ThinkDeep

When I heard that McCain has picked Palin, my initial reaction was that he was going after the Hillary supporters.  He had already run the TV ad with the former Hillary supporter.  That ad complements the choice of Palin in that regard.  As I learned more about her, it became apparent that this choice worked for the campaign on many levels.

Because Palin is so opposite to Hillary on fundamental issues, I can’t imagine that she will get that many Hillary voters.  Some of those voters were supporting Hillary herself.  For them, there can be no substitute.  It was still worth it for them to make the attempt.

She makes the conservatives happy.  She holds all the conservative positions that are important to them.

Imagine if McCain had chosen an old white guy.  That would have been political death.  The campaign would be seen as boring.  Palin injects youth into the campaign.  Add to that her brief but impressive rack record for shaking things up.  While we only know of this story from her, if true, it is a good trait.

It was a smart choice for McCain because of the youth angle.  It was a shock to many in the media because it is unconventional.  The fact that Obama is the Democratic candidate shows that being unconventional is acceptable.

I suspect the historical nature of the Obama campaign carries some weight with voters.  How many votes does it translate into no one knows.  And so, Palin makes this a historic campaign also.  While it isn’t the first time that a woman has run as VP, if they win, she would be the first female VP.  Again, I think this was a good move for McCain.

Lastly, there is one huge risk to having Palin on the ticket.  She has very little experience on the national and international stage.  I think this will scare some voters away.  VP candidates do not affect the voters one way or the other.  I see this as different in that respect.  McCain is 72 and older people tend to have more health problems.  Some voters will consider what would happen if she had to take over the presidency. And this might be enough to get them to vote for Obama.

Does anyone really vote for the president? I wonder if they should. By this I mean to ask if someone is voting based on what the president will do when in office and what the candidate will bring to the white house and the country. I’m here to tell you that if you think you are voting for a president, that’s only part of the equation.

Unless an independent gets elected, we are voting as much for the party as we are voting for the person. Some people understand that. That is why the dominant parties will get significant votes no matter who are their nominees. These people understand that voting for a president is package deal. They understand that they won’t get everything that they want. But they know that they will get less of what they want with the other party.

This isn’t to say that a president has no effect. There is some effect that comes directly from the president depending on the individual himself. I think some of this is more true for some presidents than others. Clinton probably was a good example of this. He was very hands on. Reagan was supposedly a very hands off leader. That does not make a president bad or good. It just is. But a person who votes on a single issue is at risk of getting more things they do not like in the long run. That is because they have decided that this one issue trumps everything. And it would not matter if the president advocated any policy so long as they got the satisfaction of the one issue.

It isn’t easy to truly analyze a presidential candidate and vote accordingly. It takes extraordinary energy to do that. Most people don’t do this. Instead they do a loose “feel” of the candidate based on what they absorb as they go along. And it really depends on what catches their interest. And so, many people vote for a president not really understanding what they are voting for, both in terms of what the candidate stands for and what others surrounding the candidate will bring to the deal.