Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

I have followed John McCain’s career for over two decades. I have never seen him more dispirited than he was tonight. In accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States, John McCain lost.

I have seldom agreed with John McCain’s policies, but I have always had a fondness for him. Tonight it was heartbreaking to watch John McCain on television.

McCain was not defeated tonight by his opponent, Barack Obama. He was defeated by his own party. Tonight he is ostensibly the head of his party. But, in reality, his party had turned away from him.

John McCain gave a halting, uninspired, and pedestrian speech tonight. He delivered the speech because he had to. It was expected of him. But the Maverick could not marry the right wing of his party tonight. They never liked each other, and tonight the separation was final.

In forcing the selection of Sarah Palin on the ticket upon John McCain, the religious ideologues who now own the Republican party had taken charge of the presidential campaign. Yesterday they declared, through Sarah Palin, their intention to wage a culture war. But tonight it became apparent that John McCain was the first casualty of that war. His party had moved past him. They humiliated him in front of millions by reserving the two biggest cheers of the night for Sarah Palin, the number two on the Republican ticket – their chosen culture warrior.

Perhaps, in the end, tonight’s speech was a salute to an old soldier. John McCain has demonstrated great courage in his life – he has proven his character beyond doubt. But the presidency is not a lifetime award for a life lived valiantly – the presidency is a job for today, not a reward for the past. So, as his party looks past him to wage their coming culture war, John McCain’s own candidacy for the presidency will be sacrificed. John McCain’s nominating Convention was used to launch the culture war – at the expense of his candidacy. The best outcome for the culture warriors is a defeat in 2008, and a revamped campaign in 2012 with their man or woman at the top of the ticket. The Maverick is not their standard bearer, nor can he ever be. If the culture warriors do not immediately realize that tonight, they will come to realize it before November.

They say old soldiers never die, they just fade away. Sadly, tonight, I believe we watched the beginning of that long slow fade.

Sarah Palin delivered her acceptance speech tonight as the vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party. As expected, the Republican audience inside the arena were overjoyed. But she – and the McCain campaign who wrote the speech for her – made two mistakes that will contribute to a Republican defeat this November.

This was her first big opportunity to introduce and define herself to the American public. After 5 days of negative press and the series of revelations about her that has marred her rollout, this was her chance to tell her story. She needed to introduce herself not as the hockey mom that she and McCain like to push, but as a person who is qualified to be the president of the United States in the event the president were to become incapacitated. She failed. To be sure, she spent a long time introducing her family in her speech, but she did not fill in her political biography. What we were left with was the same impression we had going into the speech – that she was a mayor of a small town and is now serving her first term as Governor of Alaska. That was not enough before the speech, and that will not be enough going forward – especially since she is running on the ticket with a 72-year-old man with a history of cancer.

Her failure to add meat to her political biography in the first part of the speech secured the failure of the second part of the speech. She spent much of her speech attacking Barack Obama – sometimes personally – for lacking the gravitas to be president of the United States. Such attacks coming from a candidate with a pitifully thin political biography were eaten up by the Republican base, but probably seemed a little hollow, a little too sarcastic, and way too negative to the American public at large. If her task was to go after Hillary voters, this was not the speech to get that job done. Instead, this speech will bring out the base against the "angry left". The base, if they can keep the enthusiasm up for the next few months, will flock to the polls to make the red states redder. You will hear the term "culture war" a lot for the rest of the campaign. The Republicans apparently have decided to one more time go to the well – the Republican base – to squeak past to victory.

Sarah Palin has now defined herself as the campaign attack dog – a role that is traditional of the vice presidential pick. However, the attack dog role only works when the attack dog is a known quantity and has force of experience behind the attacks. With her light political biography – and the missed opportunity to have filled it in – the attacks seemed petty. She may now be a "culture warrior" and a darling of the right, but the rest of America was not sold tonight.

The McCain campaign has made a strategic error. This election is not going to be a base election. Although, given the state of the race, McCain may have had no choice. The man who is known to enjoy gambling made the only gamble available to him. He launched a culture war. It will get very ugly, but it will not work.

This election will be won by the candidate that sways the independent voters in states like Virginia. The demographic trends in the years since the 2004 put states like Virginia – usually reliably red – in play. This election will be won in the suburbs of Northern Virginia and with the voters voting their pocketbooks out West. This is 1992 once again. The culture warriors may be energized but they are fewer in number in the states that will matter. In those states – the ones that have turned purple from red – its the economy, stupid.

The McCain campaign has been calling Sarah Palin the Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard as a way to give her some semblence of credibility on national security issues. It has been a claim difficult to swallow for rational human beings. Nonetheless, the Anchorage Daily News does a public service today by looking at Sarah Palin’s "national security" experience:

But the governor has no command authority overseas – or anywhere in the United States other than Alaska, says Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the service commander of the Alaska National Guard.

"When members of the National Guard are federalized, they work for the president," Campbell said today. "It’s not just overseas. They could be federalized to go to other states, or they could even be federalized in the state."

Occasions in which Palin does retain command authority over the 4,200-member Alaska National Guard are whenever the guard responds to in-state natural disasters and civic emergencies, said Campbell, who also serves as commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Some examples?

"We’ve deployed individuals in state service all over the state under Sarah Palin," he said. "We had defense men down in Seward for the (Mount) Marathon run doing security.

"Out west and northwest we had erosion problems and the National Guard was involved in some of the protection out there. About three days ago, the Army National Guard picked up a lady from Little Diomede … at the request of state troopers."

 Did Palin directly approve each of those activities?

 No, Campbell said. The governor has granted him authority to act on his own in most cases, including life-or-death emergencies when a quick response is required, or minor day-to-day operations.

 "Some authorities have been given to me that she has acknowledged that I can execute," he said. "For others I have to ask her each time."

 The recent decision to deploy a C-17 cargo plane from the Alaska Air National Guard to Louisiana to assist during the Hurricane Gustav response was an occasion in which he briefed the governor’s office and sought its approval, Campbell said. But in that case, Chief of Staff Mike Nizich signed off on it.

 The flooding that occurred in Fairbanks in late July – in which the guard sent water trucks north to provide clean drinking water – didn’t require the governor’s approval, Campbell said.

 Natural disasters are fairly sporadic, says Jeremy Zidek, public information officer for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which is part of Campbell’s department.

 Last year, during Palin’s first year as governor, there wasn’t much action, Zidek said.

[Via TPM] Republican insiders Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan go off message. The comedy is brought to you courtesy of a live mic on the MSNBC set:

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We’ll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already convinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And —

PN: It’s over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this —

MM: They’re all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bullshit about narratives —

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.