Central narratives

Both major presidential candidates tried to shore up weaknesses in their candidacies with their VP picks. But their candidacies are troubled enough that those picks undercut the central narratives of their campaigns. Senator Obama taunted Senator McCain last night for having been in Washington – and part of the problem – for 22 years – and Obama’s choice of a running mate who has himself been in Washington for 29 years (except for the technicality of having lived in Wilmington – which may mean something to some voters). I’ve written before how it’s hard to run as a change candidate with a running mate like Biden. Still, Obama and his aides figured he had to counter the Republican (and, originally, the Clintons’) attack on Obama as too inexperienced and (implicitly too young). The fact that an obvious attack on Obama forced him to undercut his primary campaign narrative (change) suggests how weak a candidate Obama was in the first place.

Senator McCain’s pick of Governor Palin is in a similar vein (if in the opposite direction). I think Palin’s a fun choice. What makes her a good candidate, a co-worker asks? She was a state championship high school girls’ basketball team in Alaska. I believe she also won a beauty pageant. She loves kids (including her disabled kid – her fifth!), hunting, and guns, and she hates abortion. Like McCain, she has a reputation as a maverick – to become governor, she took on an incumbent Republican governor and she has – like McCain in Congress – pushed tough ethics reforms (even while she’s gotten embroiled in her own little ethics controversy involving payback against an ex-brother in law). (Her husband works for the oil industry and – unlike McCain – she has pushed Alaska oil drilling – the husband for the oil industry may excite the Democrats briefly). (With her positions on abortion (against it), gun control (against it), and oil drilling (for it), Palin is sure to satisfy the Republican Right very leery about McCain’s flirtations with picking Governor Ridge or Senator Lieberman (and even Governor Romney – with his Mormon religion and liberal past).

More importantly: Democrats have attacked McCain as out-of-touch and (implicitly) old (in his policy/politics if not also in his literal age). At 44, Palin is three years younger than Obama, one year younger than me, and one year older than Michelle Obama. With five kids, she can hardly be portrayed as out of touch with the concerns of young, working families. By choosing a woman, McCain also pitches for disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters. Shoring up his own weaknesses with a young Republican woman whose credentials match his own maverick credentials.

The problem here is that a central narrative in the Republican attack on Obama (besides that he is not really American/patriotic/Christian – that he’s the “Other”) is that he’s too inexperienced and (implicitly) too young. Now, it’s true that Obama is the presidential candidate and Palin is the vice presidential candidate. And she does have executive experience (like then Governor Clinton did in 1992 – but he had 10 year of it), which Obama does not. But she has even less foreign policy experience (none) and like Obama has not been in the military. Even if Palin has a very interesting personal story (and I bet she does), it’s hard to imagine McCain making the too little experience argument with a straight face when the person he’s put a heartbeat of the presidency has been the president of a small (population wise) state for just two years and before that was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

Like the choice. She sounds fun. But McCain and Obama have both shown how weak their respective candidacies were by – in picking running mates to shore up their weaknesses – undercutting the central narratives of their campaigns. Now, on to the bus tours and then the Twin Cities.

P.S. I got to watch Senator McCain’s Dayton, OH announcement of Governor Palin as his running mate. Listening to McCain and Palin, it was clear that the pick of Palin will shift McCain back to his maverick pitch, so that they will be competing with Obama and Biden as the change candidates. I’m not sure what will happen to the not enough experience line. They’ll try on a Republican spin on change: ethics reform, anti-government waste, energy independence through domestic production, and bipartisan cooperation. (Obama also makes the ethics reform and bipartisan cooperation pitches).

Other tidbits we learned about Palin: She loves fishing. She and her husband have both been union members. Her route into politics was through the school PTA. She’s an Army mom. (In fact, her oldest child is to be deployed to Iraq BEFORE Beau Biden is.) Her youngest child is just five months old! As governor, she’s also been (for two years) the commander of the Alaska National Guard.

As always, McCain beamed but looked a little awkward up there. Palin seems like a good speaker. We’ll see if her high-pitched voice grates on some unused to seeing women in leadership. She pitched the gender angle, noting not only the anniversary of women’s suffrage but also the candidacies of Democrats Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton (and then went on to vow to continue Clinton’s campaign against the “glass ceiling” herself).

