The Vice Presidential pick: a test of judgment
In all the verbiage about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin versus Obama’s rejection of Hillary, one especially important point is what it says about the judgment of both candidates.
On the face of it, Obama’s choice of Biden seemed “safe.” That was the word bandied about when it was announced. John McCain’s selection of Palin was “risky.” This would seem to indicate that Obama has better judgment, right?
But that’s not the way it’s been playing so far. And that’s not only because of the incredible charisma and appeal of Palin, or the cementing of McCain’s conservative base or the draw it represents for independent women whose votes he needs to win. It’s also because the choice shows McCain off as a man who takes bold risks that are not foolhardy but wise. That, in turn, underscores another huge risk he took that turned out to be a smart one: his support of the surge. It’s a characteristic we tend to like in our leaders.
In other words there’s a narrative developing, and it goes like this: McCain isn’t afraid of making unusual, quirky, and gutsy moves that show his judgment to be good.
Contrast this with Obama’s recent decisions. The Biden pick looked “Presidential” and smart, not risky at all. But if current trends continue, it will have turned out to have entailed its own huge risks—not so much because of what Biden is, but what he isn’t.
He isn’t Hillary.
A while back I wrote about the advantages Hillary would offer Obama as VP. Up till the moment Obama announced that it was Biden, I continued to wonder—and to fear—whether he might just chose her after all, despite all the signs that it wasn’t going to happen. I saw a Hillary choice as possibly sealing the Presidency for Obama.
I still don’t understand why he didn’t do it, even though I know the arguments against it. The advantages were just so strong. For a while I thought it was because she had said no. Perhaps that’s true, but as evidence amasses it seems less and less likely.
When someone writes the book someday, perhaps we’ll learn what went on in the inner workings of Obama’s mind and his campaign. Was it his choice? Bad advice? Fear of Bill?
But whatever caused Obama to reject what seemed to be an obvious winner, the fact that he did says something about his judgment. It’s not good, at least not lately. Ever since some point in the spring when Hillary began to gain on him, he’s made a series of bad choices, including his decision to forego public funding for his campaign.
Many of us don’t vote for President solely—or perhaps even primarily—on issues. We know that Presidential candidates often make promises they don’t keep as POTUS, whether because situations change or because they were talking through both sides of their mouths or because advisers caution them or because Congress won’t oblige. But one thing we can evaluate is judgment. Lately, McCain has been on a roll, and Obama hasn’t been looking real good in that department.
Perhaps, as a close friend of mine has observed, Obama did not so much reject Hillary as she rejected him.
Obama as President? What’s in that for Hillary?
It was also a rather brave choice for McCain, because it was a risky choice. There were risks to both failure and success, it would have been unlikely to have been received hohum.
The consequences of failure is obvious. The consequences of success is just playing out. On the campaign trail, and on the internet, people are showing up and shouting Sarah! rather than McCain. So far he has not been bothered and this speaks volume about him. Thus is was a remarkably brave choice for him.
The same should be said of Palin’s acceptance. Knowing that the media would descend and attack. Knowing failure as well as success would forever change her and her family’s life.
Obama would have to hire extra bodyguards. Lots of them.
I’m thinking about the ‘You can’t put lipstick on a pig’ comment – the apologists are saying Obama was referring to the Republican party, not Plain per se –
What I’d be doin’ right now is getting Sarah to the nearest County Fair like event – get the cutest little piglet you can find, make a big ceremony out of putting the lipstick on that little piggy and give it a big kiss, turn to the camera and say, “YES. WE CAN.” But what our opponent can’t do is ___fill in the blank___.
I think Obama has always been a theoretical candidate. He has defaulted into every elected office he has held, and he coasted to victory over Clinton, without really being tested. McCain is the first opponent he has had to work against, and there are indications that, in the absence of practical knowledge, he is using flawed theories to run his campaign.
For instance, one of the well known flawed theories of history was the theory that the Titanic was unsinkable.
I’m thinking about the ‘You can’t put lipstick on a pig’ comment – the apologists are saying Obama was referring to the Republican party
Which, to Neo’s point, ain’t all that smart in and of itself. I’m 1) a swing voter, and 2) sick and tired of the vituperative adolescence of the Democratic Party. He ain’t scoring any points with me with his infantile petulance.
I hope others are also feeling it, Daveg. Polls seem to suggest that they are.
The rest of Obama’s comedy routine there was that you couldn’t wrap an old fish in paper and call it change – and while he seems to mean McCain, it applies more to him and Biden than McCain. It’s weird.
I love the ‘safe’ v ‘risky’ assessment.
I think Biden is a terrible pick. I believe that this is really a test, on the Democratic side, for control of the party. Obama’s backers wanted Biden and are doing all they can to keep the Clintons out of power. Biden brings absolutely nothing to the ticket. He was a failure as a candidate on his own. His state is not in question (and I wonder when they are going to talk about how the major industry in Delaware is the credit card industry). Biden is not going to appeal to women or blue collar voters. The only thing he has going for him is that he has almost as liberal a record as Obama’s.
