OLEAN -- The first reactions I experienced last Friday when I heard Sen. John McCain surprise the nation by naming the little-known 44-year-old female governor of Alaska as his running mate and choice for vice presidential candidate were shock, suspicion, skepticism and sadness.
Not sadness for the country or the Republican Party, or McCain's chances, or chagrin that he had named a woman instead of a man. Nothing like that. Sadness for myself -- sorrow that I have suddenly grown so old.
Sarah Palin was born in 1964, while I was in my last semester of college, getting ready to watch the now-deceased political mastodons Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson battle it out for the White House. It seems a moment ago.
Later, Palin was runner-up in the Miss Alaska contest (1984). Somewhat ironically, I was interviewing Geraldine Ferraro in San Francisco for a front-page article in USA Today on the first woman ever nominated by a major party for vice president. Now I'm sitting here in front of my laptop trying to figure out where three decades went.
Once I got over the selfish pity party, I experienced the other three emotions:
Shock that putative GOP presidential nominee McCain would show such imagination -- foolishly or no -- in a political party still controlled by obstinate old conservatives who think inspiration is something that stains your shirts.
Suspicion that McCain had to be talked into it by numbers gurus and polling experts who figure he could cut into that Democratic mass of femininity still oozing resentment that Sen. Hillary Clinton didn't get her party's presidential nomination.
Skepticism that this, however altruistic or strategically inventive, will work for the Republicans.
"Surprise" was probably the wrong word to use in the lead. McCain stunned the electorate and the political establishment with his choice. Palin wasn't even on the radar of the Great Mentioner -- that mythical yet ethereally influential power made up of all the reporters, pundits, pollsters, politicians, commentators, columnists, consultants, comedians, talk show hosts, advisers, hacks, hangers-on, bloggers, bloviators and barstoolers who dare to guess the identity of an imminent nominee.
Sarah Palin belongs to that great category of names of relatively obscure elected officials and political leaders I put on general knowledge tests for my college freshmen to demonstrate they aren't as smart as they think they are. I couldn't find one well-known political columnist or prominent blogger who'd seriously predicted Palin would be the choice.
The exception who came closest (at least in my quick search) was S.J. Reidhead -- a well-reviewed western novelist and moderate Republican blogger who frequently nails the GOP's right wing for cupidity and dunderheaded behavior -- in the online publication Blogcritics Magazine. And she did it two full weeks before McCain made his pick public.
Reidhead pointed out Palin has an astounding 84 percent approval rating in her first year as governor, and that Palin has been moving to toughen state ethics laws and against the many Alaskan state politicians who sold out to oil interests.
This quasi-prognostication by Reidhead drew her predictable and immediate razzing by fellow bloggers who filled about 11 computer screens with choice ridicule (with the exception of one presumably Republican writer who noted Palin still has more executive experience as a rookie governor than John F. Kennedy did when he moved into the White House).
McCain also took an immediate pounding for his choice. He named Palin on his 72nd birthday, and comedians were quick to point out that instead of getting a birthday present the Arizona senator gave the Democrats one. And the Dems quickly trotted out their big guns to say so. They mainly focused on the importance of the vice presidential choice, given McCain's advanced age and his affliction with and previous facial surgery for a death-dealing cancer that often returns to kill -- melanoma.
They also shared my own deep skepticism that women voters and vociferous admirers of Hillary Clinton all over the nation will flock by the millions to the Republican cause just because an attractive rookie governor from a state with the population of, say, Austin, Texas -- one who hasn't had time to chalk up many negatives yet and whose previous administrative experience came as mayor of a town of 9,000 Alaskans -- is on the ticket.
California Democratic senator Barbara Boxer got a lot of TV reaction time with her observation that "if John McCain thought that choosing Sarah Palin would attract Hillary Clinton voters, he is badly mistaken. The only similarity between her and Hillary Clinton is that they are both women. On the issues, they could not be further apart."
Boxer correctly noted McCain had other options when it came to accomplished Republican women in high office -- including U.S. senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson from Texas, and Olympia Snowe from Maine (who both must be feeling somewhat stupefied and snubbed at this juncture).
"They would have been," sniffed Boxer, "an appropriate choice compared to this dangerous choice." (Notice how she cleverly worked in McCain's advanced age with the word "dangerous"?)
For me personally, Palin has some things to recommend her. She was in my field -- a journalism graduate from the University of Idaho who went on to become a sports reporter for Anchorage TV. She really is a "maverick" and makes admirable choices the GOP right-wingers may find distasteful. Her oil-driller husband is a native Eskimo. She found out while pregnant that her fifth child had Down Syndrome, but decided to give birth anyway. She maintains openly gay friendships and is implementing same-sex benefits in Alaska.
