If you’re politically progressive — if you support civil rights; a clean environment; a fair economy; a well-run government; and the like — then Sarah Palin is dangerous. She has the right look, the right voice, and the right personal narrative to craft a political persona for herself which can resonate with a lot of people. Like Reagan before her, she can tool the power of perception to her advantage. And the power of perception can be very powerful in politics.
On top of that, she’s demonstrating a keen instinct for the jugular and the ability to articulate Republican talking points. Whether she’s writing the speeches or not is truly immaterial. She’s not Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, but she’s one of the best public speakers the Republicans have had in years.
I expect that Palin wil be a major mover-and-shaker in the Republican party for years to come. She will be a highly visible and highly effective spokesperson for the party. And she’ll probably be a very viable candidate for a Presidential run in 2012.
With all that being said, however, Palin has several key weaknesses:
(1) She suffers from a profound lack of experience. The Republicans are trying to spin that away by saying that she has more experience than Obama (she doesn’t) or by claiming that only executive experience counts for anything (a standard which means that John McCain is has no relevant experience). It’s very important that they don’t win this battle. Palin is inexperienced and she needs to remain defined that way through this election cycle.
(2) She has given two major speeches since being named as the VP nominee… and each of those speeches has been riddled with blatant lies. Those lies (and any lies she chooses to tell in the future) need to be repeatedly emphasized so that her credibility can be (quite rightfully) destroyed.
(3) She has several rather significant scandals hanging over her. Troopergate, her involvement with the secessionist Alaskan Independent Party, the book-bannings, and the politically-motivated “loyalty” firings cannot be allowed to fall to the back-burner.
(You’ll notice that none of the pregnancy nonsense or “mommy shouldn’t be allowed to go back to work” foolishness is mentioned above. That’s because those are, frankly, red herrings that provide nothing but a distraction from the more meaningful and substantive narrative.)
The next week is going to be fairly crucial. If Palin can be defined in terms of her failures, her lies, and her scandals then she’ll be effectively neutralized in this election cycle. (Although her ability to fire up the Republican base is not irrelevant, particularly if it frees McCain to finally skew back towards more moderate positions.)
But even if she’s neutralized in this election, she’s not going to go to away. She’s a young Republican politician who has been thrust into a party leadership role at a time when the existing leaders of the party are aging their way out of politics. There are only two ways she doesn’t assume a major role (including that possible 2012 run for President):
(1) One of her scandals breaks big. If Troopergate were to result in a criminal conviction or impeachment or if a video were to emerge of her explicitly endorsing the AIP’s secessionist platform, that would probably be sufficient to tarnish her political reputation in a way that would take years to recover from (if she ever could).
(2) The McCain-Palin ticket is blown out by the Obama-Biden ticket in the kind of humiliating display of political impotence that destroys careers. We’re talking about the kind of political whipping that McGovern received in ’72; Mondale and Ferrara received in ’84; or Dole and Kemp received in ’96.
However, I don’t consider either of those scenarios to be particularly likely.
In any case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the polls over the next couple of weeks. I’m hopeful that the trends from earlier this week will persist and that the selection of Palin will be defined as the point where the McCain campaign finally shot itself irrevocably in the foot. But if she can somehow slip out from her inexperience, her mendacity, and her scandals, then Palin could become a very dangerous factor over the last 50 days of this campaign.
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Eph
Justin – Thanks for the quick reply to my last post. Would you consider writing an analysis of how you think a person should evaluate a presidential candidate? What factors of character and experience or qualification are important? Which are vital? Which are less important? How should they be evaluated? Where should politicians be cut some slack for the nature of the business (i.e. some degree of mischaracterization of opponents, though unappealing, seems inevitable. So to retreats from campaign positions.
I’d love to see you analyze this issue the way you look at game design issues. Though the ongoing campaign and current candidates make it harder to fact an abstract set of criteria, I’d like to see the framework you (think one should) use for evaluating candidates. Also, do you think different criteria should apply to a VP candidate.
