Sarah Palin—Battleground State Barracuda

Senator John McCain jumped out of the box with both feet on Friday with the selection of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his Vice Presidential running mate. Predictably, most Conservatives are whooping it up over the Governor’s solid fiscal and social conservative bona fides, and most Liberals went on the attack before they really considered what happened, focusing on attributes they can demagogue. Beneath the bold strokes, however, John McCain has done something very subtle with his choice.

The first attack from the Left was against Gov. Palin’s level of experience on the national security and foreign policy fronts. The Obama campaign issued a quick retraction of its dart after it realized it can little afford to dwell on the point, lest someone notices they’re calling the McCain-Palin kettle black. The second attack was to accuse the McCain camp of tokenism and making a transparent bid to pander to women in general, and Hillary Clinton supporters in particular.

It’s true enough that Gov. Palin is no Hillary Clinton, but that won’t bother anyone but the tiny number of protest voters that might have been considering a vote for McCain just to send a message to Obama. There’s been some criticism from Conservatives, too, mostly fretting that Gov. Palin blunts McCain’s argument that Obama doesn’t have enough experience to lead on the national security and foreign policy fronts, and takes away the most effective weapon the McCain team has.

I agree that the choice of Gov. Palin will weaken the experience argument in the short term. In the long term, though, Palin’s experience actually shows us something about her. She has faced tough choices and made sound decisions, acting in the best interest of Alaskans. Obama’s experience tells us he’s an old fashioned, big government and pro-abortion Chicago machine Liberal—when he doesn’t take a pass on the question. In addition, the experience argument was never a strong argument. Republicans tried to defeat Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton by highlighting their lack of foreign policy and security credentials, but these inexperienced governors won anyway.

The most effective argument against Obama today is the one he gave Republicans with his acceptance speech: that the big government, handouts-to-all-my-core-constituency reconstruction of the New Deal would force Obama to raise taxes on most people and raise the cost of goods and services for everyone. Americans were worried before Thursday that Obama would raise their taxes; now they know he’ll raise their taxes.

To get back to Governor Palin, I may be a Conservative, but I’m also a realist. She is probably not a candidate that will sway voters nationally; however, if one examines the electoral map, Sen. McCain does not need a running mate to peel off voters in the core of the Democrats power—the Liberal Northeast or Left Coast. McCain needs a candidate that will sway the battleground states, and this I believe she will do well.

Consider first Palin’s impeccable credentials as a walk-the-walk, pro-life Christian conservative. Obama can now kiss any prayer of winning Virginia and North Carolina goodbye. Conservative evangelicals, who to this point have been tepid on McCain, will be out in force and bringing friends to the polls. Next, as the governor of a mountain state in the American west, Sarah Palin’s no stranger to voters who chafe against federal intervention in how a state uses its land and resources. This could be very appealing to the voters of Colorado and Nevada.

In the rust belt, Palin’s working class credentials will help solidify a lead in Ohio and possibly drag Michigan and Minnesota back in play. The “lunch pail Democrats” in those states helped put Ronald Reagan in office and will surely like the idea that they will have not just a union boss with the ear of the Vice President, but a rank-and-file member who was working on the line just this year (and is a champion snowmobile racer, to boot!).

Lastly, consider New Hampshire. The hockey mom with a blue collar husband is a common inhabitant of the Granite State, the voters have strong states rights sentiments and many of the refugees from Massachusetts that have pulled New Hampshire to the center fled the Bay State to get away from its oppressive leftist politics and high taxation. It may be just what McCain needs in New Hampshire to tip the balance back in his favor.

While the choice of Governor Palin certainly has its challenges, the few drawbacks she brings are easily mitigated. So long as Governor Palin can keep the puck moving down ice and not lose it at the red line in the debates, Obama’s job just got a lot harder.

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