September 04, 2008
Palin's Social Views Hurt Ticket
By Froma Harrop

I had dinner last night with a Republican-leaning independent who was
despondent over John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his
running mate. She had been looking forward to supporting McCain as a
fiscal conservative with a deep understanding of foreign relations. But
all she could now see was that picture of Palin's pregnant 17-year-old
looking defiant and stupid as she held mom's fifth baby.

Many religious conservatives are jubilant. They regard Palin as a swell
choice because her high-schooler was going to have the baby. The line
sent my friend into shock. This is not a matter of abortion politics,
she said, but of managing one's own affairs.

"Don't they have birth control up in Alaska?" she asked.

If that view has any currency among Republican-leaners, you can imagine
what other independents are thinking. Or disaffected supporters of
Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama's recent pandering toward the Clinton
holdouts didn't do the Democrat a fraction of the good that McCain is
doing him. McCain's apparent belief that dangling any woman before
diehard Clinton fans would win them over may be optimistic.

Until now, one could counter the Democrats' argument that a McCain
presidency would amount to a third term for Bush. After all, McCain is a
deficit hawk. He cares about the environment. Many pro-choice voters
were willing to overlook McCain's generally anti-abortion stance on the
belief that he didn't really care about the issue. And the widespread
concern regarding McCain's age could have been assuaged by the choice of
a competent vice president.

Then who does McCain pick for VP? A 44-year-old who parades her
dysfunctional family as a poster-child for conservative values. Who has
virtually no foreign policy experience. Who as mayor of an Alaskan town
of 6,700 hired lobbyists to reel in $27 million in federal pork. That's
$4,030 of the U.S. taxpayers' money per resident. We thought McCain
wanted to close down the trough.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she waited
until they were grown before she ran for high political office. Palin
returned to the job three days after giving birth to a special needs
child, all the while her 17-year-old is entertaining a lover. And what
about plans to have the girl wed the stud, author of some very
unromantic remarks on Facebook? Note that she's been pregnant for five
months and still no matrimony. These nuptials couldn't be a last-minute
political move, could they?

Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate
with many American families. Yes, if they're from Mars or perhaps on
welfare.

What a McCain presidency now promises is another four years of Terri
Schiavo and other artifacts of the cultural right. You remember
Schiavo's husband having to fight the Bush administration and Republican
Congress to remove his wife -- in a vegetative state for 15 years --
from life support. It's four more years of national humiliation as our
leadership undermines the teaching of evolutionary science, and if
something happens to John McCain, opposes stem-cell research.

One tries to untangle McCain's political calculations. The Schiavo case,
creationism and similar excesses appeal to a passionate but small slice
of the electorate. They are one reason voters are booting Republicans
out of power. So while some religious conservatives may be "energized"
by the Palin pick, most everyone else is revolted.

You can't figure McCain. He had been doing well up to now -- holding
even with Obama in a dreadful year for Republicans and building support
among the independents who call the shots in swing states. This Palin
deal makes you question not only his judgment, but -- if he really had
vetted Sarah Palin -- his sanity.


Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
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at September 04, 2008 - 12:11:21 PM PDT