Why Sarah Palin doesn’t make sense to the commentariat, but does make sense
There are literally thousands of articles about the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.
There are a few things worth noting here that others seem to have missed so far.
Firstly on abortion. My take on McCain is that, like most sensible men, he doesn’t actually have a strong opinion on the subject. In the past that’s meant he was broadly in favour of choice and lately, in need of support from “pro-life” nutters it’s something he’s been comfortable changing his mind on.
The nutters naturally are unconvinced by this conversion and selecting the strongly pro life Sarah Palin has made them very happy.
But it’s one thing for a 72 year old man to venture an opinion on abortion. Whereas a 44 year old mother of five who has recently chosen to bring a downs syndrome baby to term is a different thing entirely.
One might disagree with her; but most thoughtful women, I imagine, will have a lot of respect for her opinion.
More broadly on the women vote, it’s true that not all Hillary supporters will jump ship to McCain for Sarah Palin’s sake.
On the other hand the moose shooting hockey mom who took on the system and ended up running Alaska will probably bring over a percentage of the sisterhood smarting at the Obama campaign. You don’t have to get them all to make it worthwhile.
More important is creating the perception that the McCain campaign is about more than just old people shouting down the young. With voluntary voting it can pay to mollify the fringes of your opponent’s base to the point they can’t be bothered voting against you. And Palin adding a prettier face to the campaign should not be neglected.
Many columnists, like Andrew Sullivan in The Times, are viewing this as a strategic blunder by McCain.
Here’s, for mine, where this gets interesting. To Sullivan and his like the campaign is like a land war where territory must be fought for, gained, and can then be attacked from. They think like generals.
McCain is not a general. He’s the son and the grandson of admirals and was a captain in his own right.
John McCain might well be approaching this with a warlike mindset. But the holding of empty ocean would be the last thing on his mind.
To an admiral success is measured in the fleet appearing where the enemy least expects it. The enemy then experiences bewilderment and terror as they ask “Are those ships ours? Where did they come from?”. And then, having achieved the objective, the fleet departs again into the night. Leaving the enemy trying to cover for all eventualities they can conceive of, in turn leaving themselves vulnerable to the threat they have failed to imagine.
Apply this filter and a lot of other things make sense, particularly with the Palin announcement which has had the Obama campaign flailing and making statements only to retract them.
Generals rarely understand why admirals act as they do. And admirals are generally very happy to leave them to be bewildered. The cause of this difference is that fleets can travel great distances very quickly and fight without a constant line of supply and communication. I suspect a modern political campaign has more in common with fleet actions than land war.
McCain’s problem with this is that he still needs to convince the media that he knows what he’s doing.
Another fine example of how McCain is waging this campaign as an admiral is the way that his campaign is oft portrayed as being “in chaos” because different advisors are saying contradictory things.
This is how admirals make decisions. By having their staff propose contending plans and then debating them vigorously. Having the staff all make out their plans fully the admiral has the luxury of being able to choose, seemingly at the spur of the moment, which one he wants to go with, again taking his opponents by surprise.
(Incidentally this is also how real generals make decisions, but that’s a little beyond the arm-chair strategists of the commentariat.)
It’s going to be an exciting campaign.