Newsweek's Alter: Why McCain's Veep Choice is Likely to Flop

[TeamJordan23]

McCain’s ‘Hail Sarah’ Pass
His choice for veep is all but set up for failure in the fall.
Jonathan Alter
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 5:18 PM ET Aug 29, 2008

Happy birthday, Johnny Mac! You're 72 now, a cancer survivor, and a presidential candidate who has said on many occasions that the most important criteria for picking a vice president is whether he or she could immediately step in if something happened to the president. Your campaign against Barack Obama is based on the simple idea that he is unready to be president. So you've picked a running mate who a year and a half ago was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 8,500 people. You've selected a potential leader of the free world who knows little or nothing about the major issues of the day beyond energy. Oh, and she's being probed in her state for lying and abuse of power.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's debut in Dayton on Friday was good political theater. She delivered a pitch-perfect speech (presumably written by McCain's ghost writer, Mark Salter) with a panache that suggests she could be a natural on the national stage. The well-kept secret of her selection let the GOP step on the story of Obama's boffo acceptance speech in Denver. It's not hard to see why she appealed to McCain: her middle-class roots; her older son headed for Iraq with the U.S. Army; her opposition to the earmarked "bridge to nowhere," which is arguably the only domestic issue that gets McCain excited. If camera-ready Palin helps McCain close the gender gap and win in November, she'll be history's hockey mom.

But there's a reason that rookies rarely score hat tricks. It's not her lack of name recognition; America loves a fresh face, especially one that's a cross between a Fox anchor and a character on "Northern Exposure," the old TV show about an Alaska town about the size of Wasilla. The problem is that politics, like all professions, isn't as easy as it looks. Palin's odds of emerging unscathed this fall are slim. In fact, she's been all but set up for failure.

"What is it exactly that the vice president does all day?" Palin offhandedly asked CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow in July. Kudlow explained that the job has become more important in recent years. Palin knows the energy crisis well, even if her claim on "Charlie Rose" that Alaska's untapped resources can significantly ease it is unsupported by the facts. But what does she know about Iranian nukes, health care or the future of entitlement programs? And that's just a few of the 20 or so national issues on which she will be expected to show basic competence. The McCain camp will have to either let her wing it based on a few briefing memos (highly risky) or prevent her from taking questions from reporters (a confession that she's unprepared). Either way, she's going to belly-flop at a time when McCain can least afford it.

Continue Reading: http://www.newsweek.com/id/156258

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

1. Thanks, Alter is one of my favs.

[roguevalley]

11. setting something straight: Sarah was for the bridge to nowhere

in 2006 she said, yes, it is a good thing. go Ted and Don. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. its in the Anchorage daily news. www.adn.com

I can't find the link but its there.

[thunder rising]

2. I'll bet McCain punked his own party on a dare ... he wanted Lieberman and they said x and he picked

Palin to watch them turn green (I guess I did see some Republicans turn blue, but it is rare).

So, fellow DU'ers do not fret ... she will resign for personal reasons soon enough and we'll get the REAL VP selection.

[Monk06]

13. I don't think the choice was ever Mc Cain's to make. The team is the same. Only the

Bush/Cheney et al are only changing the batting
order.

Mc Cain is to Bush as Dmitry Medvedev is to Putin,
a surrogate president or PINO.

[glitch]

20. Who do you think the real vp selection will be? Just curious. I have my own ideas. ;) nt

[Waiting For Everyman]

3. Likely??? "Likely to flop"???

:rofl:

If she gets sworn in, it goes in the "anything is possible" file.

And I have a feeling she has tremendous gaffe potential.

[mzmolly]

4. Well stated article regarding what we know so far.

"Hail Sarah" ~ Alter and I are thinking alike today >http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6812801&mesg_id=6812818 ;)

[Beregond2]

5. Maybe they think Biden will go easy on her, out of pity.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Love that. nt

[Colobo]

7. Palin will be so easy to beat...

[NashVegas]

8. Here's Why I Wouldn't Criticize the "What Does the VP Do" Question:

Different VPs have been called on for different things. Dick Cheney was called on for all the backroom dealing. Al Gore was given any number of tasks. Quayle was window dressing. Bush was another backroom dealer and .. shit, I can't even remember who Carter's veep was.

I read the question not as an indication of a bubble head, rather a simple statement that she wasn't going to say 'yes' or 'no' without first hearing how her role would be defined

I think she's been put forward as bait for the sexist media and netroots in an attempt to keep female Dems and independents home.

[lonestarnot]

9. "her opposition to the earmarked "bridge to nowhere," Lie

[speedoo]

10. K&R. Thanks for posting this. Must read. nt

[Jennicut]

12. I agree except she had no panache, her voice was shrill and she had no charisma

Also, so what if her son is going to Iraq? So is Joe Biden's. McLoser's is already there as well as Jim Webb's. Funny she knows so little about Iraq or commented very little about it when asked in the past considering her son is going there. God, this woman is insulting. I actually wanted a real VP debate where the two candidates go over the issues. Sometimes the VP debate is actually more fun as they really try to attack each other's positions. But with air-head Palin it seems she might not even get some of the questions asked her. Can you imagine this woman yelling at Slobadan Milosevic and calling him a "thug". Joe did that. I can picture Hillary standing up to someone like that as well but Palin? Its laughable.

[DeepModem Mom]

14. K&R

[DebbieCDC]

15. When Biden debates her

He damn well better not handle her with kid gloves. If we as women want equal treatment, then let it be equal in ALL ways. Would Biden go easy on a male candidate because of his gender? No way -- and no way should Palin get a pass because she has a uterus.

