The Surrender of John McCain

The Surrender of John McCain

by Jean Carnahan

            John McCain just surrendered to the right wing of the Republican Party.  In an act of appeasement, he served up a half-baked Alaska governor to sweeten his presidential ticket—a woman whose political thinking resembles that of Sen. Rick Santorum. 

In his first important decision as the soon-to-be nominee of the GOP, McCain failed the judgment test.  Looking past such imminently qualified possibilities as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Gov. Christy Todd Whitman, and Gov. Tom Ridge, he chose the 44-year-old Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

In making this selection, the McCain camp hopes to invigorate Evangelical voters and pick up some of the 18 million Hillary supporters.  Indeed, Palin has a compelling life story—one that might be featured  during the State of the Union address.  Religious fundies may fall for her, but don't look for Hillary backers to flock to Palin.  While they share the same anatomy,  they don't share the same agenda and, as Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schwartz pointed out, "Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton."

   During a time of national peril, when our greatest threat is radical Islamic terrorism, it might be a good idea to have a  president-in-waiting whose foreign policy experience consists of more than just living next door to Russia and Canada.  Palin, by her own admission, “hasn’t paid attention to the war in Iraq.”  She also told reporters recently that she was unsure what role the vice president plays in government.  Imagine the national furor had Sen. Biden made such statements.

            That’s not all.  There are a lot of good reason for opposition to this ticket, not only by Democrats, but by Independents and moderate Republicans.  Governor Palin is anti-choice, anti-stem cell, anti-public education, anti-science, anti-equal pay, pro-drilling-is-the-answer, pro-Thomas-Scalia-Alito justices, and pro-tax cuts for the wealthy.  She believes that global warming is a hoax and that polar bears should not be put on the list of threatened species.  Palin is also under investigation for strong arming the firing of a state worker. 

            In making this decision McCain has defied his own standards.  Despite his political slogan, the senator has not put his “Country First;” he has put his campaign first.  In the heat of battle, the 72-year-old senator folded under pressure from his advisers--McCain is said to have preferred his old buddy Joe Lieberman.  Instead, McCain named an ideologue for the second highest office in the land, someone he had met only once and whose credential and extremism should be of grave concern—not  only to him—but to all Americans.