For many weeks now (it feels like years) I’ve been wondering why McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Why would someone who has served the nation with such honor for so long pick a running mate who has difficulty forming a sentence, who has never shown any interest in national or international affairs, who has serious ethical problems, and whose husband once belonged to a secessionist party? (By the way, check out this article in The New Yorker about Palin’s campaign to be chosen, starting right after she was elected governor.)
I think I finally figured it out. I initially assumed it was a purely political move to gain women voters - that McCain must have a deep disdain for women, which led him to the faulty belief that Hillary Clinton followers would automatically switch their devotion to anyone with breasts.
However, I don’t think that’s the reason, or not the only reason, why he picked Palin. I have now come to believe that McCain picked Palin because he has an even deeper disdain for the Religious Right.
From his choice of Palin we can either assume that (1) McCain believes all women are nitwits who will automatically vote for another woman, regardless of her policies or ideas, or we can assume that (2) McCain believes that people with deep, fundamentalist faith will vote for anyone who attends a church that is similar to their own, even if, as Colin Powell suggested today, she has no intellectual curiosity and is clearly not ready to be commander in chief. Or both.
Remember back when McCain spoke out against the “agents of intolerance”? It was only 8 years ago:
I recognize and celebrate that our country is founded upon Judeo- Christian values, and I have pledged my life to defend America and all her values, the values that have made us the noblest experiment in history. But public — but political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value. The political… (APPLAUSE)
The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are…
(APPLAUSE)
They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.
(APPLAUSE)
Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.
Nice speech, John.
Today, thousands of people picked up their phone and heard ugly robo-calls from John McCain that can only be described as “political tactics of division and slander.”
The Palin pick was the first major sign that McCain was moving towards the dark side - he needs the social conservatives if he has any chance at all of winning, so he chose a running mate who attends a fundamentalist church back home in Wasilla, Alaska - she has the right religious credentials, so to hell with the any other consideration. (Ever notice how McCain says he’s “proud” of Palin whenever he’s asked about her qualifications, but never really tells us why?)
The choice of Palin will probably not fool nearly as many Christians as McCain expects - the social conservatives may love Palin for her beliefs and her spunky personality, but they are no more likely than anyone else to think she’s ready to be president. Many Republicans from the fiscal conservative wing of the party are already jumping ship. I suspect that many social conservatives out in the heartland are also beginning to suspect that Palin was a deeply disrespectful choice (there are, after all, intelligent, well educated and experienced people of faith that could have been chosen instead).