Closeting Palin?

Seems the idea of Sarah Palin in the klieg lights and intensity of the O'Reilly Factor puts an icy knot in the stomach of the McCain campaign. Recently, Bill O'Reilly himself had this to say on the subject:

The problem with Palin is that for some reason Palin has not been on my program, and we've invited her many, many times. They seem to be frightened of putting Sarah Palin out. That's all I know. I don't know her, I don't know what her ability is. I know that she's excellent in front of crowds, but they keep her in front of the choir. They're not bringing her out into the independent precincts. They're keeping her off programs like mine where 20 million would people would see it.

An interview with me and Palin would be as big as my interview with Barack Obama. They're keeping her away. So you tell me again, what are they doing?

From what I’ve seen of her out in public she is a tremendous performer. Whether she has enough to sway independents, which is what they have to do to win the election, I just don't know.

Now why are they are so jittery about putting her on with someone so obviously pro-Republican as O'Reilly? Could it be they are concerned that an appearance on the same show with the smart, slick O'Reilly will display -- in an incontrovertible way -- just exactly how stupid she really is?

I guess there are some things even a brand new $150,000 wardrobe from the Republican National Committee can't dress up.

John & Sarah

Here's a hauntingly realistic spoof of John McCain courting Sara Palin for his running mate . . .


Here's the YouTube page.

Should McCain dump Palin?

I have written that John McCain's choice of vice presidential candidate was probably a colossal blunder. So should he dump her before the convention and irredeemable damage?

If he wants to have any shot at all at victory in November, probably not. He's already in a Catch-22.

In 1972, George McGovern chose the then junior Senator from Missouri, Thomas Eagleton, to be his vice president. This was a bad choice in that McGovern did not realize that Eagleton had been clinically depressed in the past (and successfully treated with electroshock therapy). Choosing Eagleton was a minor mistake, however. The major mistake was dumping him and picking Kennedy brother-in-law Sergeant Shriver as surrogate.

McGovern could have weathered any storm generated by Eagleton's history of "mental illness" by focusing on Eagleton's success in facing his illness and enduring treatment. At the same time he would have earned significant credit for letting reason rather than policial expediency govern his decision, and for heightening national awareness and understanding of depression.

Technically, McGovern did not "dump" Eagleton; he accepted Eagleton's offer to withdraw. Under the circumstances, however, public perception was -- justifiably -- that McGovern failed to stand by his veep choice. Thus, in a very real sense -- perhaps the truest sense -- he "dumped" him.

Some say the offer to withdraw was made at McGovern's request -- which would be a quite literal dumping. McGovern made this decision despite a Time magazine poll showing 77 percent of respondents were unconcerned about Eagleton's medical history.

For his part, though, Eagleton was eager to be the vice presidential candidate, and his failure to let McGovern (or anyone else) know of his past before he was named for veep was called, by McGovern in a 2007 interview with the New York Times after Eagleton's death, "an incredible cover up."

Eagleton died early in 2007. From his entry into politics at 27 (election as St. Louis circuit attorney) to his retirement from the Senate thirty years later in 1987, Eagleton never lost an election. During the final twenty years of his life, according to the New York Times, he "remained passionate about public affairs" and "was outraged by the Iraq war." In a 2006 letter, he pleaded with former President Bill Clinton to "forgo 'the traditional silence of an ex-president in wartime' " to oppose the war.

Incidentally, I was active in McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.

McCain-Palin

Sarah Palin, gun-toting former beauty queen mother of five; devout Christian; ardent anti-abortionist; union member; wife of commercial fisherman, one-eighth Yu'pik Eskimo, 2,000 mile "Iron Dog" snow machine champion, and production operator (on leave) for British

Photo credit: AL GRILLO / The Associated Press
Anchorage Daily News

Petroleum (BP) Todd Palin; fiscal conservative; former mayor of Wasilla, AK (2005 pop. 8,471 est.); two years experience as governor of Alaska; supporter of arctic drilling -- has been chosen to be John McCain's running mate.

What are the Republicans thinking? What is John McCain thinking?

Palin has a 90 percent approval rating in Alaska. "Wow!" you say, "She must be great. Looks like a sure winning ticket."

Uh, slow down. Not so fast. Take a moment to think.

Personally, I think McCain just made a major blunder.

Alaskans love Palin. That means they will vote for Obama-Biden. They want Governor Palin in Alaska, not Washington, DC. McCain will lose Alaska. Guaranteed.

Alaskans are fed up with Republic an corruption in that state. The only reliable weapon they have against it is their Republican governor who has taken on her own party to clean up the corruption.

They only way McCain carries Alaska now is if Palin is found to have been culpable in the firing of her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooton, an Alaska state trooper (who allegedly threatened to kill her father). If that happens, the McCain-Palin ticket is dead in the other 49 states on account of the scandal.

A scandal for Palin will revive talk about McCain's own misuse of power crisis involving the Keating 5 and the national savings and loan crisis.

Joining McCain for the announcement last night, Palin invoked the "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" Hillary Clinton declared in her June 7, 2008 concession speech and pompously proclaimed that she, with John McCain, will now crash through it.

Really? What is she betting on? That McCain will die soon after the inauguration? She is the vice presidential candidate. The Democrats have been there, done that. Remember Geraldine Ferraro of Mondale-Ferraro in 1984?

Crashing through the glass ceiling Hillary put 18 million cracks in? Palin did absolutely nothing to get on the ticket. She was merely anointed for the role (almost as bad as being installed by the Supreme Court like Bush-Cheney).

Does Governor Palin really think Hillary will stand quietly by while she expropriates her lines?

McCain solved one problem, and one problem only, by choosing Palin. He can stop worrying about the right wing of his party staying home on election day. They will come out for Palin.

But he has solved that problem at a huge price. He has lost what previously was seen to be his most potent weapon: his Barack is "not ready to be president" line of attack.

If McCain were to win in November, Sarah Palin would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. She has no foreign policy experience, no international relations record of any kind. She has never even faced the pressure and trials of a national campaign, let alone act on the world stage.

A vote for McCain-Palin will be a gigantic gamble for voters, a gamble that John McCain will survive his term of office.

Three a.m. phone calls anyone?