“Dan Quayle with mammaries?” Oh. No. You. Didn’t. Go. There.

I know you were just throwing out that possibility but I’m still flummoxed that you would even say something like that. Of the two of us, you are definitely the more knowledgeable politico, a true Beltway insider (I say that almost as a compliment. Almost.). That’s why I’m surprised that you don’t see the reasoning behind the selection.

Let me break it down for you.

Before today, there were three men in the race–all U.S. Senators. In the past sixty years, there have been fourteen Presidential elections:

• Eight races included at least one Senator while only two (Truman and Kennedy) have won.
• No Senator has won an election in the past forty years (10 elections).
• Former governors have won six of the past seven elections.
• Former Congressmen have won the election four times, a retired Army General twice.
• The last Republican Senator to win the White House was Warren G. Harding in 1920.

The American people prefer a President with at least a modicum of executive experience, so the smart choice for McCain was to choose from that pool of talent. Currently, there are 23 Republican governors that he could choose from, almost all of whom were considered for the position (i.e., Bobby Jindhal, Tim Pawlenty, Charlie Crist, Haley Barbour, Mark Sanford, and Sarah Palin). We can also add three former governors (Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Tom Ridge).

The three former governors all had their strengths but each was clearly unacceptable to a large and influential segment of the party. Of the sitting governors, Barbour, Crist, Pawlenty, and Sanford would have been safe but uninspired choices–the equivalent of Obama choosing Biden; not the move of a maverick like McCain.

This leaves Jindal and Palin. Both are young, new Governors of small states that have the enthusiatic support of the conservatives within the party. Plus, they both have the advantage of not being an Old White Guy.

Of the two, Jindal is (at least on paper) the more obvious pick. He’s whip-smart, charismatic, and has a solid grasp of policy issues. (I met him once at a house party and he kept the crowd enthralled talking about healthcare reform.)

But Jindhal didn’t even want to be considered. By default that leaves Palin.

Does it help that she’s a woman? Of course it does, just as being of mixed race has helped Obama. It would be ridiculous not to acknowledge these fact. But while race and sex are part of both their biology and their biography, it would be condescending to assume that this the only reason they are on the tickets.

But is Palin, as you wondered most misogynisticly, “Dan Quayle with mammaries?” That depends on what you mean by invoking Qualye’s name. In one sense I suspect she is like Quayle: she’ll be portrayed in a certain way before enough evidence to make a judgment has been considered. As law professor Eugene Volokh has pointed out, “…Quayle was denounced for dimness almost immediately upon being selected as Bush’s vice-presidential nominee in mid-1988–look it up on Lexis if you’d like–with his academic record playing a very prominent role in the critique.” But Biden’s academic record is even weaker, and he has a history of gaffes and dumb statements. If there is a “Dan Quayle” in one of the VP slots it’s the one filled by Joe Biden.

Of course that won’t stop the the Democrats and their allies in the media from trying to paint her as an incompetent doofus. As my friend John Henke said, “Lefty bloggers are busy trying to figure out why they dislike Gov. Palin. They know they do. They just need to find some reasons. Anything will do.”

Henke is right, but it won’t matter. Whether she can recite policy points with Gore-ish finesse (and she did excellent in the video in your post) won’t matter to the American people for Palin is qualified on the one issue that matters most: character.

I don’t often agree with Christopher Hitchens, but he is right about how we should choose our presidents (and vice presidents):

Personalities count for much more than issues. This might not be true in the few remaining countries that have programmatic and parliamentary contests based on competing political manifestos, but it is absolutely true of presidential elections in the United States. The character of the candidate is itself the only “issue,” and it is furthermore the only “issue” about which a thinking voter can be expected to make up his or her mind.

Exactly.

McCain made a brilliant choice. Give it time and you’ll see for yourself.

Tags: David Kuo, Obama, sarah palin, vice presidents

Posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 12:29 am and is filed under Politics.