Biggest Political Blunder Ever?

Let's take the world's stupidest stand and truly mean it.
-Okkervil River

Yesterday morning, just before 10:00am Central Standard Time, CNN reported that John McCain had made his VP selection, Sarah Palin.

Needless to say, I was shocked.

The entire push of the McCain campaign seemed to be centered around the argument that Barack Obama didn't have the necessary experience to become president. Less then 12 hours earlier, after Obama's outstanding speech to close the Democratic National Convention, McCain's staff had issued a release trying to point out just that. They said as inspirational as Barack Obama is, he's still not ready. This even after they knew that their choice for the person to be "a heartbeat away from the Presidency" (as it is said) is even less experienced.

One advisor of John McCain shared that opinion with the New York Times, admitting that McCain's own advisors were surprised by the pick.

From the New York Times

As reports circulated on television and cable networks on Friday morning that Senator John McCain might have selected Ms. Palin as his running mate, McCain advisers expressed bewilderment. One adviser said that while Mr. McCain thinks highly of Ms. Palin, who is opposed to abortion rights and would be welcomed by Christian conservatives, her less than two years in office would undercut one of the McCain campaign’s central criticisms of Senator Barack Obama — that he is too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

“While it’s a dramatic and interesting choice, it would make the argument he’s making difficult to make,” said one McCain adviser.

I love that. "McCain advisors expressed bewilderment." Now, of course, the Republicans have had time to get "on message", and the argument they have decided to make (as ridiculous as it may be) is that Palin is actually more experienced then Obama. Let's take a closer look at this claim.

Their argument is that since Palin's experience is executive experience, while Obama's is strictly in the Senate, her experience is somehow worth more. I might agree that extensive executive experience is worth more then extensive experience in the Senate, but there is no way that less then two years as Governor of Alaska is worth more then over 3 years in the Senate. Looking at it another way, Palin has less then 2 years of experience in politics at a State or higher level, Barack Obama has over 11 years of experience in politics at a State or higher level.

Doesn't really seem close.

And while Palin's experience is executive, it should be pointed out that she is the governor of the smallest state in America population wise. The population of all of Alaska is roughly the same as the population of Austin, Texas.

Palin won her governorship with approx. 115,000 votes. Meanwhile, over 85,000 people were at Invesco field to hear Barack Obama speak Thursday night.

So, while Palin's experience is executive, I would argue that it is worth a lot less then the experience that Barack Obama has accrued in his political career. And in the executive experience that Palin has been able to accumulate in her less then two years in office, there has been no way for her to learn about inner-city violence, drugs, or the other issues that large cities are infested with, but are relatively rare in Alaska, and that's to say nothing of foreign policy, the most important issue facing our Country today. So, in that case, perhaps McCain should have chosen the mayor of Austin. The experience of that job arguably outweighs the experience gained from being the Governor of Alaska.

And their work before entering politics is in favor of Obama as well. Barack having been a civil rights lawyer and a community organizer seems more apt towards becoming president someday then being a beauty pageant runner up and a sports reporter. (Palin reportedly wanted to work for ESPN so badly that she named one of her daughters Bristol, the town in Connecticut that houses ESPN headquarters.)

So, the only way to argue that Palin is the most experienced is to grossly outweigh executive experience over legislative experience. If you make that argument, you are actually saying that Palin is more experienced then John McCain.

And that's just laughable.

Therefore, so is the idea that Palin is more experienced then Obama.

But really, the question isn't about whether Palin is more experienced or just as experienced as Barack Obama (which I think it's clear that she is not). What it means is that the Republicans, specifically McCain's campaign, must not view experience as that important, since the person they have chosen to be a heartbeat away from the presidency (and a president who is at 72 years old, set to be the oldest president ever elected, and has had four occurrences of melanoma, a potentially lethal type of skin cancer) has so little experience.

