Saturday, August 30, 2008

Another POV

I gave up counting emails on my Palin posts when we hit the 98 disagree - 2 agree mark ...

To balance the comments below, here's about the closest thing I've had to a positive response.

Just wanted to drop you a note to say that I agree with all of your thoughts and reactions to McCain's pick of Palin. She is inexperienced and untested and an inherently risky pick.

Despite that I think McCain did exactly the right thing.

Here's the aspect I think you (and some of the other I'm-not-so-sure-this-is-a-good-idea clan) are missing: this is a tidal wave year for the Democracts. In many ways, this election is already lost; we're down by two touchdowns with 2 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. UNLESS the GOP does something dramatic, Obama will win (likely by a large margin), and will drag increased Democratic majorities in Congress with him. So picking Palin is a hail mary pass. It may be a bad idea (most hail mary passes are), but in my mind it's the ONLY good option McCain had.

If he's gong to pull this out, McCain will need to be unorthodox, unpredictable and cagey. Palin has the potential to appeal to large swaths of independents and soccer moms who will probably gravitate towards Obama otherwise. Her pick probably won't help McCain and may hurt him, but in the end I don't think that matters; it's the fact that she MIGHT help him in a significant way that's so crucial. McCain's odds are poor, so in an environment like this if you want to win you have to take a high-risk, high-reward approach.

Palin is high-rusk, but she does offer a huge upside if she somehow manages to survive the next few weeks. If she does well at the convention, well on the trail and in media interviews, and well against Joe Biden, everyone may be singing a different tune four weeks from now. If she doesn't, I don't think McCain's lost anything, because he's probably going to lose anyway. But you might as well go for the long bomb - it has been known to work on occasion! It's kind of like selecting McCain himself. He's not the best GOP candidate; there are many I'd rather see as president. But he's probably the ONLY one who has a shot at defeating Obama (even if it's a slim shot), which is why I voted for him in the primary.

My final thought is that (as you know), the GOP is in desperate need of re-branding. Palin does bring that ... my only regret is that McCain had to reach so far down into the GOP talent pool in order to accomplish that. That says volumes about the state of the party.  

08/30 06:09 PM