Joe Steel
08-31-2008, 06:18 AM
John McCain (who was a POW) and his handlers must know his chances of being president were slim and fading.
The Senator was widely thought to be on the fifty-yard line, nose to nose with Barack Obama. But this selection reveals the Republican campaign strategists knew better. Picking the obscure and under-experienced governor from Alaska for veep means McCain and his people recognize they are in a very weak position for the fall campaign. So weak they decided to throw a forty-year Hail Mary pass and hope audaciously for a lucky catch.
It won't succeed. In fact, I expect this gambit is going to drive far more voters to Obama's column than it does for McCain.
Choosing Palin kills the "experience" argument. Republicans must have recognized from their own market research that it wasn't working for them. For two months or more, McCain and his handlers have smeared and slandered Obama, mocked his star quality talents, belittled his lack of tenure in Washington back rooms and accused him of unpatriotic egotism. Clearly, their internal polling told them this line of character attack wasn't grabbing the public. Playing the wise old man was not going to be enough to overcome McCain's other significant handicaps, his somewhat doddering style and memory lapses, his deadly embrace of right-wing cant and G.W. Bush.
McCain's Hail Mary Pass (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/08/30-0)
Just about everything McCain does highlights his lack of judgment. Throw desperation into the mix and you get monumental mistakes.
The Senator was widely thought to be on the fifty-yard line, nose to nose with Barack Obama. But this selection reveals the Republican campaign strategists knew better. Picking the obscure and under-experienced governor from Alaska for veep means McCain and his people recognize they are in a very weak position for the fall campaign. So weak they decided to throw a forty-year Hail Mary pass and hope audaciously for a lucky catch.
It won't succeed. In fact, I expect this gambit is going to drive far more voters to Obama's column than it does for McCain.
Choosing Palin kills the "experience" argument. Republicans must have recognized from their own market research that it wasn't working for them. For two months or more, McCain and his handlers have smeared and slandered Obama, mocked his star quality talents, belittled his lack of tenure in Washington back rooms and accused him of unpatriotic egotism. Clearly, their internal polling told them this line of character attack wasn't grabbing the public. Playing the wise old man was not going to be enough to overcome McCain's other significant handicaps, his somewhat doddering style and memory lapses, his deadly embrace of right-wing cant and G.W. Bush.
McCain's Hail Mary Pass (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/08/30-0)
Just about everything McCain does highlights his lack of judgment. Throw desperation into the mix and you get monumental mistakes.