But then came South Carolina, and through typical Republican internecine warfare, an opportunity lost.
Fast forward to 2008. Even after playing the good soldier over the past eight years, there always seemed to be that quality in him that he would rather be right than President. New Hampshire, again, helped resurrect his campaign against a somewhat anemic Republican field. At the time, everyone, including me, thought that Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic nominee, and that this would be an election campaign between two worthy opponents.
Well, it still was between two deserving opponents, only Barack Obama was the Democratic standard-bearer. For some reason, the wheels came off in the weeks afterward.
It has been no secret amongst those who know me that I think that as one of the most important choices a candidate can make during a campaign for President of the United States, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was woefully inadequate, picked, it seemed, to shore up the all-important "base" of the Republican Party, who viewed McCain with a considerable amount of suspicion. I can go into greater detail in future posts, but from the perspectives of national security, governmental expertise, education, and political views, it is clear that she is not the choice of most Americans, no matter how much they may agree with her positions on "values" issues.
On September 24th, McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign to hurry back to Washington to help with the $700B so-called Wall Street Bailout plan, and initially would not consider debating Obama unless and until the bailout plan was approved. As more than one person noted, a President is expected to be able to focus on more than one crisis at a time. Suspending the campaign to sell yourself to the voters as an executive to work on an essentially legislative issue was the wrong move, and did nothing to but reinforce the notion that perhaps he is more comfortable with the job that he has, rather than the job that he wanted. And then, when he got to the negotiations, several "anonymous" (probably Democratic) sources protrayed him as the least productive member of the group.
I could see if McCain were Chairman, the ranking member, or even an ordinary member of the Banking Committee. He had no real experience in that sector, and was even reported to be admitting (earlier in the campaign, to be sure) that domestic finances were not something he was comfortable with.
Finally, aside from the ambiguous theme of "Country First", the McCain Campaign could not seem to settle on one specific message, or even how he would differ from Barack Obama in his proposals. On several important issues, there wasn't a whole lot of daylight between the two men. On those in which they did differ, Obama offered a different way than the current administration (and by extension, McCain) already proposed. Changing the method of attack on Obama - calling him a different name or casting him in a different light, it seemed, every three days or so - gave the voters nothing to latch on to. Charles Krauthammer has a particularly insightful take on what went wrong.
Obama, by contrast, consistently protrayed McCain as another four years of the Bush Administration. A not-altogether accurate charge, since McCain's legislative history is pretty much everything that Bush Administration is against, but enough that Obama was able to make that connection take root and grow.
I think that McCain would indeed make a good president, if circumstances were a little different. I also think Obama will make a good, perhaps very good, president. Yes he could be a in over his head, as Maureen Dowd pointed out in Wednesday's edition, or he could be headed for greatness.
I think for most people this would have been a bad year to vote for Republicans in general. The fact that McCain was able to keep it within 10 points on Election Day speaks both to how voters look at him and the inexperience of Barack Obama. It wasn't enough, however, to close the deal.
5 comments:
1. With regard to the Palin pick, I'd argue that Barack Obama himself is "woefully inadequate" from an experience standpoint - perhaps moreso - than Palin. I'll concede she was a political calculation to rally the base, but that was a smart thing for McCain to do if he thought he was going to lose otherwise. Palin is the reason McCain only lost by 7 points, rather than 20. She rallied the base, just not enough to offset the wave of new voters that turned out for Obama.
You're entitled to your opinion of Palin, but I think she has a broader appeal than you are willing to admit.
2. McCain totally mishandled the "bailout", you are right about that. Personally, I think he should have voted against it (we needed to do something, but perhaps not this hastily-considered behemoth of a bill, which at least so far isn't making a whit of difference in the markets). McCain might well have lost in anyway, so I hesitate to blame it all on the bailout, but it didn't help.
3. You're also right about the campaign not settling on a specific message. The success of the surge in Iraq, ironically, rendered the whole foreign policy issue to be a secondary concern in the campaign. So the attention turned to domestic policy. As you say, Obama inaccurately portrayed McCain as Bush's third term, and he got away with it (the media helped him out on that one, but don't get me started on that.... if the media did it's job, it wouldn't have been left to McCain to reluctantly inform people about Ayers & Co. in the last two weeks of the campaign).
