Why Palin can’t be ignored
Many Democratic operatives are advising Obama and Biden to essentially ignore Palin. I don’t think they can. President-elect McCain (I use the term to focus your mind on the stakes here) has made her one of the most important issues in this campaign.
In choosing — or being forced to choose — a person with no national or international experience, whose government background is a few years as mayor of a tiny exurb and 18 months as governor of a state with 670,000 people (less than half the population of Phoenix), McCain should be giving the nation pause. Pause to wonder about his judgment, for if he chose her it was the kind of impulsive, irresponsible action for which he’s known. Pause to wonder who is really pulling his strings, considering she is the candidates of the hard-core evangelicals McCain once denounced, and the oil industry he claims to be willing to fight. Pause that he would make a shameless political move to energize his base even if it meant putting the country at risk. President Palin. Think about that.
One of the many outrageous things about the Palin affair is her refusal to hold news conferences or meet with reporters. Proper "deference" was demanded by the McCain campaign. Deference? Here, ma’am, the people rule — unless you are willing to proclaim us an authoritarian empire where the press is treated as it is in, say, China. It should be a deal-breaker in itself that she has been shut off like a celebrity.
What is McCain hiding? What is he afraid of?
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