Three Candidates for Vice President
By Bud White on September 10, 2008 at 8:10 AM in Arrogance, Associated Press, Barack Obama, Elitism, Foreign Affairs, Gender Bias, Joe "Bro" Biden, John F. Kennedy, John McCain, McCain/Palin 2008, Misogyny, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Women
(Cartoon by Pat Racimora)
Obama’s choice of Joe Biden, I suspect, will go down as one of worst political decisions in recent memory. John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin will be remembered as one of the best.
Biden reinforces Obama’s worst traits: egoism, verbosity, elitism, and D.C.-insider status.
Palin, of course, reminds us of the best of McCain: fresh, unconventional, funny, and willing to battle the D.C. insiders.
Like John F. Kennedy, Obama was suppose to represent a new generation of leadership. But Biden is a dead weight on Obama; he entered the senate before much of Obama’s base was born.
Some argue that Biden, like Lyndon Johnson, brings gravitas to the ticket. Douglas Schoen is of this opinion. He writes:
Witness the single biggest decision that Obama has made thus far: choosing Joe Biden as his running mate. The pick helped squelch concerns about Obama’s perceived lack of experience and foreign policy savvy. More importantly, it signaled to moderates that when it matters, Obama makes sensible, pragmatic choices.
What Schoen fails to note is that this is a change election. Americans aren’t looking for the presidential candidate to supplement his credentials with a Washington insider, they are looking for attainable solutions for our economic woes and a smart exit strategy from Iraq.
Biden only emphasizes Obama’s weakness on foreign affairs, and he fails to bring Obama any electoral votes. Although it’s often stated that the Daley machine won the election for Kennedy in Illinois, it was actually Lyndon Johnson who guaranteed Texas for Kennedy and thus the election. Even if Kennedy lost Illinois, he would still have become president. Biden, unlike Johnson, doesn’t heal the Party’s divisions nor does he bring votes.
John F. Kennedy, in contrast to Obama, was not new to national service. Beginning as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II and then by election to the Congress and Senate, Kennedy served his country for 17 years prior to running for president. Although Kennedy at 42 was younger than Obama’s 47, he was considered an expert on foreign affairs, authoring a book on pre-War England, traveling widely, and as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kennedy offered himself as a fully-formed presidential candidate. Kennedy did not require Johnson’s résumé in order to sell himself to the country. Johnson signaled geographical and ideological balance, and a concession that Johnson was a real threat to Kennedy during the real balloting at the convention in Los Angeles. Kennedy finished with 806 delegates to Johnson’s 409, a far bigger spread that the Obama/Clinton contest.
What Johnson did for Kennedy was to unite two factious sides of the Democratic Party, the liberals and the southern Democrats. Obama’s failure to select Hillary as V.P. only increased the division in the Party, and it gave McCain an opening.
This opening has allowed McCain to completely dominate the narrative for nearly two weeks. Not all the conversation is positive, of course, but it doesn’t need to be; Obama’s message is being drowned out.
Although I ignore Dick Morris when he speaks about the Clintons, his Machiavellian view of politics is often worth listening to closely. Here’s Morris on Palin and women:
Anecdotal evidence already suggests that women may have a gut reaction to the establishment’s sexist assault on a woman candidate – and flock to McCain. They’ve seen him stake everything on this one big move of turning toward a woman – in direct contrast to Obama’s deliberate decision not to name a woman.
They’ve seen the media and Democrats gang up on her and do their worst. And they’ve seen Palin stand up and stuff the challenge right back down the establishment’s throat. All this may have created an entirely new dynamic in the race.
Recent polling data is confirming Morris’ prediction:
An ABC News-Washington Post survey showed white women have moved from backing Obama by 8 points to supporting McCain by 12 points, with majorities viewing Palin favorably and saying she boosts their faith in McCain’s decisions.
For many women, I believe, Obama-Biden represents the worst of the boys club and McCain-Palin have become the agents of change. The vicious attacks on Palin only reinforces this narrative. Valentine Bonnaire captures the revulsion many women feel towards the Obama-Biden-DNC sexist club:
We don’t like your ticket, BOYZ. And we’ll unpack why, now. To watch you SQUIRM. Your ticket represents every man who ever groped us, whoever abandoned us, whoever BROKE our fragile FEMALE HEART, whoever BEAT US UP, whoever hurt ONE OF OUR GIRLFRIENDS, OUR BEST FRIENDS — Oh, I could go on
Instead of making a peace offering to women by picking Hillary, Obama is now in the position of attacking another woman candidate. It’s starting to look like a pattern. The headline today from the Associated Press, written by Nedra Pickler, is “Obama puts heat on Palin as she boosts GOP ticket.” She writes:
Obama said last week’s Republican National Convention did a good job of highlighting Palin’s biography — “Mother, governor, moose shooter. That’s cool,” he said. But he said Palin really is just another Republican politician, one who is stretching the truth about her record.
“When John McCain gets up there with Sarah Palin and says, `We’re for change,’ … what are they talking about?” Obama said Monday. (emphasis added)
Obama’s use of the pedestrian “cool” is meant to assure us that he is unfazed by Palin, but his need to sound unconcerned makes the desperation almost palpable. Obama is now running against Palin. He doesn’t have a choice. Obama is hemorrhaging women voters. He must stop the bleeding, but his attacks on her only serve to diminish him. Palin has become Obama’s opponent, and his attacks on her inexperience only remind voters of his own inexperience and, even worse, they remind women of what he and his supporters did to Hillary. The attacks on Palin, a woman friend told me today, are beginning to feel like personal attacks on all women.
Instead of having two political giants like Kennedy and Johnson, we have three candidates for vice president, of which Palin is the best, and McCain is reaping the benefit.
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