Palin: A Wise Choice?

To be honest, I wasn’t really excited about the choice of candidate for Vice-President by the Republicans.

The Democrats, on the other hand, possessed a greater degree of drama and suspense. After all, the question everyone was asking before the commencement of the Democratic National Convention was: will it be Clinton?

The reasons in favour of Obama choosing Clinton to be his Vice-President candidate were apparent: Clinton could help shore up support for Obama by certain groups of voters which Clinton was better able to appeal to as compared to Obama, such as the blue collar workers and women.

In the end, as we know it now, Obama chose Biden over Clinton. I can understand why Obama made such a choice. Biden provides strong credentials and experience in the field of foreign policies for Obama’s bid for the White House, and it was a clever move to reduce the impact of McCain’s attacks on Obama’s relative inexperience, especially in foreign policies.

On the other hand, when the Republican National Convention took place, I was very much surprised by McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as the VP candidate. The first big question I had was: who is Sarah Palin? I’ve never heard of the name Sarah Palin before, much less say as a likely choice for the Republican VP candidate. Nonetheless, this was quickly remedied by a quick reading of the Wikipedia entry on Sarah Palin.

The second big question I had then was: why Sarah Palin? I could think of two main reasons why McCain chose to put Palin on his presidential ticket.

Firstly, Palin is a woman. I suppose McCain’s choice of Palin was meant as a move to counter Clinton’s appeal to the female population if she had been chosen by Obama to run for Vice-Presidency. It would seem that McCain’s plan had worked far more effectively than he had expected. Instead of placing Clinton on the Democratic presidential ticket, Obama chose Biden, who is evidently not a woman. So it would seem now that McCain has the upper-hand over Obama when it comes to courting female voters.

Secondly, Palin was seen as capable of rallying support by Christian conservative voters for McCain. McCain isn’t your typical Republican rooted in modern American conservatism; he is more of a maverick figure, and this has led to distrust of McCain by many conservative Republican voters. Palin, however, holds a political position which conservative Republican voters typically identify with: yes to private ownership of firearms, no to abortion, no to same-sex marriage.

However, keeping in mind recent events which have transpired, questions are being asked of McCain’s decision to place Palin on the Republican presidential ticket: is she more of a strategic asset or more of a strategic liability?

As of now, I would think that Palin is more of a liability for McCain in his bid for the White House. I have a few reasons to think this way.

Firstly, Palin exposes McCain’s to a whole new angle of attack. By this, I mean the lack of experience which Palin brings with her onto the Republican presidential ticket.

Before the Republican National Convention, McCain could be attacked on multiple counts, but inexperience was never one of them. In fact, McCain’s favourite attack on Obama was the Illinois Senator’s relative inexperience. I would think that it was the most advantageous angle of attack that McCain can mount on Obama, even up till this point in time. It is because experience is often seen as a pre-requisite for a President to act competently and effectively in his capacity as the Commander-in-Chief. By attacking Obama for his lack of experience, McCain would be able to play on the Republicans’ traditional strength in the areas of national security of foreign policies.

Sadly, with the inclusion of Palin on the Republican presidential ticket, McCain is now deprived of this angle of attack, because McCain cannot attack Obama for being inexperienced since Obama now has Biden on his ticket, but also because McCain would seem hypocritical if he were to rail against Obama for his inexperience when Palin, who is even less experienced than Obama, is his VP candidate.

After all, it was Palin who asked “What exactly does the VP do everyday?”. Obama never did ask the same question about the responsibilities of the President.

Secondly, possibly due to a fear of exposing Palin to attacks on her inexperience (which is a presumably a result of her being the most inexperienced amongst all nominees), the Republican presidential ticket has decided to insulate Palin from the media and place her in some sort of a media access vacuum. Since the official nomination of Palin as the Republican VP candidate, Palin has only agreed to three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences thus far. Over the same period of time, Palin’s Democratic counterpart Biden has given “more than 89 national and local interviews”.

It will never be known what would have happened if the Republican campaign decided to expose Palin to the media. But as of now, this strategy of a media blackout seems to be backfiring. The lack of contact between the national audience and Palin through the media would probably undermine the public’s image and understanding of Palin, and, by extension, the Republican presidential ticket at large. As Paul Dimock, associate director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for People and the Press, puts it, “The lack of access is potentially damaging in the eyes of the voter, because they are trying to get to know the candidate.” Keeping in mind that McCain, Obama and Biden are all more well-known than Palin, the lack of information provided to voters about Palin by media interviews is not helping voters to make a fully informed choice on who to vote for when it comes to Elections Day. And it is definitely not helping the Republican presidential ticket.

In fact, during the rare instances when Palin is allowed to speak to the media, she has hardly done herself any favours. The best example being her most recent interview with Katie Couric of CBS News, during which she demonstrated an alarming lack of knowledge on topics, such as the current financial crisis which has plagued the American economy.

Ultimately, I would not deny the positive buzz that Palin has brought to the Republican presidential ticket. Voter turnouts at rallies and fundraising events have been consistently high because Palin brings to the ticket verve and energy.

However, despite all these, Palin seems to be increasingly casting greater doubt on the Republican bid to hold on to the White House, instead of illuminating it with her folksy and down-to-earth image.

Palin? Maybe not such a wise choice after all.