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Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Palin/McCain ticket
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A vice presidential nominee is supposed to bring something to the ticket that the top dog can’t.
In that sense, Sarah Palin is perfect for the Republicans. She brings people and attention and excitement, none of which John McCain can attract on his own. That’s one reason he’s keeping her right by his side in the campaign. You can’t have the presidential nominee drawing 400 people to a rally while his running mate draws 4,000. Talk about embarrassing.
But McCain has other reasons for not letting Palin out of his sight. Whenever a slightly touchy policy question comes up at town hall meetings or other formats, McCain has to be ready to step in to save his protege. And sometimes he can’t, as in a recent town hall in which Palin was asked what specific foreign policy experience qualifies her to be vice president. Her response?
“Well, I think because I’m a Washington outsider that opponents are going to be looking for a whole lot of things that they can criticize and they can kind of try to beat the candidates here, who chose me as his partner, to kind of tear down the ticket. But as for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared and I know that on January 20th, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness.”
No, she doesn’t. Her pitch that Washington needs an outsider would be a lot more convincing if the outsider in question had been paying serious attention to national and international issues the past few years. She shows no sign of that, and fact that so many in the GOP have embraced her as their party’s future suggests they don’t care a whit about substance but are enthralled by the package.
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