Over the past two months, followers of both John McCain and Barack Obama have closely examined the vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin. When McCain named Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska, as his running mate, he sparked a frenzy unlike any that had come before Palin's selection, as millions attempted to determine (as Palin, curiously, now wonders of Obama), who is Sarah Palin?
Perhaps no puzzling snippet from Palin's biography — and we now know there are many — says more than the August article in The New York Times, "Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman." Detailing the selection process of the McCain campaign, the Times revealed that McCain very much wanted to select close friend Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), while his advisors preferred Mitt Romney and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.). Palin was the only candidate they all agreed on.
So if you're wondering how John McCain and his close circle of advisors and friends (specifically Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis) could believe Sarah Palin was the right choice for vice president, well, the answer is simple: They didn't.
From the perspective of the McCain campaign, Palin's candidacy had several pros: She is a woman, which would hopefully attract disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters. She is a "maverick," which is to say she isn't afraid to ruffle the feathers of fellow Republicans, a theme of McCain's own candidacy. She has executive experience as a governor. And, like Obama, she is a young, exciting newcomer, someone who could generate enthusiasm for the McCain ticket. However, McCain and his advisors made a crucial mistake. In their desperate attempt to steal headlines from media darling Barack Obama, they compromised everything McCain stands for and, with a victory, might very well threaten the well-being of the United States of America.
As we watch Palin sweep the country, questioning the character and credentials of Barack Obama, it is very difficult not to laugh. As she wonders if Barack Obama is unstable, she fails to explain why she needed to attend five different small colleges before graduating (with an intention to become a broadcaster, no less). As she tells the media she wishes the McCain campaign would explore Obama's connection to his "dangerous" pastor Jeremiah Wright, she declines to discuss her own religious beliefs, including the notion that abortions in cases of rape should be illegal. The hypocrisy of her rhetoric crested during the Republican National Convention as she and Rudolph Giuliani openly mocked Obama's credentials, with Giuliani going so far as to sarcastically wonder if being mayor of a town like Wasilla, Alaska, "isn't cosmopolitan enough" for Senator Obama (because if there's one thing Rudy Giuliani isn't, it's "cosmopolitan"). "A small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities!" Palin declared to ravenous applause, even though she has only been governor for less two years and mayor of a small town for two terms.
Palin's time as mayor of Wasilla is often pointed to by her supporters as the type of "executive experience" that trumps Barack Obama. What her supporters fail to mention is that at the conclusion of her second term, Wasilla had 6,300 residents. To put this into proper perspective, Tufts' combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment is well over 8,000. While she rails against unethical behavior by politicians, Palin was sued for wrongful termination by the police chief she fired in her first month (she fired him as well as the town librarian almost immediately because she felt she did not have their full support as mayor. The librarian was quickly rehired). This experience foreshadowed her dismissal of the public safety commissioner years later as governor. Maverick, indeed.
Even more worrisome than her persona as a maverick with executive experience are troubling comments Palin has made about her vision of America. This has been a chronic concern, but Palin outdid herself recently when she told a crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."
Palin later (as all politicians tend to do) clarified her remarks, but the message was clear: Small towns are the "real America." The implications in this statement for big cities are unclear. But what is it about these small towns that Sarah Palin likes? Could it be the disproportionate number of white and Christian citizens? Maybe. That would certainly explain why 34 of the 44 cities Palin had visited until she made these comments had higher white populations among voters than the national average. Or it could be that they have fewer fast food restaurants. It's hard to say. It warrants mentioning here that Palin has given addresses at her church as recently as this summer characterizing the Iraq war as "God's plan" and also said that "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." Her senior pastor has professed that the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a war over Christian faith and that Jesus Christ has called upon his followers to die in the name of this war. But yes, Governor Palin, tell us more about Jeremiah Wright.
The real shame in this is that, for all the scrutiny McCain gets among Tufts students, he was a very good alternative to Barack Obama. His tax and health care policies are arguably superior to Obama's, and his years in the Senate have revealed a capable and principled leader with experience that Obama simply doesn't have. Yet as he and his advisors argued over the selection of his vice presidential candidate (one of vital importance, as McCain is 72 with his fair share of health concerns), they were forced to reach a compromise. In Palin, McCain got the maverick he wanted, and his advisors got the social conservative. It was a win-win. The only loser? America.
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Max Winograd is a freshman who has yet to declare a major.