[Bobbie Jo]

19. Biden wouldn't go easy on Hillary either....

nor would I want him to treat her any differently. standards are standards.....regardless of gender.

[ooga booga]

16. Interesting that so many of us see Palin as a "Hail Mary" Pass

Barak Obama uped the ante on John McCain when he chose Joe Biden. McCain responds with Sarah Palin, so he's clearly playing to female voters in a way that's both clumsy and obvious. Hardly flattering to those women.

Looking back at VP running mate choices. I personally see very few that seem as strong as Barak Obama's choice of Joe Biden.

2004 - John Kerry chose John Edwards. Never liked him but he seemed to have hoped that the photogenic Southerner would help him. He didn't and Kerry didn't help himself all that much.

2000 - Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman. It didn't make sense to me then. It seems like an even bigger mistake now.

2000 and 2004 - Dick Cheney emerges from a weekend in Crawford, TX, and somehow goes from the chairman of the search committee to the VP running mate. Looks like he simply told Dubya that he was on the ticket.

1996 - Bob Dole picks Jack Kemp. That one seems a lot like the Sarah Palin choice. Doleful Bob Dole needs a spark for his campaign, and political Munchkin Kemp wasn't any help.

1992 and 1996 - Bill Clinton goes with Al Gore. I honestly think Clinton didn't need much help from Gore to win both times. Clinton carried almost the whole Mississippi Valley both times -- including Tennessee both times. In 2000, Gore couldn't even get his home state of Tennessee. If he had, Florida wouldn't have mattered

1988 - Michael Dukakis picks Lloyd Bentsen from Texas. There's a Hail Mary pass there. Bentsen had a shining moment in his debate with Dan Quayle, but he was never going to deliver Texas or save Dukakis' quixotic campaign.

1988 - George H.W. Bush picks Dan Quayle of Indiana. Bush didn't need any help to defeat Dukakis and he got none from Quayle.

1980 and 1984 - Ronald Reagan picked George H.W. Bush. Reagan's ability to construct his own personality cult was how he beat Jimmy Carter who looked weak and spent and, in 1984, Walter Mondale who just could overcome Reagan's charm and make his own case Bush mainly filled a slot, I think.

1984 - Walter Mondale selects Geraldine Ferraro. That was another "Hail Mary Pass" selection. Then, as now, it just looked too much like pandering to female voters.

1976 and 1980 - Jimmy Carter runs with Walter Mondale of Minnesota. It worked OK against the very weak Gerald Ford campaign in 1976, but they couldn't stop the Reagan tsunami in 1980. Mondale wasn't all that much help in either campaign.

1976 - Gerald Ford runs with Nelson Rockefeller of New York, the last of the Mohicans in the liberal wing of the GOP. It doesn't help. Carter's folksy charm is far more appealing.

1972 - Richard Nixon - Spiro Agnew / Nixon didn't need Agnew.
1972 - George McGovern - Sargent Shriver / Like Dukakis in 1988. This was a political Titanic and Nixon was the iceberg.

1968 - Richard Nixon - Spiro Agnew / I think Agnew just filled a slot. Nixon didn't even like him.
1968 - Hubert Humphrey - Edmund Muskie / I like Muskie, but he wasn't much help.

1954 - LBJ - Hubert Humphrey / LBJ didn't need help against Goldwater.
1964 - Barry Goldwater - ??? Miller / GOP was on its ass. Goldwater was reluctant to even run.

1960 - JFK - Lyndon Johnson / Here's a VP choice that actually mattered. LBJ was helpful in securing Texas and the South for JFK's slender victory. They famously despiced each other though.
1960 - Richard Nixon picks Henry Cabot Lodge / Lodge wasn't any help.

So, it seems to me that only JFK's pick of LBJ in 1960 ACTUALLY had much of a positive effect. The Hail Marys like Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 were flops as Hail Marys usually are. John McCain has just flung another one into play in his bid to counteract Barak Obama's vivid personality and appeal. It would have been a good idea to bet on Obama a week ago at Caesar's Palace in Vegas, because you'd have locked in better odds than they'll give you today. Obama may not get all that much of a lift from Biden, but he probably doesn't even need it. However, I honestly think Joe Biden brings more to the campaign than any other VP candidate from either party since LBJ in 1960.

[Danascot]

23. One big difference here

is that in modern political history the likelihood that the VP would need to assume the presidency was seen as fairly low except in a case of assassination or accident. In McCain's case, given his age and health history, the possibility that Palin will become president is a very real (and scary) one. I read somewhere that actuarial figures for McCain don't even project he'd survive two terms.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Somewhere on here is a link that showed that she was for the bridge before she was against it

[skooooo]

18. Alter's concluding statement contradicts most of his article...

"More likely, this "Hail Sarah" pass won't do much to help John McCain get into the end zone. He'll win or lose for other reasons."

------

:wtf:

[invictus]

21. Palin is probably the worst VP pick in US history. Worse even than Dan Quale. n/t

[wildeyed]

22. This is such a cynical pick.

I get why the religious right wing conservatives will like her. They don't care about the country, only reinforcing their narrow beliefs. But thinking that dem women will vote for her just because she is a woman? Insulting! The pubs are so flat out of fresh ideas to woo voter with that I guess this is the best they could come up with.

[senseandsensibility]

24. Is the corporate media going to interview her?

When? I love Alter's article, but he assumes that the media is going to ask her tough questions. I'm not holding my breath.