Today, CNN’s Campbell Brown elicited a mixture of cheers and rage with her strongly-worded assertion that the way the McCain campaign is treating Sarah Palin is sexist. The campaign is hardly allowing Governor Palin to speak to the media, Brown argues, because they unfairly believe that as a woman she is too fragile to stand up to questioning.
If you read the statement, maybe you’ll agree with me that, whatever she really thinks on this topic, Ms. Brown’s main goal with her statement was to drive an explosive reader reaction and rake in the resulting pageviews. Either way, her support of her point is extremely weak. In fact, while it’s certainly true that the McCain camp is doing all it can to keep Palin under wraps, there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this is due to sexism, and Brown hasn’t managed to find any to show us. Just saying the campaign is sexist doesn’t make it so. As I see it, sexism isn’t the issue here, but Palin’s lack of public exposure is a symptom of other critical problems for the McCain campaign.
To start with, there’s the fact that Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to be the Vice President of the United States. She lacks the knowledge, the experience and the judgment required to run the most powerful country on earth should the need arise. This is effectively demonstrated by, among other things, the fact that she lacks the skills and judgment required to get through public appearances without major gaffes. The few times we’ve seen Governor Palin take questions in public she has faltered through them, her few real political convictions liberally mixed with non-answers and lies. If I had a running mate (male or female) whose post-appearance reviews ranged from the biting “visibly nervous” to the derisive “dribbling and dribbling the ball but refusing to take the shot,” I wouldn’t let that person out in public much either.
And there’s another problem which is becoming more and more apparent as the economy slides downhill: Sarah Palin’s policies are (in most respects) the same as John McCain’s policies, and John McCain’s policies are really not what Americans want right now. McCain is the guy who, in face of an economy that is depriving many members of the middle class of their jobs and homes, wants to pile on tax cuts for the very rich, with minimal relief for working Americans. He also wants to keep fighting a war that has cost the country nearly two trillion dollars, even though nearly all political leaders agree it’s time for an exit strategy. If Palin busts through her stage fright and starts talking policy, she’ll just be parroting more of the same (except for her pet cause of Arctic drilling, which isn’t a crowd-pleaser in the lower 48 the way it is in Alaska). If she stays quiet, there’s always the chance that the public will think she’s mysterious rather than realizing she’s just bad news.
So Sarah Palin is keeping out of the public eye as much as possible, but it’s not sexism so much as a defense mechanism. Want more proof? As of today, John McCain is making a retreat as well. To the great surprise of pretty much everyone, today Senator McCain declared that he was suspending his campaign to return to the Senate to help work out a resolution to the Wall Street bailout. While this may sound like a great idea on paper, it’s definitely out of character for the Senate’s most absent member, and other Senators have responded by indicating that they have the matter under control without his contribution. Since it seems unlikely that McCain’s sudden presence in the Senate will make or break the deal (and thus unlikely that he would think he could make the difference), it’s much more plausible that there’s another reason for the move.
I see two possible explanations for the maneuver. Either this is an act of penance by the man who just days ago asserted that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” trying to prove that he can take the financial crisis seriously after all, or McCain simply doesn’t think the time and place are right for a debate this Friday. Either way, he’s motivated more by a desire to pull himself together and win this election than by a new-found concern for our houses and jobs.
In the face of McCain’s flailing, Barack Obama has kept his cool. Rather than dropping everything and running to Washington, he has expressed his intention to keep campaigning while also remaining alert in case leaders in Washington believe he can do more good there than on the trail. Earlier today, he issued a statement saying, “It is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” and that “It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.” He’s exactly right. The election will go on in November, and it will decide the fate of the country for the next four years. The bailout plan is very important, but it is under control in the Senate. There are many capable people who can work together to reach a decision on the plan, but only Barack Obama and John McCain are running for president.
Americans need information about the candidates in order to make informed decisions in November. With every appearance he cancels and every debate he postpones, John McCain denies voters of an opportunity to get to know him and his policies. Why do this, unless he is deeply afraid they won’t like what they see?
Oh, and what about Sarah Palin? This evening CNN ran a little item saying that if the presidential debate is delayed, the VP debate “would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined,” which may or may not be a code word for “never.” Because if you can’t say anything nice, you can always hope you won’t need to say anything at all.