It’s not a question that Obama should have picked Hillary as his VP. The problem is that they should have run Hillary as their presidential candidate and sidelined Obama’s ambitions. He could easily have sat this one out and waited 8 years to run. Who knows? They could have had back to back Dem adminstrations. Instead, they make the fatal mistake of running a rookie against a man of true grit. I just hope we can pull this one off. It will send a real message to the power brokers.
Obama as President? What’s in that for Hillary?
Well, she’d only be one heart beat from the Oval Office.
The downside for Obama is that he’d have to get a food taster, to make sure his favorite dishes didn’t have some sekrit sauce.
On the face of it, Obama’s choice of Biden seemed “safe.” That was the word bandied about when it was announced. John McCain’s selection of Palin was “risky.” This would seem to indicate that Obama has better judgment, right?
It indicates no such thing. What does indicate is a lack of vision, and perhaps more importantly, a lack of imagination.
His years in the Navy taught him something: battle plans do not survive contact with enemy forces. One has to be willing to switch to contingencies plans – and most importantly have some contingencies, or be able concentrate on unexpected targets of opportunity.
Yes, Palin was a risk, one he judged was worthwhile. And I think the tipping point for his selection of “Sarahcuda” was the fact she’d fight.
As you note, Obama isn’t sure what he’s doing. So he responds to Palin (a mistake) and gets drawn into a crossfire between her and McCain. Meanwhile, Biden is asking a
crippledhandi-capable man to stand up.Palin is starting to look pretty presidential, now. Thanks, D’ohbama!
Basically, we’ve now got three candidates for VP, and only one for President.
“I still don’t understand why he didn’t do it”
Speculation:
(1) His wife hates Hillary and he does what his wife tells him to do.
(2) He is weak and did not want to be upstaged, so he did not pick someone strong for his ticket.
(3) He thought he had it in the bag and he was thinking about four years without the Clintons in the White House.
(4) He has no political gut and has never been in a hard campaign before, so he makes poor decisions about important issues.
Any or all of the above say, loudly: “loser”.
I am not going to fault Obama for his vice presidential choice, given the back stabbing potential of the Clintons. A commenter on another blog had the idea that Obama’s mistake was in not consulting w Hillary regarding the VP. Who knows? At the same time JFK chose LBJ for his VP, and there was no love lost between the two.
Something interesting about the “pig in lipstick” remark. Obama made it last year in reference to General Petreus’s hearings about the Surge. The Surge will fail etc you can’t put lipstick on a pig etc. Which points out to Obama’s horrible judgment with regard to the Surge.
When someone writes the book someday, perhaps we’ll learn what went on in the inner workings of Obama’s mind and his campaign.
With all due respect to Neo about the only kind of book that might broach the subject would be the type of book that Woodward and the rest write which are little more than gossip presented as fact. No, we will never learn the WHY of the decision but we CAN observe the results.
Will Biden stick? I still wonder if Biden might get “sick” or something and drop out. Then that female Liberal Gov from Kansas might be in the running.
Please.
The only people out there clamoring for Hillary to be on the ticket were Hillary dead-enders and the right wing chattering class (e.g., Bill Kristol, Rush). The desperate need of the right to have a Clinton to kick around this election cycle is utterly transparent. If she’d been put on the ticket the caterwauling from these self-same pundits would have been audible from space.
The rest of us want to be free of the Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush cycle. Whatever else happens in Nov, at least no one from either of those two families will be back in the WH (and thank God for that).
The irony is that Obama didn’t choose Clinton because he got too conservative.
Yeah, it’s bizarrely monarchist.
Hostess, with only a few weeks left to the vote, why not shift gears and blog about policy?
Democratic Party
a href=”http://www.gop.com/Groups/?Type=Issues”>Republican Party
Republican Party
“Hostess, with only a few weeks left to the vote, why not shift gears and blog about policy?”
Why not start your own blog and then you can do whatever it is you feel ought to be done?
Are you certain you know what blogs are?
There were 18 million Hillary dead-enders. Obama dissed them all by not at least pretending to consider Hillary. Frankly, I would not have wanted Hillary as Veep if I was Obama and I’d be just as glad to see the last of the Clintons (unfortunately Hillary will probably be in the Senate, screwing up the country, for as long as Chappaquiddick Ted has been).
The reaction to Palin by the Dems and their lapdogs in the media is compoounded of elitist class disgust for an uppity middle class woman, feminist anger over a real woman who can beat the men at their own game but is also conservative, and thus offends the feminists’ leftism (they hated Thatcher for that too), and true terror at their first glimpse of the coming GOP bench for national politics in the next 20-30 years. Jindal is another, and you can bet he’ll get much the same slanderous, lying treatment as Palin as he becomes more prominent. The Dems can see that the upcoming GOP candidates are authentic people and real reformers, not poseurs like Obama. It terrifies them.
