A few thoughts on McCain's VP choice

[I am about to depart from a long-standing practice of not discussing my political choices within earshot of wife.  It isn't that we have such different politics, but rather that we have been very careful not to unduly influence each-other's choices.

So honey… if you want to maintain the mystery in this particular facet of our marriage, this would be a good time to click away.]

This past week John McCain, the boring old white guy who will be heading up the Republican ticket this fall, made himself – and this race – a whole lot more interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I like John McCain.  I like his political record of integrity and leadership.  I respect his personal record of service and honor.  And I have no doubt that he would make an excellent chief executive if elected.

However, one of my big problems with the Republican Party has always been that they tend to leave their best fruit on the vine until it is well past its prime… in much the same way that the Democrats seem to take particular pride in serving up political candidates who are roughly analogous of Beaujolais Nouveau.

Again, to be clear, I have nothing personal against Beaujolais Nouveau.  It's just that I agree with many wine critics when they call this trendy young wine 'simple' and 'immature' (Wine critic Karen MacNeil once compared drinking Beaujolais Nouveau to eating raw cookie dough).

The Democratic Party has just finished finalizing the nomination of Barak Obama, a bright, articulate Senator whose entire platform seems constructed of the word 'change'.  And given the inability or unwillingness of the Bush Administration to explain their vision, and to unify the country behind them, a promise of 'change' is actually a damned fine campaign strategy for the Dems.

But for all his unquestionable qualifications (I have been very active in slamming those who perpetuate/forward unfounded scare emails alleging BHO is some sleeper agent of international Jihad), Obama is an untested lightweight when it comes to the international arena.  He's also untested when it comes to leadership (being a Senator is a team sport).  More than that, too many of his stated positions on international relations seem constructed to allow for future back-peddling.  And lastly, suggesting the notion that 'no harm can come from talking' become a national policy is being proven wrong even as I write this as Iran continues to talk its way into the nuclear arms club.

So, I was not a bit surprised when I read that Sen. Obama had selected a well- seasoned old white guy (Sen. Joseph Biden) as his running mate to bring some depth to the ticket.

While Biden wasn't a foregone conclusion, the idea of a 'fill in the blank' old white guy was.  In much the same way that Dubya needed to put Dick Cheney on the ticket in order to gain some foreign policy cred… Obama knew that the world beyond America's borders is far too turbulent right now for undecided voters to simply trust a young charismatic Commander-In Chief to get up to speed with 'on-the-job training'. 

Quite simply, for all the comparisons between Obama and JFK… Kennedy got off extremely lucky with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and history has shown that the Cuban/American relations might never have been pushed to the brink of sparking WWIII if not for Kennedy's disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion the previous year.

A friend of mine who is a well-connected political consultant in the US, emailed me a few weeks ago with his prediction of who McCain would choose as his running mate.  He tossed the name Carly Fiorina out with the observation that she "might even put California in play".

In my one sentence response I wrote, "I know it will never happen, but I would love to see him pick Sarah Palin (http://gov.state.ak.us/ )".

Now before you go thinking I am some kind of political genius, let me make a confession (yes, this is also for the benefit of my political consultant friend who is probably still stunned that I nailed it).  I had only heard the name Sarah Palin a few weeks before I named her as my preferred Republican VP choice.   I'd read about her on a friend's blog (who, at the time was doing a private rain dance for Palin's nomination), and I decided to do a bit more reading to find out who she was.

What I read resonated nicely along many (but not all) of the issues that are important to me:

1.  Gender:  First and foremost, she is a woman.  I'm not normally one for arbitrary gender, ethnic or religion-based political moves, but the idea of a woman on the Republican ticket really resonated with me.  For all his good qualifications, McCain often comes off as distant, and even cold.  A qualified young woman as his VP suddenly paints the team in warm, saturated colors.  I also knew that Obama pissed off a lot of his base by not putting Hillary on the ticket.  Many of those votes are now in play.

2.  Age:  Did I say she was young.  Gov. Palin is 44!  Every election year the major parties alienate younger voters by not giving them a reason to see the process as relevant to them.  Obama took a giant step away from this untapped younger demographic when he selected Biden (an old white guy) as his VP choice.  McCain (another old white guy) took a giant step towards these young voters with his selection of an athletic young woman who runs, fishes, admits to having smoked pot (when it was briefly legal in Alaska) and who delights in 'sticking it to the man'.

