The recriminations in the Republican party have well and truly started. The news today being reported in Fox News about the in-fighting between the Palin and McCain camps and the lack of Sarah Palin's knowledge is worrying.
The first thing that has to be said, is thank heavens Obama won the election. The USA needed intelligence and gravitas in the White House, not a joke. For all the talk of a bandwagon developing for a Palin bid for the Presidency in 2012, it needs to be resisted and the Republicans must find serious and heavyweight leadership for the party.
But not only do these stories highlight the concerns many had with the prospect of a Palin Vice-Presidency, they raise serious questions over McCain's judgement and how Palin passed any sort of vetting process to be chosen for the ticket. What is clear now is that the Palin choice was a stunt aimed at boosting McCain in the polls, and not a serious decision on someone who would be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
What also is interesting, is that even Fox News is starting to debunk the theory that McCain was leading in the polls until the problems with the economy really came to the fore with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The idea that McCain would have won the election if it wasn't for the economic crisis is just wrong. Analysis of the polling now shows that the McCain lead started to wane after Palin's now infamously inept interview with Katie Couric on CBS.
The choice of Palin sealed McCain's fate in the election. He gambled by chosing Palin and it failed. It blunted the attack on Obama's inexperience and turned off many independents. To Obama's credit, he never faltered or panicked when the Palin pick was dominating the news and the polls gave a bounce to Palin. He and his team recognised that the election was not decided months before polling date and that Palin would become a liability.
Thankfully, it seems that being able to see Russia from Alaska is not enough these days to win a US election...
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2 comments:
Hmmm interesting analysis. I'd agree that Palin was a gamble but I'm not sure that it "failed". McCain was never the maverick and outsider he tried to paint himself as: he is a decades-long career Senator who was just a pain in the butt (as our US friends would say) to his Party Whips. Big difference.
Palin probably pulled in a few percentage points from the core Rep base who most likely would have stayed at home if McCain had picked Lieberman (which I think was a temptation for McCain).
I've said over on my blog that I'm going to watch the dust settle before a really big Op-Ed on where the Republicans should go, but you mention the need for a heavyweight to emerge to lead the GOP...any names in mind? Huckabee and Romney are scary ideas. I wanted Duncan Hunter in the primaries as the best of the worst but he's not a big political beast in any respect.
Palin has two years to build herself up...or someone else also has two years to start a campaign for 2012. Could she build a country-wide base? No idea which is why I'm going to sit back and watch the fallout for a bit.
If anyone thought that this year was dirty then wait for the campaign in four years' time.
I'm not sure if this campaign was dirty. The attacks on Kerry in 2004 seemed to me to be harder and more sustained than any on Obama this year. John McCain seemed to be very careful not to let things get out of hand. Fighting the 'dirty' campaign was largely left to the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.
I'm sure you're right that 2012 will be a more aggressive campaign by the Republicans, but they will have to judge the mood of the electorate carefully. If, in very difficult circumstances, an Obama Presidency progresses and is successful then a strident and dirty campaign may not work.
But for sure, the Republicans will learn from the defeat. They are bound to go for a younger, more media savvy candidate and will be working very soon to mobilise their grass roots base in the same way Obama did this time around. They will have learnt and understood the power of oratory and ideas to inspire.
But one of the problems the Repubicans do face is that there is no obvious candidate to do this. The current leadership all are part of the 'old guard' of the party. One of the fascinating things to watch over the next couple of years is to see who will merge or whether the Republicans will descend into self destruction as the Tories did after 1997.
But you are correct in that we will need to wait a couple of years before we can really assess how politics in the US will change, if it changes at all.
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