Therefore, simply, the argument that Obama is not experienced enough for the presidency is no longer a valid one. McCain should not get to try and make it again.

So, why would McCain make this choice?

Well, there is only one reason that I can think of for McCain to have picked a woman whose selection takes away the only argument he had against Obama. He's trying to pick up the vote of the disgruntled Hillary supporters.

First of all, I thought that the speeches by Hillary and Bill Clinton at the DNC went a long way towards healing the separation. So, is it possible that some of the Hillary supporters will head over to McCain's ticket? I suppose that anything's possible, but choosing an inexperienced and unknown woman with exactly the opposite values isn't the way to win over Hillary's supporters in my mind. In fact it's actually quite condescending. Two women who voted for Hillary in the Texas Primary that I have spoken to have both called it insulting.

James Carville, Clinton supporter and famous democratic advisor, said on CNN the night of this announcement that the idea of Clinton supporters voting for McCain because of Palin was insulting. His feeling was that if Clinton got 18 million votes, 8 of them might vote for a creationist, gun-toting, pro-lifer with no experience.

By picking someone who goes against his message ("Obama's not ready") there is little question that picking up the disgruntled Hillary supporters is what this choice was really all about.

The sad thing is, McCain had two other females available who are extremely qualified and therefore better suited to winning over the female voters, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (arguably one of the most popular politicians amongst Republicans right now and no question holds that spot amongst Texas Republicans) and Condoleezza Rice, the current Secretary of State. However, by choosing a woman with so little experience, this choice smacks of condescension. We have a woman on the ticket, you voted for another woman, therefore you'll vote for us despite the facts.

There is no question that this is anything other then insulting.

McCain and Palin are ignoring this however and flaunting their desire to try and win over Clinton's supporters. When Palin was introduced as McCain's running mate, she referenced Geraldine Ferraro (the first woman on a major party ticket, she was Mondale's VP in 1984) and Clinton, specifically saying, "Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all." The women that voted for Clinton are smart enough to recognize that Palin stands for everything Clinton was running against and that voting for her just because she's a woman wouldn't be continuing what Hillary stood for in her historic run.

One rumor that I've heard is that Kay Bailey Hutchison was the top pick for the spot, but she declined to be considered saying that she wanted to focus on running for Governor of Texas in 2010 (and possibly her own run at the White House in 2012 or 2016). If that is true, I can't help but wonder if Senator Hutchison didn't want to be used that way (or perhaps figured McCain wasn't going to beat Obama anyway and didn't want to be a losing Vice Presidential candidate).

So, McCain's hope is clearly that by choosing a woman as his VP he'll win votes simply because she's a woman. Another problem I have with this attitude is that I don't think the majority of the 18 million plus votes received by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were cast because the candidate was a woman or black. The candidates themselves are about so much more then either their gender or their race.

Republican's of course will argue that Palin is the same type of candidate. They will point to her record as someone who took on her own party to clean up the corruption that was rampant in Alaskan politics. That is impressive, but the same day she was announced as the Republican VP candidate the story of her own corruption was released.

Alaskan State Trooper Mike Wooten also happens to be the ex-brother in law of Sarah Palin. Palin, her husband, and her sister called for his firing during a particular nasty child custody case between Wooten and Palin's sister.

The Department of Public Safety apparently made an investigation of the claims against Wooten (including that he used a Taser on his step-son, shot a moose out of season, lied on his application, and faked a workman's comp claim.) Yet Wooten was not fired.

In a phone call (apparently one of many made) from one of Palin's aides to a representative of the Department of Public Safety, Frank Bailey, Palin's aide, asks why Wooten has not been let go. He lists the reasons they feel Wooten should be let go.

The first five minutes of the audio call that has been uncovered by the media is concerning a contract situation that the DPS representative seems to think is an odd reason for such a phone call. Finally, Bailey gets to the real reason for his call, Mike Wooten. One has to wonder why an aide should make such a phone call. He gives his info on why Wooten is a bad trooper and claims that the trooper is "a bad recruiting tool" as if the claims they are making are known by the Alaskan population at large and would keep good people from wanting to be a State Trooper.