3.  Shaking things up:  In this case, 'the man' Sarah Palin has been sticking it to is the Republican Party… and she has made her way to the top of Alaskan politics by cutting away all the old-boy trappings of the way Republicans had been doing business there for years.  She was elected on a platform of change, and within hours of being elected she went to work ruthlessly cutting pork, eliminating waste, undoing last-minute political appointments made by her Republican predecessor and even putting the Governor's private Jet up for sale on eBay!  I guess being new, nobody told her she couldn't do all that.

4.  Abortion:  We saw in the last election that the republicans were able to line up the 'red states' along a seam-line composed of issues collectively known as 'family values'.  One of these things which decided the election was that, like it or not, a large part of the voting public is anti-abortion.  For the record, I am very much in favor of protecting a woman's legal right to seek a safe abortion.  However, this is only because my religion very clearly places a higher value on the life of the mother, and requires the termination of the unborn fetus in cases where it endangers the life of the mother.  I don't view abortion as an acceptable form of birth control.  So, you can well imagine that reading that Sarah Palin was very firmly in the anti-abortion camp bothered me deeply.  However, I can respect McCain's decision to bring a woman on-board to give voice to this issue since IMHO, his lack of a uterus completely disqualifies him to offer a public opinion on the matter.  I say let the public debate be about the issue, not whether a bunch of old white guys are qualified to talk about, or decide, the issue.

5.  Drilling:  Although I regret the unfortunate imagery in having this one follow the last, just as it makes perfect sense to have a woman give voice to the party's stance on laws related to a woman's reproductive organs, it makes perfect sense to have Alaska's Governor speaking about the issue of drilling for oil in America's largest, and most pristine state.  In this case it is interesting to note that McCain has been consistently against drilling, while Palin is all for it.  Just as with abortion, I shut up and listen when someone with a personal stake in the outcome of the discussion starts talking. Ultimately, I would like to see America weaned off foreign oil altogether and develop alternative energy sources... but in the short term it makes sense to kick the Saudi habit as soon as possible and develop a dependable domestic supply.

6.  Gay rights:  Just as I was bothered by Palin's stance on abortion, I was initially put-off by her stance on Gay rights.  Ironically, this issue is an issue where my religious views do not line up with my political ones… nor do they have to.  Unlike abortion, where Jews have a vested interest in making sure the legal option is available in cases where it is religiously mandated, Judaism's views on homosexuality have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not same sex marriage should be regulated by the government.  Quite simply, we have no dog in the fight (i.e. it will not affect Jews one bit if the state empowers a gay couple to legally call themselves husband and, um, husband), so it is hypocritical of us to try to influence the outcome for or against gay marriage.  To put it in terms that are, perhaps, closer to home… for Jews to come out against Gay rights would be as repugnant as non-Jews trying to bring legal obstacles to the construction of Eruv's in American communities.  At first blush, Sarah Palin is quite clearly against gay marriage.  She has spoken out against it and voted against it.   But not so fast!  As Governor, her first veto was used to shoot down legislation that would have denied same sex domestic partners the same public employee benefits, such as health insurance, enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts and married couples.  It would appear that Gov. Palin is capable of taking a nuanced approach on complex issues!  In fact, her willingness to express opposition to same sex marriage yet use her veto to defend gay rights gives me hope that she might also hold nuanced views on abortion.

7.  Israel:  I've had a good chuckle over the past few days as I've seen Jewish democrats rushing to send out emails claiming that Sarah Palin is anti-Israel.  The sum total of the support for these claims comes from the fact that she hasn't yet visited Israel, and that almost ten years ago (early in her political career) she helped Pat Buchanan campaign when he visited the Alaskan town of which she was mayor.  People, deep breath please.  Sarah Palin has been Governor of Alaska for two years, and she was elected on a platform of eliminating junkets and public waste.  Not jetting off to the middle east is not a sign that she is anti-Israel.  It means she is serious about keeping her promise to her constituency to stay at home and work for them.  And as far as the whole Pat Buchanan thing goes, aside from the two sharing many (though not all!) conservative values, he was in a position to do far more for her fledgling political career than she for him.  During (and since) Pat's brief swing through a small Alaskan town where Sarah Palin happened to be the Republican Mayor, she hasn't embraced a single one of his more controversial and divisive platforms, and certainly hasn't echoed any of his well-known sentiments about Jews or Israel.  If anything, it is Buchanan who is now trying to jump on Palin's coat-tails, not the other way around.

So there you have it.  I'm not going to be campaigning for her (at least not here on treppenwitz), but I figured that a post about something that was on my mind would be in order.  Feel free to share your [respectful/polite] thoughts.

Zahava… if you are still reading this, I don't expect you to reciprocate and tip your hand.