Weight Maven

I got in a few snarks/tweets on Friday re the Sarah Palin pick. But I’ve also read/heard from people I respect who are either convinced this is a brilliant move on McCain’s part or very concerned that it is.

I have nothing to say to those who would equate Palin’s experience and Obama’s (except gee, can I get some of what you’re on?). But I thought this op-ed by Michael Kinsley in today’s WaPo nailed the fundamental issue (emphasis mine):

That’s why the important point about Palin’s lack of experience isn’t about Palin. It’s about McCain. And the question is not how his choice of Palin might complicate his ability to use the “experience” issue or whether he will have to drop experience as an issue. It’s not about the proper role of experience as an issue. It’s not about experience at all.

It’s about honesty. The question should be whether McCain — and all the other Republicans who have been going on for months about Obama’s dangerous lack of foreign policy experience — ever meant a word of it. And the answer is apparently not.

Many conservative pundits woke up this morning fully prepared to harp on Obama’s alleged lack of experience for months more. Now they face the choice of either executing a Communist-style U-turn (“Experience? Feh! Who needs it?”) or trying to keep a straight face while touting the importance of having been mayor of a town of 9,000 if you later find yourself president of a nation of 300 million.

Me? I’m cautiously optimistic that this pick, like Harriot Miers, will fall apart under the weight of increased scrutiny.

Update: Here’s an interesting Palin perspective from HuffPo:

… the McCain campaign is at a major disadvantage in any wonky policy debate on fixing the economy. Knowing this, and knowing that the election is going to be won or lost on whether their ticket is regarded as the best equipped to meet that challenge, the McCain campaign is doing what the GOP always does when it has to fight for working class voters in a debate that Republicans can’t win on its merits: they are reverting to symbolic politics, a role for which Palin is tailor-made. … [The GOP is] going to turn any question about Palin’s ‘experience,’ whether from a Dem or from a journalist, into another elitist attack on working class culture, another example of snooty, brainiac liberals condescending to ordinary Americans. And to boot, a bunch of good old boys picking on Mrs. Mom.

Given how rash it seems the decision was re Palin, I suspect this may fall into the “even a blind squirrel finds a nut” category rather than a well thought out plan. But it seems a good explanation for the unease a lot of Dems have with the Palin pick.

Update 2: And George Lakoff has more to add on the issue of symbolism and framing:

[T]he Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what Democrats call “issues,” but about the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind — the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can’t win on realities. Her job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating political discourse. …

What is at stake in this election are our ideals and our view of the future, as well as current realities. The Palin choice brings both front and center. Democrats, being Democrats, will mostly talk about the realities nonstop without paying attention to the dimensions of values and symbolism. Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy. That needs to be said loud and clear, if not by the Obama campaign itself, then by the rest of us who share democratic American values.

What Lakoff said!