Another woman enters the ring of 2008 electoral circus

Ron Smith

September 3, 2008

Like nearly every other person, I was surprised when Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I'll bet she was pretty surprised herself when the call came from the old gent. Then came the news that one of the Palin daughters was pregnant. She's 17, and we are told she is going to keep the baby and will marry the young man who impregnated her. Now that's living the pro-life way. What fun. All of this adds yet more spice to the wonderful circus that is the 2008 American presidential race.

Who could have written this script, say, two years ago? At that time, Sen. Hillary Clinton was thought to be the unstoppable candidate, sure to be the Democratic nominee. She had the name and she had the fame. There was a problem, to be sure. The senator from New York, according to numerous polls, is heartily disliked by millions of Americans. But Sen. Barack Obama? Oh, yeah. He's the skinny black guy from Illinois who spoke so well at the 2004 convention. He thinks he can be president? You've got to be kidding

The joke, as we now know, turned out to be on Mrs. Clinton, as Mr. Obama and his brain trust outplayed the Clinton team from the outset, parlaying early success in caucus states into enough primary wins to eke out a narrow but definitive edge in delegates to the nominating convention in Denver.

Speaking of which, was there anything more side-splitting than the Clintons delivering their speeches in support of Mr. Obama? One would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the notion that either member of the nation's former first couple have anything but anger bubbling up in their brains when forced to eat separate slices of humble pie on national television, knowing they were this close to realizing a triumphant return to the White House.

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Their speeches were good, particularly Mrs. Clinton's - that lady sure can deliver the goods when it comes to political stemwinders - but to think she's not bitter about being nipped at the wire by a newcomer out of nowhere is to deny the nature of such things. Then came the Nuremberg-like gathering of tens of thousands of enthusiasts outdoors at the Denver Broncos' Invesco Field to listen to Mr. Obama's acceptance speech. It was a spectacle bound to make the candidate's horde of media groupies swoon. And swoon they did, led by the man conservatives love to hate, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who may have reached the point of loving Barack Obama more than he's hating President Bush.

I watched Mr. Olbermann for a time as he sneered at the McCain choice. What a mistake, he implied, that the Republican candidate was stupid enough to think that a lot of female voters will turn away from the person who will transform America - and indeed perhaps, if we're lucky, the whole, wide world - just because Mr. McCain picked a vice presidential candidate who is a woman. (Remember, from the liberal perspective, a conservative woman isn't really a woman at all. Consider Maryland's Ellen R. Sauerbrey and how she was slandered in precisely that manner when she twice ran for governor.)

As we all now have heard, Governor Palin is a little-known, inexperienced, pro-life NRA member. She and her husband have five children whose names, Track, Bristol (she's the pregnant one), Willow, Piper and Trig, seem strange to the Olbermann ear, and have indeed prompted some Democratic bloggers to question the decision-making abilities of someone who has chosen such monikers for her offspring. Of course, any commentator who would dare to mention the unusual names in the Obama family would immediately be condemned as a racist.

A recent headline in The Baltimore Sun says, "Female reaction to Palin is mixed." Who would have guessed? Reading further, we learn that women who are, say, Republican or conservative think that from what they've seen and read, she sounds pretty good. However, women who are pro-choice Democrats have "concerns" about her lack of experience and fitness to serve in a position putting her just a 72-year-old's coronary event away from being president.

The amazing choice of Sarah Palin is being applauded by conservatives and jeered at by liberals. That's all there is to it, at least so far. And one should also keep in mind that people vote for or against the person at the top of the ticket. The determinant in the 2008 presidential contest is not likely to be whether people prefer Washington insider Sen. Joe Biden or the feisty woman from the North Country to be their vice president - and it won't be that Bristol is pregnant. I think, though, that the single vice presidential debate, Oct. 2 in St. Louis, will be must-see TV.

Ron Smith can be heard weekdays, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., on 1090 WBAL-AM and wbal.com. His column appears Wednesdays in The Sun. His e-mail is rsmith@wbal.com.