So at this point it’s old news, but Republican candidate for president John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and mother of five. It was, by most accounts, a surprising pick, and a pleasant surprise for libertarian-lite and reform conservatives. But the conservative reaction hasn’t been one of simple approval. It has been a dramatic overreaction. While out of one side of the Right’s mouth come platitudes downplaying the importance of the first woman in the White House or the first black man in the White House, out the other side is a level of excitement that can only be attributed to the absence of a Y-chromosome. Even Rush Limbaugh had do address it, declaring “We’re the ones with a babe on the ticket.”
That’s not to say there is nothing exciting or admirable about Palin. From the Times Online:
“She was born in the conservative heartland of Idaho before moving to Alaska as a baby. At school she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda on the basketball court because she was so competitive and she led the prayers before each game.
In 2006 she beat the corrupt male establishment in Alaska to win the governorship. She opposes same-sex marriage, but one of her first acts in office was to veto a bill blocking health benefits for gay lovers of public employees. She hunts, ice-fishes and is a crack shot who knows how to fire an M16 rifle.”
She’s also about as pro-life as you can get in modern politics.
But what has everybody won over is that she’s a pretty girl with guns. Just like in the movies. We don’t know anything about her views on foreign policy and the role the United States should play around the world. We don’t know where she stands on the critical immigration issue. Plus, having never seen her in a debate format, questions linger about how she will stand up to a formidable debater in Joe Biden.
But the ugly truth under all of the rhetoric is that Palin does nothing to redeem a McCain campaign rightfully rejected by traditional conservatives. Any glimmer of hope she may have had–her support of Pat Buchanan in 1996 or her appearance on Ron Paul’s potential VP list–are obsolete because she has hitched herself on the “Straight-Talk Express.” Her views on foreign policy and immigration are irrelevant because of how profoundly wrong McCain’s are. I repeat: Palin does nothing to redeem a McCain campaign rightfully rejected by traditional conservatives.
At its root, the McCain campaign could not reconcile its Old Left problems with any VP candidate. So while the GOP celebrates itself before the inevitable buyers remorse sets in, the rest of us are left still to ponder the future of the American Right.