It seems as Bailey is working towards his real goal he feels uncomfortable about making this call, which leads me to believe he had been told to make this phone call and told to pressure the DPS to fire Wooten.

One part of the recording I found interesting was when Bailey brings up the alleged falsehood Wooten put on his application. The DPS representative asked how Bailey knew that Wooten had lied on his application, saying such info is classified. Bailey answers he doesn't feel comfortable answering how he knows. Pretty suspicious.

After the audio of this call was released, Palin admitted to the Anchorage Daily News that it was "a smoking gun" conversation. After having previously said that no one in her family or administration was attempting to get Wooten fired she now admitted that she did "now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist although I have only now become aware of it."

After Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan refused to fire Wooten, Palin fired him. She claims that her firing of Monegan had absolutely nothing to do with Wooten at all, but it sure is suspicious. Monegan claims his firing came completely "out of the blue".

There are two ways of looking at this situation. One, Palin used her station and power to try and get her ex-brother in law fired out of anger, and when she failed, took her anger out on Wooten's boss. Or two, that she has so little control of her staff that aides are using her station and power in order to pressure the Department of Public Safety to fire Wooten. And, again, remembering that the population of Alaska is roughly the same as the population of Austin, Texas, that staff is nowhere near as extensive as say the staff of the Vice President of the United States would be.

So, if we take Sarah Palin at her word, then we can only conclude that she is unable to handle her own staff, which at the moment is no where near the size that it would be if McCain were to win.

I think it is far more likely, however, that Palin was attempting to use her position as Governor of Alaska to settle a score with her ex-brother in law, and that scares me that McCain wants to give her an even more powerful position.

Of course, it makes it even more ironic that she ran and was elected on the platform of cleaning up political corruption and is under investigation less then two years into her term. And that despite this glaring mark against her one strength, McCain still chose her for the Republican Vice Presidential spot (causing bewilderment on behalf of his top advisors).

Of course, I suppose that it's possible he didn't know about this situation. After all, McCain had only met Palin once before naming her as his choice for VP. They met 6 months ago for the first time. They had one phone conversation after that (last Sunday) and then McCain offered her the position.

Couple this troubling news with the fact that his advisors were "bewildered" by the pick and one has to wonder if McCain knows exactly what he is doing. Any plusses that can be found in picking an inexperienced, creationist (Palin told the Anchorage Daily News that she believes Creationism should be taught alongside evolution, they then informed her that the Supreme Court had called the teaching of Creationism an illegal infusion of religion into public schools, which she apparently didn't know, because she then backtracked and said it should be taught if it came up), life long NRA member, and fiercely pro-life candidate (which will help appease the base who aren't thrilled with McCain) would be outweighed by all of the negatives, including her age (younger even then Obama) which one McCain supporter said might negatively reflect on McCain's age (an issue that hadn't been brought up too often by the democrats until this decision) as the election grew closer. And while the base might be appeased by this appointment (although that isn't guaranteed), most people believe that this is an election that will be decided by the moderate Republicans and independents, who are not going to look at this pick as anything but ridiculous.

And after writing all of this, I still haven’t brought up the fact that McCain is choosing for his vice-presidential spot someone who is completely unsure exactly what a Vice President does. When asked less then a month ago in an interview about the possibility of her becoming McCain’s pick for VP, this was her answer…

I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day.

Maybe it’s time to find out, Governor Palin. Of course, I would like the Vice Presidential nominee to already have a handle on it before being chosen for the position, but to each their own, I suppose.

So, is this the biggest political blunder ever? Has there ever been a worse decision in American politics? Not since Alexander Hamilton agreed to a duel with Aaron Burr (because Dick Cheney isn't the only vice-president to have shot somebody while in office).