The crowd – in a battleground state - which was to have been McCain’s largest (at 15,000?) - seemed very enthusiastic (no sign of disappointment that Ohioan Rob Portman – a dark horse VP possibility – was not chosen).

It was interesting to watch the theatrics of McCain, a man, and Palin, a woman, partnering – and the choreography also of Cindy McCain and Palin’s husband. Also interesting was the choice of music before and after the two speeches: Van Halen’s (or Van Hagar’s) “Right Now.”

Also interesting-ly – today was McCain’s 72nd birthday and the Palins’ 20th wedding anniversary (they were high school sweethearts).

P.P.S. I wonder if Senator Biden will eat up Governor Palin in debates. Just as the other Democratic candidates had to be careful attacking Senator Clinton, the only woman, in debates, so Biden will have to be careful in attacking Palin, the second woman VP nominee. And the Democrats will have a harder time arguing that both of the VP candidates are out of touch.

P.P.S. On the other hand, I can now imagine Governor Palin tearing into Senator Biden as a creature of the Washington establishment (Wilmington residence not withstanding) and even part of the culture of corruption. Palin, in this view, emerges as kind of a counter-Congressman Foley – whose indictment was as much as anything responsible for the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006.

I can also now imagine the McCain campaign engaging in two enormous head fakes. They were never seriously considering Governor Ridge or Senator Lieberman as vice presidential running mates. But by vocally shopping such moderate pro-abortion rights Washington insiders, they got the Right wing of the party so gleeful now – not that they know who some of the supposed alternatives were. By head faking towards Ridge and Lieberman, McCain made the Right REALLY happy with him, instead of just happy with him.

Then there’s the vaunted Obama campaign. By head faking towards an EXPERIENCE campaign, the McCain folks tricked the Obama folks into going for someone with whom it makes it much tougher to make his central CHANGE argument. Now, McCain (wioth Palin) has switched gears and adopted the CHANGE mantle himself – which is what he wanted to run on all along. Palin emerged as the fiscally conservative, socially conservative reformer, the housecleaning happy homemaker, that now allows McCain to run (implicitly) against the Bush Administration (despite McCain’s recent alliance with them) and against Congress (even though he’s been in it for 22 years). Having adopted then discarded EXPERIENCE, McCain-Palin can now run on CHANGE. Having lost the CHANGE paradigm when he picked Biden, and unable anyway to run on EXPERIENCE since the top of the ticket has little (though much more than Palin does, despite her executive experience), Obama-McCain is deprived of any plausible reason for their candidacy.

On a more positive note (for Obama), one of last night’s speakers (I think it was Obama’s IL colleague in the U.S. Senate, Dick Durbin), came up with a great analogy for the “inexperienced” Obama, other than Bill Clinton. He recalled that a man from IL with experience only in the IL Legislature and just two years in Congress, when he campaigned against a war that was popular when it started but folks have later turned against was also called inexperienced when he ran for president. The year was 1860, and the man was Abraham Lincoln from the new Republican Party. Despite being “inexperienced,” Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election and went on to become one of our great presidents. Nice touch, Senator Durbin.

P.P.P.P.S. Part of Palin’s pitch is her – like Pawlenty’s – working-class roots – which Biden supposedly has too, but they’re not as apparent to me. I think Palin will play much better in the South (as well as in the West) than Biden (who was picked more for the Northeast and Midwest).

Two other tidbits – Todd, Palin’s husband, is part Eskimo; and – as she alluded to – he’s a champion snowmobiler.

As with the Democratic Party nomination race, Palin’s selection makes this another historic race: pitting the first African American candidate against the oldest first-time candidate and the second woman vice presidential candidate. No matter who wins, we’ll get the first African American president or the first woman vice president. Obama seemed to recognize this when he undercut his own spokesperson in praising the choice – in part to recognize his need for support from former Hillary Clinton voters.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Some other interesting tidbits from Stephanie and Mom. During her most recent pregnancy, Palin went through amniocentesis and found out that her fifth child would/did have Down syndrome. But she went ahead and gave birth to the child (and Stephanie says she hid her pregnancy from her friends and colleagues for a long time, lest they pressure her to consider abortion). Mom also says that Senator Clinton called to congratulate Palin and was warmer with her than she was with Obama. I read that an Obama spokesperson criticized the selection of Palin because of her experience. But several hours later on a plane Obama praised Palin and welcomed her to the debate, essentially chastising his spokesperson in the process.

-- Perry