08.30.08
McCain’s Political Savvy
John McCain may have just increased his odds of winning the general election yesterday with his announcement that Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, will be his vice presidential pick.
Although this will not alter the macro-issues in the election of a sluggish economy caused by the bursting of the real estate bubble and the subsequent credit crisis, and an unpopular–and quite likely never necessary–war in Iraq, it will give some people a reason to reconsider John McCain.
The so-called “soccer mom’s” that were supporting Hilary Clinton because she seemed like a liberal version of Margaret Thatcher when it came to foreign policy might now consider John McCain because he will have a Vice President with whom they can identify. Palin from what has been revealed so far is socially conservative but not afraid of questioning the conservative ideology when it does not make sense. She appears to be a no non-sense administrator willing to use government when it is necessary to help “the people”, and she is also willing to go after anyone not living up to her ethical standards of political behavior, regardless of party affiliation.
All the talk of Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience will be moot, unless you imagine like Ralph Reed does in his fiction that McCain will be “taken out” by Islamo-fascists at the convention. Even at 72 McCain will have plenty of time to school Palin in foreign policy, making her a great national pick for the Republicans in 2012 or 2016. In this respect McCain may be engaging in the most selfless act of the campaign. For, should he not win the general election he will have made viable a woman to run on the Republican ticket in 2012. Imagine, 2012 could be an election in which the first African-American president has to square off against the first woman ever nominated for president!
As Barack Obama has pointed out, John McCain is still at the top of the ticket. It will be, says Obama, McCain’s wrong-headed policies on the economy and Iraq that will be at issue this fall. Palin may be able to effectively communicate those policies to a constituency that McCain hopes to win in the general election and she will probably help McCain solidify his base among social conservatives. She, after all, is purported to be an evangelical Christian herself and appears to live by those beliefs.
Here, in my view, is the beauty of McCain’s strategy, if he pulls it off. McCain, should he win, will have finally ended the bait-and-switch tactics of his own party. He may be able to finally mix social conservatism with populism and implement policies that appeal to a wider swath of the American electorate. Unlike the Republicans of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? these “new Republicans” will be socially conservative and reform-minded rather than self-seeking. In this way McCain may effectively build a coalition of American voters under the banner of the Republican Party who no longer reward politicians with re-election when they use government as the means by which to feather their own nests. Instead they will reward those who treat it as a sacred trust. Could this be John McCain’s vision?
It all sounds a little too idealistic for a cynic like me but I suppose it is possible that idealism is still alive and well in politics, however jaded all the candidates might appear to me.
