Having watched as much of each party's conventions as possible during the last two weeks, I am immediately struck by the stark contrast between the ideas offered by the Democrats and the Republicans. This stark contrast has energized the election season, even more so since the unforeseen addition of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska ) to Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) ticket.
McCain's nomination of Palin is the watershed moment of the campaign thus far, a situation which has become even clearer since her stirring speech before a huge national audience last week. This is neither from the personal narrative she brings to the ticket, nor due to the family issues which many in the media shamelessly trumpeted during the immediate aftermath of her nomination. No, the reason her nomination is so important is because it reaffirms the commitment McCain has to changing the complacent status quo in Washington and returning the Republican Party its traditional position as banner-carrier for responsible, limited government. Meanwhile, it exposes the true colors of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).
Of course, it is well known that McCain himself has never been afraid to turn against his own party in those instances where it allowed the beltway bubble to obscure its view of the real issues facing Americans. It is for this simple reason that the caricature of "McBush" or "McSame" that the Obama campaign and Democrats are so clumsily trying to paint could not be further from the truth. One statistic that the Obama campaign glibly throws around is that McCain "has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time." That may very well be the case, but on several big issues such as the treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, campaign finance reform, wasteful earmarks, climate change, the vast expansion of Medicare entitlement spending and (initially) the troop surge in Iraq, McCain has been at odds with the Bush administration. Saying that a McCain administration will be just like President Bush's seems ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst.
However, the Obama-Biden folks might still have been able to sell their wares of change to the American people. Obama, who presumably started cobbling together a staff for his presidential campaign the moment after he was sworn into the Senate, does not have a record of controversial votes or public positions to defend. Thus, he could freely say whatever he calculated that the huddled masses of America wanted to hear. This season those words happened to be "change" and "hope." As he promoted himself around the nation and the world, it seemed that the only nagging obstacle to an Obama presidency was the question of experience. Enter the grizzled old hand of Joe Biden, a man who has been in the Senate virtually since the moment he was constitutionally eligible. Obama-Biden would be a ticket for change, hope and an experienced No. 2.
But then McCain did what he does best: he spat in the face of conventional Washington expectations and pundits' prognostications to pick Palin. Immediately, the selection was greeted with a collective "Who's that?" Then people started getting to know Gov. Palin. Her record as the chief executive of the Alaska shows her to be a formidable reformer and leader. She has rallied against abusers of the public trust (including longtime Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)) and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. She has gained a wealth of substantive experience with energy issues, as she has led the way for a new natural gas pipeline and greater domestic energy production. Above all, Palin has established herself as a governor who does not back down from any challenge and is not afraid to stand up for the people of Alaska.
The calculus of the election is thus changed irrevocably. The Republican ticket is populated with two agents of change: one, a maverick who has the perspective and wisdom forged through a lifetime of experience serving his country; the other, a hard-nosed and proven reformer from the West. As a result, one of Obama's primary campaign themes has been wrenched away from him. If one strips away the veneer of Obama's carefully constructed image and rhetoric, the Democrats are left with a presidential candidate who has no significant record of accomplishment aside from securing his party's nomination, and a vice presidential candidate who is at least as well known for his gaffes as for his 36-year record in the Senate.
The truth is, senators Obama and Biden have voted with their party at least 96 percent of the time (statistics obtained from The Washington Post's congressional database). Their loyalty to the current do-nothing Democratic Congress surpasses even Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Worse than that, the ideas they are each espousing are indistinguishable from their Democratic predecessors' since the days of former President Jimmy Carter. Finally, the Obama-Biden campaign's adherence to conventional liberal dogma is displayed as the man behind the curtain, to whom we are supposed to pay no attention. Faced with these realities, it seems that John McCain and Sarah Palin are the real "change we can believe in (sic)."
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