Michael,
There were not 18 million Hillary dead-enders. She receive that many votes, yes, but the dead-enders were/are the hardcore borderline cultists who refused to let go when it was clear she’d lost. It’s a very small but very vocal group, like so many one-note political subcultures.
Let me throw out a question that’s admittedly only tangentially related to this topic (although inspired partly by the Biden getting ‘sick’ note above).
I’ve begun to wonder what happens to Obama if he loses. I can see him possibly not even finishing his Senate term. He doesn’t really seem particularly interested in the nuts and bolts of government. He’s not a policy wonk like Bill Clinton. I could see him resigning before the end of his term. Or perhaps just going through the motions of serving it out and then moving on to other things. He might even accomplish something tangible somewhere (which would be somewhat difficult as a lowly first term Senator with a defeat under his belt) and be in a better positition to run for president again in the future. Or perhaps he would just concentrate on writing and speaking.
Any thoughts? Or way too early to speculate?
Just now looking at Biden on the news – he looks funny, like he just had a facelift. I haven’t paid that much attention to him, so maybe it’s nothing, but his eyes look funny.
McCain’s gamble in picking Mrs. Palin has yet to be tested under fire. Over the next few weeks she will receive an unbelievable weight of ‘incoming’ which she will have to face on her own because McCain cannot be seen to shield her. How will she do? I don’t know, but then, nor does anyone else. First appearances give rise to optimism, but appearances can be deceptive – as your presidential campaign has proved – yet again! Her main strength lies in the stupidity of her opponents who simply cannot credit that anyone could hold a world-view different from their own and actually attract voters to it. For example, this kind of thing from my e-pal, Fallenmonk, a good egg but a hopeless Lefty:
“The thing is I just can’t believe that the majority of my fellow countryman think McCain is a better choice for President that Obama. I can’t even believe that McCain is even a valid or appropriate choice for President much less better than just about anyone.”
http://fallenmonk.com/
And when the impossible (to them) happens they start snapping and snarling and drive the undecideds into the Republican camp.
I tell you, from this side of the pond, I am just loving this campaign – but then I’ve always had a weakness for blood sports!
David Duff: You are correct that no one knows how Palin will do under fire on her own, especially without a script. But she is certainly not unique in that respect.
And she does have a track record; during her run for Governor of Alaska she did have a number of debates with opponents, which were recorded and can be viewed. She seems to have acquitted herself just fine under those admittedly less frenzied—but still pressured and unscripted—conditions.
This is the only right-wing blog I routinely read, and the only right-wing community I’m familiar with. If I blogged I’d attract left-wing readers, and that doesn’t interest me.
Anyway, I figure the hostess didn’t shift political camps just to blog about a horse race.
There are several big mistakes Obama’s made in this campaign – the biggest being not choosing Hillary, some others being breaking his pledge on public financing, not giving one of his inspiring speeches at the convention, giving his speech in Berlin but not visiting the wounded troops, not distancing himself from Wright, Rezko and Ayers early and cleanly, and now, getting entangled in running against the Republican vice presidential nominee. I can’t think of any major errors McCain’s made. Indeed, from someone who was written off early, who had little money, and who faced dispiriting odds, he’s shown himself to be an impressive strategist and fighter. That’s the sort of ability that a president needs.
I think Obama would have lost with Hillary — because it would be clear he was choosing her because of weakness.
I also think that, because of his own mistakes, Obama will lose in Nov — and many will wrongly blame it on him not choosing Hillary, instead of his own mistakes.
Finally, there is policy: Victory or Defeat in Iraq (& Afghanistan), lower or higher taxes, pro-life or pro-choice.
I think more Americans support 2 or 3 of these first choices, and thus should vote Reps. But if they’re convinced lower taxes are the economic problem, and the economy is the most important thing, they might vote for their own 1 in 3 chance.
If they’re strongly pro-choice, they might vote for that, especially thinking Reps made the mess.
I’d hate to be Biden:
“He’s thinking he should have went with Hillary…”
# neo-neocon Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 6:44 am
David Duff: You are correct that no one knows how Palin will do under fire on her own, especially without a script. But she is certainly not unique in that respect.
And she does have a track record; during her run for Governor of Alaska she did have a number of debates with opponents, which were recorded and can be viewed. She seems to have acquitted herself just fine under those admittedly less frenzied–but still pressured and unscripted–conditions.
The truest judge of a person’s character is the quality of their enemies.
And the quality of Sarah Palin’s enemies, both old and new, Neo, are extraordinary to me. Enough to seal my loyalty, adoration, and love.