Up to now I had formed my impressions of our two presidential candidates the way that Americans did before 1932, certainly before 1960, that is without television or radio. I own neither.
Today while surfing, I decided to watch Governor Palin's and Senator Obama's convention speeches on YouTube. I watched Palin's first because I was so charmed by what I'd heard and read and by the still photos I'd scene. She was everything that I had thought, and almost all of that was positive. Then I watched Obama's.
There was no comparison. Next to a younger, prettier, more vivacious Ann Richardson, I saw a leader.
Our political discourse today is dominated by what the qualifications for vice president are, and whether Governor Palin meets them. I don't know what they are but I know that being a mayor of a small town and a two year governor of Alaska aren't.
Alaska is the most unrepresentative state in the Union. I would guess that it's ethnic distribution is something like 70% white, 20% moose, 9% Eskimo and 1% other.
Alaska has one-fourth the population of the borough of Brooklyn, New York.
While those of us who live in the "lower 48" struggle with gas prices, Alaskans get a yearly oil revenue dividend, and have for thirty years.
All of this is not a criticism of Governor Palin: Alaska has to have a governor and Wasilla had to have a mayor. It's a criticism of Senator McCain. The pick showed arrogance: if Governor Palin is qualified for the vice-presidency then it's hard to imagine who isn't.
For me, Senator McCain's great draw was his experience. Senator Obama is the luckiest politician in the world. Only when his Democratic primary opponent and then his Republican general election opponent got caught with a live boy or a dead girl did this unknown state senator and community organizer become a U.S. Senator. And he was only half-way through his first term when he announced his presidential candidacy.
I don't want another Jimmy Carter, someone who is clearly out of his league in the presidency.
But experience is only important if it informs decision-making. George H.W. Bush was the most prepared man ever for the presidency, and he showed the qualities of a career underling and yes-man, lacking "the vision thing." He chose Dan Quayle for his running mate.
Experience also did not inform Senator McCain's choice for vice-president. Instead, it suggested that he would make a decision as an old person does, one who doesn't have the energy any longer to think things through. The choice surprised his closest campaign advisers. It was impulsive, reckless, in my opinion, a "gut" decision. Gut decisions are often those that are made by the intellectually lazy, or fatigued. In his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, President George Bush famously said that he had looked the man in the eye and trusted him. Vladimir Putin, the former head of the Soviet KGB, and future Russian autocrat.
Governor Palin has made her wonderful family story a compelling drawing point of her candidacy. If that story is relevant, and I believe that all candidates' histories are relevant, then she cannot inoculate herself from the warts. Seventeen year old Bristol's pregnancy indeed may be a thing that happens to many American families, but that does not make it a qualification for vice-president. And because Governor Palin has made her family an important part of her candidacy, voters may fairly consider what Bristol's pregnancy says about Sarah Palin as a person.
Governor Palin is socially, rigidly, conservative, that is the reason that Senator McCain chose her. She is against abortion. A lot of Americans are. But then there are the alternatives, and those who believe as Governor Palin does must choose alternatives in 21st century America. And the rest of us must evaluate. If she preached abstinence to Bristol, then she is as unrepresentative of America as is her state. If she preached the use of condoms then her ability to lead her own daughter failed.
It is also inspiring that the Palins decided to keep Trig after they knew that their little one had Down's Syndrome. But as one woman was quoted as saying in the New York Times, "How exactly is this going to work?" How is this socially conservative mother going to be a good mom to five children, one with Down's Syndrome, and a grandmother, nay a mother, to Bristol and "Sex on Skates" Levi, by whom her teenage daughter is pregnant?
Is Palin going to move to Washington, D.C. and uproot her family if she and Senator McCain are elected? Or is she going to commute to Alaska? If she moves to Washington, will Levi move with her? It's hard to believe that that would happen, and if it doesn't that would mean one more child growing up without a dad.
If she moves to Washington and leaves her family in Alaska and commutes how is that going to effect her ability to carry out first, for the country,, her job responsibilities, and second, her family responsibilities. If she moves the whole kit and caboodle to D.C., what is that mother-of all-culture-shocks going to do to her family? It has to be one or the other, and how are either consistent with putting family first, another name for being socially conservative, which is the reason McCain chose her?
If Barack Obama, the son of a bigamous Kenyan man and a white Kansan woman, had a daughter who was pregnant at 17, Republicans--and I--would not be processing it as a sign that Obama was experiencing the same problems as the rest of us. We would be saying, or thinking, that it was just another depressing reinforcement of a Black stereotype.
No, this will not do.
The country deserves a president who is going to make rational decisions, not those based on his gut.
No, being governor of Alaska is not a qualification for vice-president, whether or not it is a disqualification.
No, having five children and still being with "her guy" is not a qualification.
And certainly no, putting one's career over family-especially this challenging, needy family-is no qualification for being vice-president.
There is one sense, and a very important one, in which Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice-president, and that is that she is a wonderful, charming person who makes a visceral connection with people. She makes people like her, and like themselves. That is a fantastic asset for a national leader. However, taken as a whole, this uniquely American personality should not be the proverbial "heartbeat away from the presidency." That is not her fault. It is Senator McCain's. I expected more from him. So, I have gone from a fence-sitter to an Obama probable. I am Benjamin Harris.
