Palin can't win unless she stops the drama
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
July 6, 2009
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| Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announces that she is stepping down from her position as governor in Wasilla, Alaska, on Friday. (AP photo) |
Sarah Palin learned a lot of things in her time as John McCain's running mate -- about the savagery of the media; about the duplicity of politicos; about her own gifts as a politician.
But she did not learn the most important lesson of 2008: no drama.
The passing months show how right Barack Obama's critics, starting with Hillary Clinton, were about his inexperience. But his supreme overconfidence prevents the caution humility would suggest.
The waves are well over the bow of the ship of state now, yet Obama's White House seems to change course almost hourly.
What hasn't happened is much unnecessary drama. There were the income tax problems, and Clinton's team at State has started discreetly briefing against Obama's foreign policy, but he and his people have behaved remarkably well. No backbiting. Limited leaks. On message. Few surprises.
We can see problems ahead as the first lady tightens her grip on the administration. Sooner or later there will be a showdown as the president leaves it to his staff to deal with her while he bums another Marlboro Light on the front nine at Fort Belvoir.
But that's still ahead. For now, the harmony, unity and secrecy that were the watchwords of the Obama organization during the 2008 campaign mostly remain.
Team Obama understood the advantage it had with the members of the media with the first-ever serious black presidential contender, particularly a liberal who talks like a hip sociology professor.
But even with the wind blowing strongly at their backs, Obama and his men didn't indulge themselves in distracting sideshows.
The McCain campaign, meanwhile, was so dysfunctional that its members are still recriminating eight months later. Campaign manager Steve Schmidt and foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann are still braying at each other over Scheunemann's alleged leaks. As if it mattered anymore.
McCain didn't lose the election on Nov. 4. He lost it on Sept. 24, when he suspended his campaign, sort of.
With Wall Street imploding and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pushing the first $700 billion bailout, McCain said he would stop campaigning and go back to Washington.
But what McCain really did was do an interview with Katie Couric, stop by the Clinton Global Initiative for a speech, and then go along with what President George W. Bush and Obama were saying: A bailout was a necessary evil.
The final, clattering end of McCain's chance came two days later when he gave an unremarkable performance in a debate that he said should have been canceled. All Obama had to do was not act too smug and be plausibly presidential. Just by McCain showing up, the Democrat had won the debate.
Imagine if McCain had taken the same approach to the bailout as he had with the Iraq war.
McCain helped secure Iraq by being willing to lose an election if that meant winning a war. His steadfast backing of the surge in Iraq ended up benefiting his campaign, though. It won him the nomination and made Obama sweat his flippant dismissal of the strategy.
What if McCain had actually suspended his campaign and come back to Washington to fight against the bailout? What if Obama had debated an empty chair as McCain held the Senate floor arguing against the package? It would have been a dramatic move instead of just needless drama.
Palin, though, did not seem to take the lesson. Instead, she seems to feed on drama.
And it's not that she needs to go looking for it.
David Letterman's gross, unfunny joke about Palin's teenage daughter, the ongoing skirmish among the former McCainiacs and the frivolous ethics complaints against her by Democratic hacks are all just part of life for Palin these days. But rather than rising above the squalor, Palin has fully engaged on each point. She stayed in the headlines blasting washed-up Letterman for days, continued to dish about the failings of McCain's campaign and quit office blaming the ethics complaints for her departure.
There is always a lot of sound and fury around Palin, but does it signify anything other than her status as a celebrity?
As a deeply polarizing candidate, she has 18 months left to convince the shrinking pool of undecided voters that she can be a calm, steady hand in an unstable world.
More drama like the kind she indulged in Friday will take her down the same path McCain followed last fall.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at cstirewalt@washingtonexaminer.com.
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