But of course, Fox News and the right wing swung into action. Of course she has foreign policy experience! Alaska borders Canada! And Russia!?!
Most people seem to be laughing this one off or ignoring the charge as beneath reasonable notice. Michael Kinsley pointed out that though her state does include the Aleutians, which were occupied by the Japanese in WW2, there's no evidence that Palin herself was involved in driving Hirohito's troops from American shores.
Still, I think there's an opportunity here. Maybe it can wait a few days (and maybe her candidacy will implode before we get a chance to ask,) but I think we could actually perform some pretty nice aikido here.
We just have to get Palin to talk about her negotiations with Russia. Join me on the flip for my reasoning.
McCain strategy: win election by exploiting Democratic primary divisions and crass gender politics
My take: This will fail. McCain is ignorantly falling for the same conventional wisdom as so many in the media - but his assumptions are false, false, false.
The CW narrative goes like this: "Obama and Clinton had a nasty primary fight, and lots of white Democratic women ('PUMAs' and their sympathizers) are skittish of Obama as a result. Even if Clinton's speech this week began to reassure these women, they can still be peeled off, by appealing to McCain's incredible Maverickosity so that they ignore their Democratic Party instincts, and by appealing to their desire to elect a woman to executive federal office, an opportunity they were denied by Obama's defeat of Clinton." Sounds scary, right?
Too bad my good friend Mr. Actual Polling Results tells me a different story.
(full analysis, reader poll, and additional McCain strategies and rebuttals below the fold!)
Team Clinton has been astoundingly successful in convincing us of one thing: Hillary is the "experience candidate." She has managed to learn so much through her past policy mistakes that we can count on her to get it right this time...
Case in point -- Hillary's abject failure to understand the political and economic landscape in 1993-4 led to the defeat of her health care reform package. Yet, in 2008, she's now considered the expert on health care policy. You've got to hand it to Mark Penn and company: that's a hell of a good job of taking one big-assed lemon and turning it into lemonade.
Packaging Hillary as the "experience candidate" could actually work in the primary. Barack Obama is, after all, a one-term U.S. Senator with four fewer years in National elected office and two fewer terms as First Lady. If Hillary's experience gamble successfully pays off, she could win the Democratic nomination.
But would it be a pyrrhic victory -- and why do I call her strategy a gamble? I believe that by emphasizing the importance of experience, Hillary is setting herself (and all of us) up for defeat in the general election against what the electorate would perceive to be a vastly more experienced John McCain.
I wrote this for today's Beyond Chron, San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily.
In the presidential campaign, we've heard a lot about "experience" (a plus for Hillary Clinton), "change" (Barack Obama's strongest point), and "electability" (which helps John Edwards.) But one factor that has yet to play a role is "trust." It is one thing to hear what a candidate has to say, but how can progressives know who will stick to their guns when the right-wing noise machine attacks - and who will capitulate, triangulate and take our support for granted? If "trust" becomes a major concern for Democratic primary voters, Hillary Clinton could be in trouble. And while a candidate can tout their resume to boost "experience," their platform to project "change," and good poll numbers to push "electability," there isn't much they can do about the fact that voters don't trust them. Especially when you've been in the public eye for 15 years.
Cross-Posted from Take A Stand - My Home Blog - Please feel free to comment or bookmark over at my home blog, it's new.
There's only one thing better than seeing Barack Obama speak: Seeing him speak twice. So yesterday I took off work and passed up a day's pay, grabbed my little white button, and headed out to New York city for a decidedly good day.
Barack spoke in NYC at the SEIU local union hall in Manhattan at 2pm, and then later at the Marriot in NYC at 5pm to a standing room only crowd of thousands at $25 a ticket. I volunteered, and it was a wonderful experience.
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