The Female Factor

"After John McCain, Sarah Palin is the Republican best qualified to become president."



Read this sentence aloud with a straight face. How far did you get? Even if you can say it now, could you have spontaneously said it a week ago? If not, what has changed?



Substitute "Barack Obama", " Joe Biden" and "Democrat" for the proper nouns in this sentence, and the only problem would be saying that Mr O is somehow more qualified than Mr B. (Reread the last Glazerbeam on this point.) Still, the choice of Governor Palin undercuts the Republican claim that Obama is "not ready" to become president.



Of the myriads of people who have praised this choice as brilliant (or better), how many of them would have been this elated if McCain had nominated a male Republican with an equally thin resume?



It is obvious that Governor Palin got the nod because McCain wanted a female running-mate, and of the handful of Republican women holding statewide office, Sarah Palin does stand out as more attractive and feisty than the others. It helps that her political positions are even more standard Republican than McCain's. Many Republicans favor drilling in ANWR even though it could hurt the caribou herd; Sarah Palin actually hunts caribou. I can picture her warning one of the beasts, " Go ahead, antlerhead, make my day!" before pulling the trigger.



Although governor for less than two years of a sparsely-populated state, and previously the mayor of a very small (pop. 6,715) town called Wasilla, her qualifications to serve as vice-president are actually about even with some vice-presidential nominees : Franklin Roosevelt, (*) William Miller (1) and Spiro Agnew, for example. Even the boyish-looking Dan Quayle had served in both the House and Senate before being chosen for VP, although he was a very junior member of both chambers. Richard Nixon, although a senator for only two years when tapped by General Eisenhower in 1952, had won national fame in the Alger Hiss case while a congressman.



Most nominees for vice president had been experienced senators (such as Harry Truman, John Bricker (2), Alben Barkley, Estes Kefauver, Henry Cabot Lodge (3), Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Ed Muskie, Bob Dole, Lloyd Bentsen, Al Gore, Walter Mondale and Joe Lieberman) or had served in either the president's cabinet (such as Henry Wallace , Jack Kemp and Dick Cheney) or in other important positions (such as George H W Bush, former Director of Central Intelligence and Ambassador to the UN and China, and Sargent Shriver, who had organized both the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty.)

But will Sarah Palin draw lots of votes from disappointed Hillary-backers who want a woman on the ticket? The feminist base of Hillary Clinton's support will never vote for McCain, because he is strongly anti-abortion; the choice of VP will make no difference. On the other hand, millions of voters in the later primaries backed Hillary Clinton as the Great White Hope against Barack Obama, not because they wanted a female candidate. These voters, for whom race trumps gender, rejected Obama in the primaries and will reject him again in November, also regardless of the VP nominees. McCain had them at "hello." The trouble for the GOP is that for every voter who doesn't want an African-American to become president, there is another one who doesn't a woman in line for the presidency.

The more fair-minded voters will judge Sarah Palin on how she performs in the campaign, especially at the crucial debate with Joe Biden. If she can avoid any blunders or gaffes, she will be a net asset to the Republican ticket.

If the McCain-Palin ticket wins, and Vice President Palin can avoid misspelling "potato" and blowing any other grade-school questions, she will outshine Dan Quayle. Even if she does not have the big time policy-making influence of Dick Cheney, she will be adequate for the largely ceremonial duties of the vice president.

But in the unlikely event that John McCain (at 72, the oldest person to become president (4)) is unable to complete his term of office, we will all learn the hard way if Sarah Palin is really prepared to become the 45th President of the United States.

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(*) At the time Franklin D Roosevelt was nominated for vice president by the Democrats in 1920, he had been a state senator and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The fact that he was the eponomous cousin and nephew (by marriage) of President Theodore Roosevelt may have helped secure the nomination.

(1) Rep. William E Miller of Lockport, NY, was the running-mate of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. After losing the election, Miller became a spokesman for a credit-card company.

(2) The Ohio senator who ran with NY Governor Thomas E Dewey in 1944, Bricker is best known for his proposal to amend the Constitution to give the states the right to vote on treaties.
(3) Lodge, who lost his Massachusetts senate seat in 1952 to John F Kennedy, served as US Ambassador to the United Nations before being picked for VP by Richard Nixon in 1960.

(4) Ronald Reagan became president at 69 and was 73 when re-elected. If McCain serves two terms, he will be 80 years old when he leaves office.