4. I still don't see where any of this is cause enough to roll the dice with Obama. You seem to realize that Obama is a gamble. Are you really comfortable, for example, with how he'd handle negotiations with Iran? North Korea? Hamas?
Don't even tell me Biden will consult with him on that. Biden has a lot of foreign policy experience, but that's no substitute for good judgment.
Hopefully Biden will talk some sense into Obama and tell him he's off his rocker for even thinking of talking to these guys without precondition.
One other comment on Palin, since she apparently impacted your decision to not vote for McCain:
Is she really much different from Dan Quayle? I mean, other than the anatomical differences and the folksy midwestern accent?
I say this because I recall that you've expressed admiration for the elder Bush in the past. So how is it that Bush gets a free pass on the Quayle pick, but McCain displays poor judgment/political pandering/etc. for naming Palin?
Remember, Quayle was mentally deficient just like Palin - the guy couldn't even spell potato!!! :-)
Good to see you're back Brian!
I was very much in favor of Palin being on the ticket for a specific reason - I'm sick of the DC insiders running this country. We elect, reelect and reelect (a la Lautenberg) the same do nothings to Washington and we deserve what we get. Governors (not Senators) are outsiders which is what I believed this country needed. As far as Palin's "experience", I'd rather she be VP and learn what needs to be accomplished (without patronizing lobbyists) such as Reagan did.
Those who did not vote for Obama will sit back and see what occurs in the next 12 months. Hold on to your hats folks!
Since the two of you are pretty much on the same side in this debate, I'll address all the points in this one comment.
You could argue that Barack Obama is inadequate from an experience standpoint. The question should be what kind of experience is necessary to be a successful president. Governing? Educational? Life? Legislative? Is there a list of qualifications or prerequisites that one must check off prior to running for president?
Comparing Senator/President-Elect Obama to Governor Palin is moot, however, and not just because the election is over. Obama is the top half of his ticket, actively sought the nomination since Iowa, appeared on all the Sunday talk shows, gave countless interviews, and has been scrutinized for the better part of 20 months, not only by the media, but also by those across the aisle.
Governor Palin prior to the nomination was a complete unknown outside of Alaska. If she wanted the nomination to the Vice Presidency prior to John McCain selecting her, we don't know about it. McCain picked her, after months of hammering Obama on the experience issue. (Which brings up another point...what experience, specific to the presidency, does McCain have that Obama doesn't?)
I wrote on Dan's blog after the Palin pick was announced that this election was going to be about the middle, and it seems it did go that way. Unfortunately, McCain felt he needed to rally the base in order to win. I think that if he had gone with a more moderate pick, or at least someone who appeared to have more (and I hate this word) "gravitas" - Huckabee or Romney, for example - he would have done much better at least with the 70%+ of the electorate that isn't the base of either party, and the election would have been closer. He still might not have made up the difference in terms of new voter registrations that Obama brought, but would have more than compensated for the base voter who decided to sit on his or her hands rather than vote for McCain. 20 points is a bit of an exaggeration, by the way - in the last 30 years, the biggest margin of victory was 18 points, which was Reagan's reelection. Even an unpopular candidate as Mondale couldn't lose by more than that.
But let's take a look at Palin for a moment. Historically, or at least in the last 50 or so years, Presidents have utilized their Vice Presidents in the following ways: to represent the President abroad in an official capacity with foreign goverments, when the ambassador to that country is not a sufficiently high enough official for the topic at hand; to chair various arms of the executive branch, such as related to national security; and to represent the president on Capitol Hill, when arms need to be twisted and the Vice President can use his (or her) contacts within the Legislative branch of government.
