Sarah Palin – A More Objective Look

Republican Party Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin
Photo courtesy J. Medkeff

By Tim Arnold

September 1, 2008

To my Republican friends now forced to justify and defend Sarah Palin: Me thinks thou doth protest too much.

And with good reason. McCain just handed the election to the Democrats.

Put the political issues aside for a minute and look at the Palin decision from a purely strategic perspective. If Romney had been the choice, for example, you’d be rallying around your team, on point, on the issues, and heading into the convention focused on the platform that has already attracted voters to your ticket.

Now, you’re stuck with defending an unknown.

For the sake of argument, let’s say her experience does equal Obama’s. And let’s acknowledge the charge that he has been “running for office for two years.” Maybe it’s because it’s taken him two years to convince enough Democrats that he’s beyond it, and capable of filling the leadership void created by the last eight years.

Two years.

Sarah’s got 60 days.

And she and the entire Republican party are now burdened with justifying her glaring lack of experience, from a deficit. An enormous hurdle, and distraction, to expect to overcome in such a short amount of time. Worse, it completely eliminates the #1 Republican argument: that Obama himself is inexperienced.

Can’t have it both ways.

To put it bluntly, and in terms already raised about Obama: would McCain have picked a guy with this little experience??

Beyond that, this choice exposes substantial vulnerabilities on a number of other fronts: McCain’s age. Rather than counter it, it exacerbates it. Draws even more attention to the fact that he’s the oldest non-incumbent candidate in US history, and challenged by some significant health issues.

This “inexperienced” VP candidate is a heart beat away from the worldly demands of the Oval Office? Serves to unnecessarily dramatize this issue and exacerbate her inexperience.

Attract disaffected Democratic women? She’s pro-life! Ain’t gonna happen.

Tom Ridge stood a better chance of attracting Democratic women: he’s pro-choice. To assume that a woman, any woman, regardless of her position on core issues, would attract disaffected Hillaryites simply because she’s a woman is archaic, a throw back, an insult to women.

A nod to the evangelical right? Looks to me like this faction no longer has the insidious kind of control or influence over Republicans that it once did. Still a factor, but not the dominant factor, with the demise of Ralph Reed, et al. (And yet I see Reed is one of the first one’s quoted in support of the Palin choice!).

And she’s “under investigation” by her own state!

Right, wrong or otherwise, there it is. (And who knows what else they’re going to stir up about her). Like at what point did she decide she was against the “Bridge to Nowhere …”?)? This will likely prove to be another huge distraction. Imagine if the Republicans had this kind of “swift boating” ammunition on a Democrat.

McCain’s move looks contrived, and ingenuous: He goes for a surprise. He picks a woman, nearly half his age. Who he’s met exactly once. It underscores McCain’s alleged (and outdated) reputation for defying the status quo. But this goes beyond the pale: this simply looks stubborn, defiant.

Defensive.

Desperate.

Like McCain, Sarah Palin apparently has a lot of admirable qualities. But the strategic reasoning for picking her is going to prove fatal.

Tim Arnold is a 30-year advertising industry veteran. His first job was at D’Arcy, St. Louis, where he ran the Budweiser business for 10 years, launching the ground-breaking “This Bud’s for You” campaign. He moved to New York twenty-five years ago, and has worked at J. Walter Thompson (Burger King, Miller), Scali McCabe Sloves (Hertz) and DMB&B (worldwide Board of Directors; Dir, Global Business Development). He was president of McCann Amsteryard and a partner at The Ad Store, where he produced the notorious first Super Bowl commercial for GoDaddy. For three years he’s told his stories in a regular column for Adweek magazine. He also plays a mean blues guitar and has played numerous clubs in New York City as part of the Night Train Blues Band. He’s just completed a six-month stint helping launch a neuroscience advertising research company (EmSense), and currently runs his own consulting business (The Arnold Group).

Tim Arnold

Tim Arnold

Tim Arnold is a 35-year advertising industry veteran and a frequently published writer who's run his own consultancy agency, Possible20, for many years. His first job was at D’Arcy, St. Louis, where he ran the Budweiser business for 10 years, launching the ground-breaking “This Bud’s for You” campaign. He moved to New York twenty-eight years ago, and has run businesses for J. Walter Thompson (Burger King, Miller), Scali McCabe Sloves (Hertz) and DMB&B (worldwide Board of Directors; Dir, Global Business Development). He was president of McCann Amsteryard and a partner at The Ad Store, where he produced the notorious first Super Bowl commercial for GoDaddy. For three years he told his stories in a regular column for Adweek magazine and now contributes to AdvertisingAge. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has published Tim's work, and he's a frequent contributor to The FogCity Journal. He also plays a mean blues guitar and has played numerous clubs in New York City as part of the Night Train Blues Band.

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