‘Mirror, mirror on the wall’
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Republican and Democratic tickets for the presidential election are complete and, together, they make a strange sight.
Looking at John McCain and his newly announced running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is like looking at the Democratic ticket in a mirror. Both are composed of one grizzled Senate veteran and one personable newcomer, but their positions on the tickets are reversed.
The differences between the newcomers are matters of degree. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, is in his first term in the U.S. Senate after a few years in the Illinois Legislature. Palin is two years into her first term as governor. Her previous experience was as the mayor of a town with a population of 9,000.
It is clear what Sen. Joe Biden brings to the Democratic ticket, but not as readily clear what Palin brings to McCain. She cannot be sold as a vice president who is prepared to be “one heartbeat away” from the presidency and her inexperience on the national stage is greater by several degrees than that of Obama.
What she does do for McCain is change the mathematics of the election. The Republican ticket is not what it was expected to be. Just hours before McCain’s announcement, the political press expected him to choose a vice president much like himself, only younger — Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty or even Tom Ridge. That’s the kind of ticket the Democrats were preparing to run against. Now, Obama’s people will have to change strategy.
In an election, almost all surprises are nasty surprises because they throw candidates off their pace. It is unlikely that the Obama strategists had given any serious thought to campaigning against a ticket that included Palin.
Palin is a conservative darling and her selection is likely to shore up McCain’s support among conservatives who do not trust him to stay friendly after the election.
The presence of a woman on the GOP ticket goes some distance toward balancing the gee-whiz factor of the Obama campaign. It also means that Obama will have to work harder to woo disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton. Their earlier threats to go over to McCain rang hollow because McCain seemed to offer nothing to the women of America but a continuation of the policies of the Bush administration. But the addition of Palin means that those voters now have a rationale for switching parties.
Palin also gives voters another reason to follow the coverage of the Republican convention next week. It will be their first chance to get to know this new player.
What a political year this has been! “Change” has been a catchword for both parties, and now change — of a sort — is guaranteed.
Come Jan. 20, the United States will have either its first black president or its first woman vice president.
It just depends on which side of the mirror the voters find most attractive.