McCain's New Gambit - Running with Palin as the Ultimate Reformer
The ridiculousness of Palin's joining the ticket has
overshadowed the thematic change that the McCain campaign was trying to engineer in the appointment. Of course the absurdity of the personalities involved have distracted our view as the comparison between Palin an a legitimate national politician are so jarring as to make everything else related to the pick seem irrelevant.
What McCain intends to do however, and part of the attraction of Palin, lies in McCain's effort to run against both the Democratic and Republican Party. McCain hopes to move the issue away from any legislative issue and to suggest that he and Palin should be elected, now wait for it,
because they are more honest than anyone else. They intend to run a campaign on being without the cumbersome ties to business or union that Republicans or Democrats are burdened with. In this fictional universe McCain has been fighting the special interests in Washington while at the other end of the continent Palin has been doing the exact same thing in Alaska.
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/Read.aspx?GUID=282e4ae3-002f-4887-8285-b92bc69c6055
"For starters, we'd say Governor Palin's credentials as an agent of reform exceed Barack Obama's." -- The Wall Street Journal
Here is How the WSJ lays out the new strategy :
Barack Obama aside, Senator McCain's biggest problem is a Republican brand that has suffered -- both among independents and the GOP base -- from the party's business-as-usual mentality in Washington. The public wants change. This pick could prove Mr. McCain is serious about changing his party. clip
For starters, we'd say Governor Palin's credentials as an agent of reform exceed Barack Obama's. Mr. Obama rose through the Chicago Democratic machine without a peep of push-back. Alaska's politics are deeply inbred and backed by energy-industry money. Mr. Obama slid past the kind of forces that Mrs. Palin took head on. This is one reason her selection -- despite its campaign risks -- seems to have been so well received by Republicans yesterday. They are looking for a new generation of leader
Don't expect this remarkable personal Palin narrative to get an Obama-like break from the national media. Their main focus will be her lack of experience, claiming it undercuts Mr. McCain's criticism of Barack Obama. One mispronounced foreign leader's name, and she's going to be hammered.
Mr. McCain's instinct clearly is to offer himself to voters as a reformer. With Sarah Palin, a genuine reformer, Mr. McCain may have found the right idea and the right person to make his run. It is reminiscent of the alternative universes that teen age boys used to spend hours reading about in dime store science fiction novels and now spend hours playing in virtual games.
John McCain is going to run against Obama, Biden, the Democratic Party, the Bush Administration, the corrupt Republican Party and evil moose everywhere. John McCain is going to paint himself as a heroic figure that like his home town of Phoenix rises out of the ashes of torture and imprisonment as a prisoner of war will lead America to a real post partisan, neo ethic reprise that is made up of devout Christians who speak in tongues and spit at the corruption of the system.
Take a break and get a vomit bag while you consider the audacity of their hubris.
But just like the adolescent boys that he is channeling with his fiction from another universe John McCain is going to have to put down his dime store novel and return to the real land where he and the Princess Palin are about to run into one of the largest ethical buzz saws in the history of American Presidential Politics.
It works out on several levels.
First the institutional reaction will be huge.
I wonder what the other Republicans are going to think when they realize that McCain is trying to get to the White House by calling them all crooks. "Vote for me and Palin we like to expose bad Republicans for the evil that they really are - we are so Mavericable we will show you how we stop crooked Republicans".
McCain however has taken fundamental steps however to completely side step every standard ethical activity that everyone, Democrat and Republican has taken since 1978 - he intends not to put his personal wealth and holdings into a 'blind trust'.
LA Times McCain may have a conflict brewing
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/22/nation/na-hensley22
The involvement of McCain’s family in federal regulatory issues could create a conflict of interest for a future McCain administration, according to advocacy groups and political analysts. McCain has recuse himself for many years on alcohol issues in the Senate. As president, however, McCain would face far more difficulty distancing himself from an issue with such broad scope.
Cindy McCain holds the title of company chairwoman and controls about 68% of the privately held company stock with her children and the senator’s son, according to records at the Arizona Department of Liquor License and Control. Cindy and John McCain keep their finances separate, and he has no stake or role in Hensley.
In an interview in May, she said she knew “everything that is going on” and communicated with her executive team every day. She added that she did not need to be at headquarters to be in charge. So far, she has given no hint of what changes, if any, she envisions. “That’s very premature,” she said.
If her husband is elected president and she retains her role at Hensley, she will set a precedent for outside corporate activity by a first lady.
The McCain campaign issued a statement Friday about the issue, saying that “any decisions going forward will be made when John McCain wins the election and takes office, and not before.” Hensley executives declined to comment.
Beyond the obvious observation that any business holding that is kept personally by a President or a First Lady is an inherent conflict of interest, the inherent nature of the brewing business, one of the most heavily regulated businesses in the country, takes the possibility to a completely new level of conflict.
Political analysts said they were astounded that the presumptive Republican nominee had not already addressed the issue.
“You can’t run a beer company out of the White House,” said Samuel L. Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “You can’t run any company from the White House. McCain is leaving a live hand grenade on the table, a major embarrassment.”
What is an example of one possible such conflict of interest?
Well this letter by Andrew McCain (yes the director of the SSBancorp) gives a clear example.
http://www.ttb.treas.gov/nprm_comments/ttbnotice41/other/041200011.pdf
When Mothers Against Drunk Driving tried to change the labeling of beer bottles so that it would help people who intended to have a beer or two calculate their alcoholic blood level so that they would know when it was save to drive, Andrew McCain successfully lobbyied the government to send those nice ladies of MADD on their way.
Now that is reform.
Of course Palin is also the subject of an ethics investigation in Alaska.
The basic outline is similar both McCain view the government as an instrument that extends their own personal power.
It is clear that McCain understands what ethics in government is even less than he understands economics. Apparently his view that if he isn't actually taking the money out of the government till then he isn't stealing the money. That he will be able to shape government policy to help his family profit personally is not seen as an area that he intends to "reform" much. And their won't be anyone in his campaign or his theoretical White House that will disabuse him of the idea either. They are all lobbyists who intend to shape public policy so it will help each of the individual industries that they represent.
It is becoming clearer and clearer why the Republicans had such a bristling disdain for McCain all this time. For while he was rubbing all of their faces in "reform" he continued to see government as a friendly partner in his business.
McCain's fantasy of running as an ethics reformer goes beyond silly day dreams he really is entering the world of the Schizophrenic by establishing dual rules of moral behavior, one for himself and his family and one for everybody else.
When it comes to 'ethics' or 'reform' a very perceptive observer simply said of McCain/Palin "They just don't get it".
Now here is a hint to all of the MSM
When John McCain opens his big mouth and talks about reform ask him this question already prepared for you
Senator McCain, in your appointment of Governor Palin as your Vice Presidential running mate your repeatedly stressed that she was going to help you mount a campaign of reform and a change in ethics in the way that government is run in Washington DC. However Governor Palin is under an ethics probe in Alaska and your campaign has already announced that you do not intend to put your business interests into a blind trust and will only reveal how you intend to manage your personal business and fortune after you become President.
How do you square the fact that you are actually committed to not taking the most minimal ethics steps on becoming President and your stated plan on running on a reform platform?
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