Missoula Notebook

Palin’s Lack of Qualifications May Spell Doom for Obama

By Sutton Stokes, 9-02-08

	Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Photo by Flickr user Ryan McFarland.

John McCain’s Friday announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate gave hope to many Democrats, who figured that at least they might now stop hearing lectures about the importance of “experience” from a man who has frittered away whatever reputation he once had for sage and independent wisdom by supporting and promising to extend the policies of George W. Bush.

With one fell swoop, McCain left himself less room to make the point that he is more experienced than Obama, simply because it is no longer clear why he thinks we should care. If long national political experience is such an important prerequisite for the presidency, and given McCain’s age and health, what justification is there for selecting as his possible replacement someone who even Pat Buchanan admits is patently unprepared for the job?

Beyond the damage McCain appeared to have done to the logic of his main platform plank (i.e., “At least I’m not that young whippersnapper, Obama, and also get off my lawn!”), the choice raised serious questions about McCain’s mental health — questions that the candidate might have been wiser to avoid so close on the heels of his worrying reactions to recent events in Georgia. If you try to imagine the inner monologue that resulted in the choice of Palin, a woman McCain had met only once before making his decision, it is difficult to disagree with conservative (and, often, McCain apologist) Andrew Sullivan, who calls Palin “a less steady choice than Biden” and who now admits to being “less comfortable with the idea of [McCain] as commander in chief.” Sullivan continues:

”Could this be McCain’s Miers moment? Some [of my] readers think so: the point at which people suddenly realize that McCain is actually less interested in governing than in politics. And willing to let personal liking and respect for utterly unqualified people trump the sober responsibilities of running a country at war, a climate in flux, an economy in trouble, and an empire close to imploding.”

As the pundits scratched their heads and tried to suss out what could possibly be behind McCain’s bizarre choice, the best theory anyone could seem to come up with was the possibility that he might be hoping that disenchanted Hillary supporters would switch their party allegiances and vote — not their consciences — but their genitals. Indeed, Palin herself encouraged this interpretation in her first moments as the official candidate, offering a rallying cry remarkable mainly for its hamhandedness:

“It was rightly noted in Denver this week that 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.”

For what it’s worth, the audience is reported to have booed.

I imagine many Democrats reached for the champagne on Friday, but they shouldn’t get carried away. A lot can happen between now and November, and one of those things is that a country — or enough of a country to make the difference — can fall in love with a fresh face like Palin’s.

I’m already anticipating that Palin will “win” her debates with Joe Biden, not despite but because of a shaky grasp on the facts of foreign policy. (It is after all doubtful that McCain tested her on the difference between Shiites and Sunnis, since he doesn’t know himself, while the best that some of his shills can come up with is that of course Palin knows foreign policy: Alaska is the closest part of the North American continent to Russia.) She will further help herself along by grasping for the kind of unverifiable and ultimately irrelevant folk credentials that always get cheers on the Oprah Winfrey Show and which Palin has already deployed on the home page of the Alaska governor’s office:

“It is the honor of my life to represent you as your Governor, and over the next two months I will continue to do so. As the mother of five, I know how to multi-task, and I will continue to promote the path of reform that we set out on together in the state of Alaska.” [Emphasis mine.]

As I sifted through news reports about Palin this weekend, I seemed to find more and more evidence suggesting that — given the upside-down, Bizarro World that American political culture inhabits — Palin will not hurt McCain’s candidacy but might even help it and, indeed, might even find herself in the Oval Office one day.

I compiled a partial list.

1. Sarah Palin hunts and eats moose.

2. She owns a float plane.

3. She was captain of her high school basketball team.

4. There is footage available on line showing her firing an M16.

If all of that isn’t enough to make the threat clear, I suggest you consider how the following Palin quote from a CNBC interview in late July will play in the heartland, where the inclination to seek public office is generally — and not always unfairly — regarded as a disqualification for that office. In answer to a question from the host about whether John McCain was considering her as a vice-presidential candidate, Palin said, “as for that VP talk all the time, 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?”

If you can’t hear the first inklings of Obama’s doom in those words — if you don’t notice Cupid’s arrow winging dangerously near the American public’s heart — you haven’t been paying very much attention to American politics over the years.

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