McCain's pick of Palin as his running mate is a very interesting one. While you can see strong opinions from both extremes, criticizing out numbers support.
Not a bad thing for McCain though, this is (probably, if he really picked Palin with the reason I think he did) what he wants.
OK, McCain is running for US presidency, and who is he running against? Mr. Obama? that's a political correct answer, not the real world answer though. In reality . . .
He runs against the American media super power. Yes, in America, there is media freedom, however it doesn't give every person equal weight of express though, those who controls media outlet get heard (or read) much more frequent than the average you and me, and they control the society (you may argue they are unconsciously while doing this).
It's not that media hates McCain (even if they do, it doesn't matter), it's who can generate more reading (or clicking in case of online media). For someone 72 years old, pretty much all about him is known and there is not much "news" to be made. And as an self portrayed underdog (Mr. Obama once proclaimed being black does not make his run for candidacy easier - which is not exactly true - even politically) Mr. Obama is much better a story generator for media and media will like to help him win cause that'll be the biggest news they can report "history been made" and anything President Obama would do can be reported as "the first..." like "the 1st black American president's footprint as been taken . . .", etc.
So recognizing this (supposedly he knows he's boring), what's McCain's can do? Bring Mrs. Palin is enough to win back media? No, not that simple. As the other camp as a "1st African American" on the top spot of the ticket, bring anything to the 2nd spot on his ticket probably will win over enough attention - being woman is not enough to bring media to his side.
What McCain really want is a mirror of Mr. Obama - a working class, non-traditional white-male Washington politician, young, inexperienced, and draw to the parties fundamental base. Mrs. Palin won McCain's selection because she is the Obama of Republican.
While Obama camp (out of surprise) attacked Mrs. Palin's inexperience, guess who's laughing? Mr. Obama? No, Mr. McCain is laughing, "if my 2nd who is same as you is not experienced enough, why do you think 3 years older, male, black makes you experienced enough?"
And apparently consciously or not, Mr. Obama is running a charming campaign, not a policy campaign. And media definitely defined this direction for him - if you talk about policy, who can keep awake reading till the end? Do some charming things please.
And what to you think about "Change" campaign. Forget about "positive" campaign, a "Change campaign" has an implication - if it has been positive why change? So there much be some negative so that change is needed. That's all work well until now.
Unfortunately, media fall into Mr. McCain's trap right away. (see the link) While I've seen more than one article saying "reck-less!" given McCain's age, it is POSIBLE this inexperienced 1st time governor lady will be come president in case McCain died. Well, isn't it also saying it's reck-less to elect a 1st time senator to be president directly? Well they can argue the tiny differences but that drags the Obama supporters into the "boring" discussion of detail, no longer charming. That's all Mr. McCain needs - he does not need to argue to such a degree that all his opponents shut up (no one will ever) all he needs was make the difference harder to argue, and that will strip the halo effect from Mr. Obama, and any attack (not necessarily from Mr. Obama's camp, but from media who still want to help Mr. Obama - so they can generate more readings) will be easily deflected to apply to Mr. Obama too. - I know there are always differences that Obama camp can argue, but this argument is no longer charming, no longer black and white.
Smart move Mr. McCain. Don't know if it's smart enough to save your campaign though.
I guess we will see.
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