GOP gets jolt it needs
Picking Palin carries political risks and opportunities to upstage Obama
The Republican National Convention, opening Monday, gets a jolt of electricity with John McCain's surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Given the drama the Clinton saga lent the Democratic convention, McCain needed something to energize the GOP confab and stir up interest among the general public.
That's not the only reason, or even the main reason, the Arizona senator reached all the way to Alaska for a newcomer on the national scene for his vice presidential pick, one that carries political risks as well as political opportunities. His selection of Palin suggests insights into what to expect during the week ahead.
Her middle-class background and the union credentials of Palin and her commercial fisherman husband will be highlighted as McCain makes his case that his economic plan can best address the pocketbook pain millions of Americans are feeling. McCain knows he must persuade middle-class voters that he cares more for them than the wealthy and corporations.
Palin's spot on the ticket affords the St. Paul convention an opportunity to make a pitch to Democratic and independent women who feel that Hillary Clinton ran into sexism during the primary season and was shown little respect when Barack Obama didn't even consider her for his running mate.
After the Palin announcement, the Obama campaign stumbled again with a belittling statement that ignored her experience as a governor.
The conventional wisdom is that voters make their decision on the qualities of the presidential candidate, not the running mate. Yet, with disaffected Clinton supporters still not sold on Obama, Republicans figure this might be the one time when traditional thinking is wrong.
Palin has been governor of Alaska for just two years. But the GOP convention will portray her as someone who has been working in government all that time while Obama has spent most of his three years in the Senate campaigning for the presidency. Unlike the legislative backgrounds of McCain, Obama and Joseph Biden, Obama's ticket mate, her experience is in an executive branch of government.
Another Republican theme is that McCain is best suited to shake up the entrenched political culture of Washington. Expect to hear often that Palin, as a reform governor, rejected the "bridge to nowhere" championed in Washington by Alaska's pork-loving members of Congress. This and other examples of Palin's bucking the GOP establishment and oil industry in her home state bolster McCain's maverick credentials.
In all these ways, McCain will showcase Palin as complementing his strong background in national security. This area, of course, is perceived as an Obama weakness. Republicans will press the case that the Democrat demonstrated poor judgment in opposing the military surge that has calmed Iraq.
Obama presents himself as a post-partisan candidate. Yet his acceptance speech Thursday night brimmed with criticisms of McCain. Republicans believe some of those hits distorted McCain's positions. So, the gloves may come off in St. Paul as they respond.
Democrats jumped on McCain's gaffe in not knowing how many houses he and his wife own. Don't be surprised if the GOP convention takes swipes at Obama's housing issues -- and not just the expensive property he put together with the help of convicted influence peddler and one-time contributor Tony Rezko. Republicans may point to Rezko's four foreclosed low-income housing buildings in the district Obama represented in the Illinois Legislature and ask how that happened under his nose without his being aware of it.
In Denver, the Democrats put on a spirited convention. Now it's the Republicans' turn to show what they can do.
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