I mentioned above she hasn't had time to make mistakes, but actual time in office means little in terms of getting oneself into hot water. Palin is already feeling the warmth and is under investigation by the Alaska state legislature for sacking the top state cop -- public safety commissioner Walt Monegan -- soon after he refused to fire a state trooper who was the governor's former brother-in-law. The Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten, is involved in a bitter child custody battle with governor Palin's sister, Molly.
Whoaaa, doth the pungent odor of scandal, of an egregious abuse of power, waft into the presidential election race, even before the conventions are over?
Palin has been asked by legislators and a special professional investigator they hired to hand over certain documents and certain recordings of phone calls and certain e-mail records to shed light on just what transpired. Palin insists it was an errant staffer who made the call to Commissioner Monegan and merely -- and erroneously -- implied he was speaking for the governor. Palin has suspended said staffer.
The fired commissioner, Monegan, told the Washington Post even the governor's current husband, Todd, had contacted him and wanted trooper Wooten fired. Monegan says he was never directly told by Sarah Palin to fire the trooper.
My first reaction to all this was, Tempest in a Teapot.
I mean, if a governor can't fire a police commissioner or two upon taking office, what can she do? And at least she was sticking up for her sister, and at least she was trying to get rid of somebody. In terms of nepotism and favoritism shown to relatives, first thing most governors do after swearing the oath is lard the public payroll with every living relative they can find -- and as political history shows, a few dead ones upon occasion.
After looking into it, I'm even more convinced Palin will survive this mini-scandal. Lisa Demer of the Anchorage Daily News explored this matter in depth a month ago, and if this legislative inquiry ever gets to floor debate involving the governor's reasons, my money is on Palin.
Wooten, 35, has been married and divorced four times. That may be no big deal, but there are 482 pages in two thick binders resulting from a recent yearlong internal state police investigation that show Wooten has a highly questionable record that might have gotten him canned forthwith in several other states.
Demer wrote the internal investigation showed Wooten used a taser on his own stepson. That he illegally shot a moose. That he drank beer in his patrol car. That he told one father-in-law in his string of marriages the older man would "eat a f***ing lead bullet" if he helped his daughter hire a divorce attorney.
Wooten had been written up at least seven times since joining the force, according to Col. Julia Grimes, who headed the Alaska State Troopers in 2006 when the probe took place. She suspended Wooten for 10 days -- later reduced to five when the trooper union chimed in -- and wrote for the record that Wooten's behavior "clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable, and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession."
Palin now admits she talked to Monegan twice about Wooten and e-mailed him three times, but never asked him to fire the brother-in-law. Monegan says she never directly ordered him to do so. He told the Washington Post anyone trying to get the trooper fired should "back off," because "it can look like political interference" if the trooper ever does get fired for a "terminable offense."
I believe if this thing "has legs" and continues as an attack on Sarah Palin's political behavior -- say in a vice presidential debate with Joe Biden, for instance -- that she can easily refute "abuse of power" charges or defend her actions by hauling out the above investigative results. She'd have been better off by going public with the whole thing her first day in office and spawning citizen pressure for the dismissal.
There's another recent story from Alaska that also has to do with Palin's judgment, and with her administrative style -- at least in hiring activity. It may come up in the campaign, if it hasn't already. She replaced Monegan with the chief of police from the small city of Kenai in Alaska -- one Chuck Kopp. (Well named, eh?)
Anyway, Chief Kopp passed the vetting procedure conducted by Palin's staff, was sworn in, assumed Public Safety commissioner duties -- and lasted two weeks.
He was forced to resign five weeks ago when sexual harassment complaints were raised from his Kenai days. It turns out the Kenai City Council had reprimanded him on the record.
Why didn't Palin's staff come up with this -- a glaring entry in the public record? Why didn't they interview Kopp's policy makers, the Kenai City Council? Or, if they did and told her, why did she appoint this political keg of dynamite in the first place?
She'll have to do better than that in Washington.
Finally, for you horoscope fans, a search of birthdays for well-known persons shows her Feb. 11 birthday augurs both well and ill for Palin.
No matter the career, the day is heavily weighted toward successful persons celebrated later for their talent and good looks -- Burt Reynolds, Tina Louise, Eva Gabor, Jennifer Aniston, Sheryl Crow.
Also born that day were some very brainy people, including Thomas Edison, and some politically adroit and intelligent persons such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush ("the Bush who should have been president").
There are other national leaders who didn't do so well, such as Panama's Manuel Noriega, whom Bush the Elder militarily drove from office and sent to federal prison.
But the spooky shared birthday -- one that may or may not bode well for Sarah Palin -- is the same Feb. 11 date of birth of one Lloyd Bentsen Jr., a renowned and respected Texas senator (and later Bill Clinton's first treasury secretary) who exactly 20 years ago this month was named by presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and nominated in Atlanta on the Democratic ticket for the vice presidency.
He and Dukakis got thundered that November of 1988 by Bush the Elder and Dan Quayle. I wonder if John McCain knew that from his research.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Sept. 2 2008 |