Background: Presidential running mates are consistently chosen for one of two reasons: to either help carry a particular region or state in an election or to help balance a presidential candidate's resume. This year John McCain chose Alaska governor Sarah Palin for the former reason, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden for the latter.
The Issue: In this particular election season, the vice-presidential nominees have played a surprisingly large roll in both guiding their respective campaigns and influencing the electorate. Barack Obama chose to ignore the cries from within his own party to chose Hillary Clinton as his running mate and ran the risk of alienating the 17 million people who voted for her during the primary for Joe Biden, the foreign relations veteran.
Obama's decision left McCain with a basic choice: play it safe with Mitt Romney or take a risk that could give him a solid chance at winning the election. McCain decided to take a risk on Sarah Palin. This was cleary a poor decision. Initially, before the public understood what this choice truly meant, she boosted McCain's showing amongst conservative Republicans and evangelicals. However Palin caused two huge problems. Firstly, she alienated many of the conservative Democrats and independents that would have otherwise voted for (or at least considered voting for) McCain. Because of this issue, Gov. Palin has destroyed McCain's electoral map. Instead of choosing Romney (who could have kept parts of New England and Michigan in play) Palin wiped these regions off the map and added no new states.
The second, and arguably most important, way in which Sarah Palin has set the McCain camp behind is her inexperience in every facet of national politics and policy. Her claim to fame is energy, yet she offers no solutions for rising prices or alternative energies short of "drill baby, drill". Her record on foreign policies is empty and she has a basic understand of economics at best. Over half of Americans believe that she is unqualified for the office of the presidency and many see this as evidence of McCain's poor judgement (including high ranking conservatives and GOP members such as Colin Powell and David Brooks).
Simply put, Sarah Palin does not help McCain in any legitimate way. Her greatest positive effect on the McCain campaign is energizing the far right; however these people were already going to vote for McCain. Nobody saw Alabama or Mississippi going to the Obama camp. But with Romney on the ticket, Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Colorado would be much closer than they are.
What to do: Too late McCain. Change the subject to the economy if you can, however the problem is that you are already only on defense in the electoral college and Sarah Palin is not going to help you pick any new states up.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Dirty Politics - United States
Background. While dirty politics and mud-slinging is nothing new to American politics, this political season holds a special place in contemporary political history. Both sides admit that the stakes are too high for partisan politics while an economic meltdown, two wars, a healthcare crisis, and powerful rivals rising in China, Russia, and Iran threaten the supremacy of the American state. However despite these major issues, the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama have shifted focus from these issues to personal contacts and poor decisions made two decades ago. How can we move past this roadblock while still bring all of the facts to light in an impartial manner?
The Dirt. Sarah Palin is under investigation for firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner for personal reasons while using a Yahoo! account for official government business. Barack Obama went to a church with an ardently incendiary pastor and served on the Woods Fund for Chicago with William Ayers, a suspected (yet never convicted) domestic terrorist. John McCain was one of the Keating Five and admitted to corruption charges while Joe Biden plagerized a speech in his 1988 presidential run. These are simply facts. Our presidential and vice-presidential candidates are human and have made mistakes. Is it really relevant that Joe Biden and John McCain made bad mistakes in '88 and '89? Probably not, and if it is, it shouldn't be more relevant than the real issues like the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Sarah Palin is indicted or prosecuted for firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner, it should not be the Obama campaign's responsibility to notify the people (which they have not, as of yet, lamented over); the media will take care of that.
Obama's position is the most difficult of all. He never technically, personally did anything illegal or immoral. However the people with whom he has surrounded himself does raise serious questions about his morality. Can we trust a man who has associated himself with a former "domestic terrorist" and someone who has said "Goddamn America?" Clearly this is the point the McCain campaign would like to make. What we need to remember is that Obama has already addressed the Rev. Wright issue and that Obama was barely in first grade when William Ayers was active in the Weather Underground and has never expressed any sympathy for Ayers' former causes or his actions.
The solution. Clearly the only solution is to make this campaign about the issues. Both political parties have already vetted these candidates to the point of absurdity during the primaries. John McCain battled back from bankrupcy last November to the nomination while Barack Obama went from being the most junior senator in the senate to unseating the political powerhouse, Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. John McCain and Barack Obama need to stick to the issues and let the people make the judgement calls. Elections need to be about policy, however as we all know, they are all too often about perceptions.
The Dirt. Sarah Palin is under investigation for firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner for personal reasons while using a Yahoo! account for official government business. Barack Obama went to a church with an ardently incendiary pastor and served on the Woods Fund for Chicago with William Ayers, a suspected (yet never convicted) domestic terrorist. John McCain was one of the Keating Five and admitted to corruption charges while Joe Biden plagerized a speech in his 1988 presidential run. These are simply facts. Our presidential and vice-presidential candidates are human and have made mistakes. Is it really relevant that Joe Biden and John McCain made bad mistakes in '88 and '89? Probably not, and if it is, it shouldn't be more relevant than the real issues like the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Sarah Palin is indicted or prosecuted for firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner, it should not be the Obama campaign's responsibility to notify the people (which they have not, as of yet, lamented over); the media will take care of that.
Obama's position is the most difficult of all. He never technically, personally did anything illegal or immoral. However the people with whom he has surrounded himself does raise serious questions about his morality. Can we trust a man who has associated himself with a former "domestic terrorist" and someone who has said "Goddamn America?" Clearly this is the point the McCain campaign would like to make. What we need to remember is that Obama has already addressed the Rev. Wright issue and that Obama was barely in first grade when William Ayers was active in the Weather Underground and has never expressed any sympathy for Ayers' former causes or his actions.
The solution. Clearly the only solution is to make this campaign about the issues. Both political parties have already vetted these candidates to the point of absurdity during the primaries. John McCain battled back from bankrupcy last November to the nomination while Barack Obama went from being the most junior senator in the senate to unseating the political powerhouse, Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. John McCain and Barack Obama need to stick to the issues and let the people make the judgement calls. Elections need to be about policy, however as we all know, they are all too often about perceptions.
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