Selling judgment in St. Paul
ST. PAUL, Minn.
UNLESS his internal polling looks much worse than the close numbers released by major news organizations, John McCain didn't need to make a game-changing pick for his running mate. But while the Arizona senator had his choice of several eager Republican candidates, he cast his lot with Sarah Palin, an obscure Alaska governor whom he himself did not know well.
Palin is scheduled to be nominated tonight as the Republican vice presidential candidate. This will be a fateful step for McCain - not because of the sad flap over Palin's 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy, but because Palin's performance in upcoming weeks will reveal much about how well McCain makes decisions.
While presidential candidates carefully craft positions on everything from capital gains taxation to offshore drilling, voters don't necessarily decide based on issues. In the primaries, Barack Obama asked Democrats to trust more in his raw judgment than in Hillary Clinton's, despite her longer tenure in public life.
McCain's choice of Palin suggests that he is far more willing than Obama to make high-risk decisions with the potential for a high yield. Her fans credit her with keen political instincts and say her rivals underestimate her.
Yet reasons for doubt keep bubbling up. McCain may have hoped to energize social conservatives and win over disillusioned Clinton supporters with a single move. Was that realistic? Was Palin's stand against the notorious "bridge to nowhere" as unequivocal as she made it seem on Friday? How much will her success in Alaska, a sparsely populated state with quirky politics, carry over to the national scene?
If Republicans here at the convention are fretting over Palin, they don't readily acknowledge that to reporters. At a delegation breakfast yesterday, Massachusetts Republicans maintained that they are perfectly happy with McCain's pick - "a fantastic choice," said former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey.
In international diplomacy as well as in politics, the ability to size people up is vital. George W. Bush's naive assessment of Vladimir Putin - the president claimed to have looked into the former KGB agent's eyes, seen his soul, and found it trustworthy - had fateful implications for US policy toward Russia.
In Palin's case, what's clear is that McCain has picked a running mate whose background is far more complicated than it seemed last week.
Palin may prove formidable on the campaign trail, but McCain has left no room for error. 