Comparing Veepstakes Winners

When I first heard on Friday that McCain had picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, my reaction was "What was he thinking?" They can't possibly use the attack anymore that Obama isn't experienced enough to be president, after picking a vice-president even less experienced than he is. The McCain campaign clearly decided that the experience argument wasn't working, and they'd have to make this an ideological campaign. Of course, this isn't the best year for the conservative ideology, which means they want to play a typical Rove-style God, guns, and gays campaign. Therefore, I suppose they wanted to pick an ultra-conservative to appease the base, but they still could have gone with Pawlenty, who is just as conservative, and with far more experience.

To those who would say that she's no worse than Obama, I would beg to differ. First of all, the district Obama represented in the state senate is considerably larger than Wasilla, Alaska. Furthermore, Obama has 4 years in the US Senate. That's 4 years on the Foreign Relations Committee, 4 years steeped in the issues important to the national political scene. He's already written numerous essays and a couple of books laying out his worldview and governing philosophy. While I do wish he had more experience, there is certainly enough information out there for the public to make an informed decision on whether they trust his judgment and find his worldview appealing. On Sarah Palin, there is nothing. She's governed a city of 7000 people, and one of the smallest states in the Union for a year and a half. None of that provides anyone with any idea of how she would approach Iraq, Russia, or China. From what I understand, she's done a decent job as governor (though one of her biggest accomplishments was raising taxes on oil companies, something John McCain has said he would oppose under all circumstances). Yet John McCain's claim that she reinforces his image as a reformer falls somewhat flat, given that after getting elected on a reformist, clean-government platform, a year and a half later she's already under an ethics investigation herself.

They obviously chose Palin over the more qualified candidates for one simple reason: she's a woman. (Though I still find it a little odd, given that off the top of my head I could probably name half a dozen Republican women more qualified than Palin.) They saw some of Hillary Clinton's supporters still not committed to Obama, and figured they could peel some of them away by putting a women on the ticket. Really, this is an incredibly condescending choice, and shows tremendous disrespect for the women of America. Do they really thing that Hillary Clinton's supporters (myself included) supported her only because of her anatomy/genome? Of course not. Sure we liked the idea of the first woman president, but we supported Hillary because she was a qualified candidate who stood up for the issues important to women (and men). The McCain-Palin ticket is against all the issues important to the women's movement. And I don't just mean abortion rights. They're against increasing access to contraception. They're against more funding for prenatal care and family leave. They're against requiring equal pay for equal work. The forces of the status quo, in their last ditch effor to prevent change, will offer some symbolic, yet meaningless, change, in order to convince people that real change is unnecessary. If McCain's people think Hillary's voters are going to vote someone who's both profoundly inexperienced, and stands for none of the issues they care about, simply because she's a woman, they've got another thing coming to them.

It's funny how McCain announced his pick of Sarah Palin, the most thoroughly unqualified choice for vice-president in recent history (a choice especially important given McCain's age), in front of a poster reading "Country First." By picking a choice with no qualification other than appealing to a particular demographic that he thinks could help him politically (whether or not it actually will), McCain has shows that he puts politics before country. Compare that with Obama's pick of Biden, who more than makes up for his lack of experience. Biden is clearly the most qualified person he could have chosen, with decades of experience and accomplishments in both foreign and domestic policy. The consummate foreign policy expert in the Democratic Party, and a real leader in the Senate. He could have gone with someone like Tim Caine, who might have helped him politically to win Virginia, but he chose to pick someone who's truly qualified to be president. So who really puts country first?