By selecting Alaska Governor Sarah
Palin, Senator John McCain has revealed several things about his
character. Is he brilliant? Has seen proven that he is now a listener
to his partisans? Or McCain has shown something not so flattering
about this man?
By choosing Mrs. Palin, Senator McCain
has done the following, for better or for worse:
Senator McCain has destroyed his most
persistent attack on Barack Obama as lacking the experience to be
commander-in-chief. This 44-year-old first-term governor of two years
is hardly the one with the experience to take over as president
should anything happen to John McCain. How can experience be such a
big deal for Obama but not for McCain's running mate?
The senator has lost credibility on the
national security issue, which he says is the most important issue in
this presidential election. How can he, with a straight face, say
that Sarah Palin is ready to serve as national security champion,
especially with reference to international affairs, when he at the same time alleges that Obama is not qualified to play
that role? With all due respect, Mrs. Pilan is a close to zero international experience as Senator McCain could have come. The whole experience attack is now off the table; it no longer has credibility on the McCain side.
Mr. McCain has certainly lost his
maverick credentials. It's a pathetic joke to say that McCain's
choice of Palin is a "maverick" move, because the governor has
been a maverick change agent in Alaska just as McCain has been in
Washington. McCain chickened out of his original leaning to have
picked a pro-choice running mate. Remember that McCain floated the
idea of a pro-abortion VP in some of his town hall meetings, until
Republican partisans began to shoot down the notion. Whatever
happened to Maverick McCain? Poof, he's vanished! We are left with
this new McCain who bends over backwards to kiss the feet of die-hard
right wingers, who insisted on a prolife running mate for the
senator.
Senator McCain proves he is a desperate
man. He is desperate to win this election at all costs and by all
means. His selection of Palin is for one reason alone: get those
Hillary Clinton female voters, who just can't get over the defeat of
Mrs. Clinton. But wait! Didn't 27% of Mrs. Clinton's supporters
already say they'd vote for McCain anyway? Perhaps the senator did
not want to take any chances by taking those Clintonites at their
word. Mr. McCain seems to be admitting that there is no way he can
become president of the United States with those precious female
voters of Clinton's.
Age seems to have played a major role
in driving Mr. McCain to this desperate end. The senator, who turns
72 today (August 29, 2008), realizes that age is not on his side.
This is probably his one last shot at the presidency, and this sense
of desperation has driven the man to pick this virtually unknown
governor. Simply put, McCain picked Palin, a woman, because Obama did
not pick Hillary Clinton, a woman. McCain wants to outdo Obama on the
female twist. And with that, we are supposed to start looking at
McCain as the history maker, attempting to give America its first
female vice president? Boy, are we impressed?!
Furthermore, rather than take
initiative like a true leader with years of that important
"experience", Mr. McCain has chosen to be purely reactionary in
his choice of VP. He waited for Obama to make the first move in
picking a running mate. Then McCain reacted to Obama's choice. There
is no rule on the books that says McCain had to wait for Obama before
he could pick his own running mate. Is that the kind of leadership
America needs or wants ~ someone who will be reactive rather than
proactive?
What a pitiful move on Senator McCain's
part after the Democrats had such a blast of a convention this week!
Let's hope the Republican convention to start on Monday, September
1st, will help to rescue John McCain from the impact of
this poor choice for a running mate.
If Senator McCain's VP choice proves anything at all, it is the deserved cynicism that politics is anything but a game. And in this case, the political game for John McCain was to change the subject. That, we must admit, he has done in such a crafty way here. Tell you who's going to be one of the happiest men in these weeks leading up to the November elections: Rush Limbaugh ~ that's who, that was the conservative heavyweight that McCain chose to please by placing the nationally unknown Mrs. Sarah Pilan on the Republican ticket.
Good play, John McCain, good game. That only makes Senators McCain and Obama little more than typical politicians fully devoted to the game of politics, which means almost nothing will change after the elections. Don't hold your breath, people, there will be no meaningful change in the daunting challenges that America faces. Come January 2009 and it will be same old same old in the United States of America. Oh, how I wish to be proven wrong by either President McCain or President Obama.
