? Someone whose inclination, at critical moments of decision, is toward risky, high-stakes gambles? That kind of erratic behavior is pardonable, even an asset in a senator (who has little direct power beyond 1 of 100 votes and the ability to persuade people). But it's a dangerous trait for a leader of a country of 300 million."
• Daily Kos' Hunter: "I'm just not sure what McCain's thinking. Like it or not, John McCain is a man who has not always been in the best of health. He's made 'experience' the cornerstone of his campaign. So does he really believe -- does he really want all of us to believe -- that Palin is ready to be President of the United States, in the event something were to happen to him? Based on what? I don't think it's a wrong choice, I think it's an unserious -- even fairly offensive -- choice. McCain isn't even officially his party's nominee yet, and he's already treating his presumptive office with disdain, and making executive decisions that seem like they've been phoned in or made in a panic."
• Sadly, No!'s Brad: "From the perspective of governing, this is a supremely irresponsible and crazy move on John McCain's part. The fact that he only met this woman twice before making her the nominee for vice president of the United States is astonishing to me and it says a lot about his judgment and his desperation to win this race."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "Think about what the Palin pick really says about how McCain views this campaign and how he views his potential responsibilities in national security. Think about what it says about the sincerity of McCain's own central criticism of Obama these past two months in foreign affairs. Think about how he picked a woman to be a heartbeat away from a war presidency who hadn't even thought much, by her own admission, about the Iraq war as late as 2007. Think about how he made this decision barely knowing the woman. [...] Think about how the key factor in this decision was not who could defend this country were something dreadful happen to McCain in office but how to tread as much on Obama's convention bounce and use women's equality as a wedge issue among Democrats because it might secure a few points here or there. Oh, and everyone would be surprised. And even [Karl] Rove would be annoyed. This is his sense of honor and judgment. This is his sense of responsibility and service. Here's the real slogan the McCain campaign should now adopt: Putting. Country. Last."

PALIN V: Water Under The Bridge

Several liberal bloggers are pointing out that Palin actually supported the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before deciding to oppose it:

• Yglesias: "In addition to being only a little corrupt (which is good by AK conservative standards!) the other policy-related thing we've heard about Sarah Palin is that she killed Alaska's infamous 'bridge to nowhere.' Except it seems clear that what she actually did was fight hard to get federal funding for the bridge, and only abandoned the project when it became clear that federal funds wouldn't be forthcoming. Nothing wrong with that, of course, you expect Governors to support pork-barrel schemes that benefit their state, but this alleged bridge-busting was heavily featured in the public's introduction to this previously unknown figure and it doesn't even turn out to be true."
• Atrios: "[I] wonder how long John McCain will keep lying about this."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The good news is, the McCain campaign is now starting to tell the public about Sarah Palin's accomplishments in Alaska. The bad news is, the principal example of Palin's strength as a leader is a blatant falsehood. [...] If the single best example of Palin's leadership in office is bogus, what, pray tell, is the McCain campaign's Plan B?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Do People Want Ordinary?

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver:

"We are in completely uncharted territory here. Palin is the most manifestly ordinary person ever to be nominated for a major party ticket. In this year of bittergate and Britney-gate and McCain-has-seven-houses-gate, that could conceivably be a virtue; it's certainly less tone-deaf than a selection like Mitt Romney would have been.

But Palin isn't merely playing at being ordinary, the way that Bill Clinton (Rhodes Scholar) or George W. Bush (son of a president) or Hillary Clinton (wife of a president) might. She really, really comes across that way -- like someone who had won a sweepstakes or an essay contest. Her authenticity factor is off-the-charts good; her biography sings. But do Americans really want their next-door-neighbor running for Vice President, or rather someone who seems like one?"

LEST WE FORGET: Another McSweeney's List

Mike Baylis makes a list of "Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis":

(the other one, the Ninja Turtle)
* In which he discusses the texture and viscosity of the fecal matter.
3. Who, although a gifted academic, is still a douche.
* Which is ironic, considering the electrocution and all.
(a gifted mime who spoke out against the regime)
12. Martin Handford, Where's Waldo?: The Fantastic Journey (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1997), 16.
(Admittedly, I didn't read it, but I'd like to think I got the gist from the movie.)
8. Right? No, he did. I think. No, I'm pretty sure he did.
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre

Posted by Ian Faerstein at September 1, 2008 01:39 PM