Friday, September 05, 2008, 5:43:53 PM
Justin Alexander
Interesting question, Eph. This is just going to be kind of off the top of my head, but let’s start with Republicans I Respect:
John McCain (circa 2000) – This is a bit of a cheap-shot, but I really respected McCain in the 2000 election. If he’d been the Republican nominee, I probably would have voted for him. There have been quite a few flip-flops over the past 8 years that have eroded my support for him, but the one decision that eradicated my respect for him was when he flip-flopped on torture. John McCain, of all people, should know better.
Bob Dole – I always respected Bob Dole as an elder-statesman. He went kinda politically wacky in ’96 trying to figure out some way to get traction against Clinton, but he’s a man of integrity (IMO).
Newt Gingrich – Politically I disagree with Newt on lots of stuff, but I think his pro-science attitudes are one place where we have some common ground. I also think he’s one of the best political strategists in history.
Arnold Schwarznegger – I don’t follow California politics all that closely, so I’m judging this from a distance. But his political stances are pretty solid.
Norm Coleman – With the exception of his absolutely vile treatment of Paul Wellstone (followed by his two-faced embrace of Wellstone following his tragic death followed by dissing Paul Wellstone once he got to Washington), I can respect Coleman’s accomplishments. I’ll be voting for Al Franken come November, though.
Democrats I Don’t Respect:
Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid – Their leadership of the House and Senate have been anemic at best. Their failure to investigate Bush was also a charcoal-black mark against them. And their support for telecom immunity pretty much sealed my contempt for them. I’d like to see Hillary take a leadership role in the Senate.
Jack Davis — This one is also a bit of a cheap shot, but this guy is running for the NY-26 seat and he’s a complete scumbag.
Evan Bayh — I have a generally negative opinion of Bayh for his role in the DLC’s attacks on Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy. (This also played heavily in why Clinton never had my support during the primary, but I have lots of other reasons for respecting Hillary Clinton.)
Alcee Hastings — How does a guy who was impeached and convicted of accepting bribes as a federal judge get elected to Congress? It’s insane.
Friday, September 05, 2008, 3:49:02 PM
Eph
Justin,
I have been consistently impressed with the rigorous logic and balance of your writings about D&D, However, perhaps because of the topics you write about (Palin most recently) .
I’d be very interested in seeing more of your opinions. Could you give examples of some Republicans you respect and some Democrats you don’t respect?
Friday, September 05, 2008, 1:57:47 PM
Tetsubo
She also supports teaching creationism in schools. That alone should be a deal breaker for any thinking voter.
Friday, September 05, 2008, 12:46:34 PM
Justin Alexander
The world isn’t made up of absolute black-and-white, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t reasonably judge degrees of quality.
For example, compare Factcheck.org’s analysis of Obama’s convention speech to Palin’s convention speech.
For Obama’s speech they’re left discussing the perceived accuracy of the specific terms he used and pointing out where McCain has positives in addition to the negatives that Obama correctly identified. (And the first point on their list is, in any case, actually the result of them selectively editing Obama’s speech: That wasn’t the only method he proposed to “pay for every dime” of his platform. See here.)
Palin, on the other hand, blatantly lied about the McCain-Palin platform; her own political ideology; and her opponent.
In terms of scandals, one has to draw their own conclusion regarding the supposed “scandal” surrounding the purchase of Obama’s house — personally, I haven’t seen much evidence of any intentional wrong-doing. OTOH, we know for an absolute fact that Palin was involved with the AIP; supported book-bannings; and used loyalty firings when she was mayor of Wasilla. And, for me, there appears to be a lot of smoke pointing to the fire of Troopergate.
What it really boils down to, though, is that Palin is the female version of George W. Bush. Her political positions are even more extreme. She surrounds herself with the same kind of yes-men. Her response to alleged wrong-doing is to invoke executive privilege and attempt to redirect the investigations to political appointees that she controls. And she lies about her own political positions on the campaign trail.
Friday, September 05, 2008, 11:47:38 AM
Tetsubo
But not all political lies destroy the American economy, rape our environment, kill our troops, strip away our civil liberties and make the wealthy richer at the cost of the middle class. Like Republican lies.
Palin is a female who opposes women’s rights. That right there is farked up.
Friday, September 05, 2008, 9:23:46 AM
Guest
Is there any politician that hasn’t lied or have a trunk-full of skeletons and agendas?
Friday, September 05, 2008, 12:51:59 AM