Effectively, Sarah Palin could do none of these things. She has no foreign experience, official or otherwise, having obtained her first passport to visit members of the Alaska National Guard in Kuwait in 2007. She has no national security experience at any level (to be fair, most governors don't - Bill Clinton didn't have any, nor did George W. Bush, but they weren't running for Vice President). And she has no legislative contacts on Capitol Hill to work to get a priority of the President enacted. In short, she would be able to fulfill the one constitutional duty of the Office of Vice President, and that's to wait around for the President to die.
Comparing Sarah Palin to Dan Quayle is indeed unfair...to Dan Quayle. He may have been an intellectual lightweight when exposed to the light of day, but the man held a law degree, and served four years in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate prior to becoming Vice President.
Sarah Palin's experience in government is limited to less than two years (at this writing) as governor of a state with a population less than four of five New York City Boroughs, and mayor and city councillor of a town of 7,000+ people. She has a bachelors degree in journalism.
Taken together, this would make her either the least educated or the least politically experienced, or both, of any Vice Presidential nominee in modern times.
But enough about Sarah Palin. I don't profess to know the nuts and bolts of the "bailout" but from what I've read, it would seem the consequences resulting from a failure to pass it would be far worse than the current damage to fiscal principles. Further, it is expected to take up to eighteen months for the "bailout" to be completed. We may not see any results until the summer.
If the McCain campaign had been more disciplined about its message, something might have clicked with the average voter, but it seemed he was trying and discarding lines of attack at will.
And that crap about Ayers and Company is just that....crap. It isn't like Obama played softball with the guy, employed him in his legislative office, or hung out at the bar with him. While not discounting his past, he clearly has corrected his path in life, as he is currently a professor at University of Illinois-Chicago. Further, he has three (three!) postgraduate degrees, including a doctorate. More scare tactics from the Republicans.
Maybe Sarah Palin is envious of his level of education.
"Roll the dice" with Obama is kind of inaccurate, doncha think? 65 million people voted for the guy. I don't really know how comfortable I'd be with anybody handling negotiations with Iran, North Korea, and/or Hamas. What is clear is that the current approach isn't working, and we certainly aren't in any position to exert any force, at least not at the moment.
I am also curious about the "good judgment" statement about Biden.
Bill Clinton was an outsider. Does that mean you think he was a good president? I mean, moral issues aside, do you think he was a good president? Or does being an "outsider" (or in today's code word "Maverick") really have no bearing on how well a President will do? George W. Bush was an outsider, and we see how well that turned out, didn't we?
And Reagan was never Vice President.
Wow, that's a lot to chew on.
You bring up a good point about this election being about "the middle". They always are, aren't they? But at the same time, neither party has a chance to win without rallying their base. The Democrats had two things going for them to rally their base this year - 8 years of GWB, and Obama himself. I don't care what the guy said (tax cuts for 95%, etc etc), his record is pure liberal. Why do you think the Daily Kos crowd is so in love with him? The liberal base didn't have to make any compromises this election.
But the GOP nominated McCain partly because it was thought he'd have the best chance to persuade those in the middle. (Conventional wisdom was that a "pure" conservative could never win this election cycle). McCain's VP pick HAD to be someone who would rally the base for him to even have a shot.
We can debate Palin until the cows come home, but she would have done just fine as VP in my mind. I'm not suggesting she was more or less educated than the next candidate, just that she would have done a fine job. In a matter of weeks, she was maligned by the media in a way they didn't even come close to doing to Obama over the past 20 months.
Obama's friends/relationships matter. I don't see how you can dismiss that stuff so easily (unless you're just a party loyalist to the Dems). I agree with you that Ayers has reinvented himself - at least in the sense that he doesn't set off bombs anymore. But the man is no less radical in his ideology today than he was then. I'm telling you, when I was taking classes at Temple University he would have fit right in. How much of Ayers' liberal (to say the least) ideology does Obama buy into? He may not have played softball with the guy, but he was more than just a guy in the neighborhood too.
And there are many others besides Ayers (you know the names). These relationships all matter because they give us an indication of what Obama's ideology is. Anyone who thinks he is going to govern from the center is deluding themselves. Rhetorically, yes - he'll do that. He'll need to, if he wants to get reelected. But pay attention to the details.
I'll save the comments on Clinton and Bush for another time.
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