After weeks of stakeouts, leaks, rumors and specualtion, we now have our Vice Presidential nominees for the two major Presidential candidates in the upcoming November elections. Senator Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. of Delaware and Governor Sarah Louise Heath Palin of Alaska are two nominees which present both distinct benefits and distinct problems for their respective running mates in matters of strategy, message and post-election utility. Ignore the bumps in the polls, the issues of timing and other short-term issues and look long term for a moment. Which candidate is really sitting pretty with their VP pick, and how will these picks resonate with American voters, if at all?

A caveat is in order. Vice presidential nominees, even in the 24 hour era of American news media, have rarely made a great impact on voter behavior. At the end of the day, the Veepstakes rarely end up being little more than something for the news networks to talk about to run out the clock between the primaries and the party conventions; thank the stupidity of frontloaded party primaries for that one. But in the afterglow of Biden and Palin’s nominations, it is worth questioning such conventional wisdom given the advanced age of John McCain (R-AZ), the unprecedented candidacy of Barack Obama (D-IL) and the possible impact of credible third party candidates such as Ralph Nader (I-CT), Bob Barr (L-GA), Chuck Baldwin (C-FL) and Cynthia McKinney (G-GA). Given the presence of these factors, Biden and Palin must be more than glorified cheerleaders for their running mates for the next 65 days. They must also demonstrate an ability to be a unifying force within their party, the capacity to serve as a guide to the new generation of leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and be able to stand up and take charge of the Presidency in the unthinkable but not entirely implausible event that the winner of this election passes away while in office.

It is an almost-impossible balancing act, but it is very possible that the more effective candidate in accomplishing such a task could play a pivotal role in deciding the election. So with this considered, let us look at the nominees and their impact on the race.

Joe Biden (D-DE)

Senator Biden is a Washington lifer in every sense of the word. A Senator since 1973, the man with the magic hairplugs has been paying his dues to the Democratic Party longer than many of his newest friends in Obamamania have been alive. In the 1988 Presidential election, he was a frontrunner to take on George H.W. Bush, but a rather overblown plagiarism scandal took him out of the running. Now he has been given about the best form of redemption that an overly-talkative fundraising wimp could ever hope to get with the Vice Presidential nod from Senator Obama. What does Senator Biden precisely offer to the Obama campaign?

Pros

• Feistiness and good humor - Biden’s keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention showed Biden’s ability to hit the applause lines, get good laughs, and fire off effective shots at John McCain. Obama is not well-served by being the put bull in this race while he lectures away about getting rid of “politics as usual”. He must remain above such a hypocritical posture and leave the attacking to surrogates who know what they’re doing. Biden is one of those guys.
• Policy heavyweight - From the Clarence Thomas hearings to the Violence Against Women Act to matters of foreign policy, Biden is considered one of the more experienced policy minds in Congress. This is a critical balance to the Obama’s campaign’s perceived or actual lack of substance on many critical domestic and international issues.
• Experience - 35+ years of Senate experience make him a very appealing choice for Obama, and might be a more comforting option than Palin when considering which might be more qualified to lead from Day One should Obama die in office or resign.

Cons

• Experience - There is a theme that is shared by these two nominees, despite their very clear differences at face value. Both Palin and Biden find themselves creating new spin opportunities for the opposition, often at the expense of some trump cards their subjective campaigns had used to their advantage up to this point. In Obama’s case, the presence of Biden on the Presidential ticket is hard to reconcile with his campaign’s motto of “change we can believe in”. It could be argued that the selection of Biden rather than a pragmatic red state Governor like Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Phil Bredesen of Tennessee or Brian Schweitzer of Montana represents a dangerous departure from Obama’s change message. It is a charge that while not impossible to rebut, might be something that will bug Obama all the way to November 4.
• Loose lips… - Biden himself will be the first to admit that when it comes to talking, he likes to shoot his mouth off first and survey the carnage afterwards. His off-color comments about Indian-Americans, remarks about his high IQ and Obama being a “clean, nice-looking guy” might play well in the very white, well-educated state of Delaware, where he is a state institution to boot, but flyover country and the Deep South might not be so receptive to a man who is not good friends with open mics.
• Arrogance - For a guy who takes the Amtrak home every night and has very serious problems with his own property taxes and insurance rates, Biden can and does come off as a very cocky, arrogant fellow at times. Perhaps six terms in the ultimate gentleman’s club known as the United States Senate has given him an air of prissiness that doesn’t jive with the Obama camp’s image of him as the blue-collar Catholic kid from Scranton. Whatever the case, Biden would do well to make sure he avoids his tendency to talk down to people, especially when taking on the female Sarah Palin in the Vice Presidential debate. Condescension is a nasty color to wear around a woman.

On the whole, Biden does a great deal of good for Obama, and in a perfect world, more good than bad. He is a known figure whose personal problems have been dragged through the mud many a time already. Any personal attacks would thus lose a lot of impact on people. But the McCain camp jumped hard on his selections by Obama with two hard-hitting, if not very disingenuous ads attacking the VP vetting process. This neutralized Biden’s impact on the race, which after the weeks of hype leading up to his nomination, had to deliver a major blow to internal morale in the Obama campaign and the DNC writ large. Ready to lead? Probably. Ready to help bring victory for the Democrats in November? Hard to say for sure.

Overall - B minus.

Sarah Palin (R-AK)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) would have made for a great show at St. Paul. Fmr. Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) would have been the ultimate insurance policy for McCain in must-win states like Colorado, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico. Not to mention both of them have spent the past five months criss-crossing the country practically begging for the nod. So you can imagine the media’s surprise, if not outright shock, when a little-known former Mayor of a town of less than 5,000 people and Governor of a state with a smaller population than many United States Congressional districts was chosen to be McCain’s running mate. The Politico was uncharacteristically blunt in their assessment, saying the selection of Sarah Palin was proof that the McCain campaign was “desperate”. Paul Begala asked “what were they thinking?” upon hearing the news. Well, what might have actually crossed the McCain campaign’s mind when they went with Palin?

Pros

• Broader demographic appeal - Pawlenty would have kept Minnesota close, and Romney would have helped a lot out west. But Palin’s statistical value to McCain cannot be seen if considered directly in terms of electoral votes. She gives McCain a yet to be seen bump with women voters who identify with her status as a working mom. She helps him with young Republican voters who see her as a fresh new face in the party (and the sexy librarian look does not hurt either, this writer must confess). And most importantly, she has excited disaffected conservatives who were quite rightly suspicious of McCain’s loyalty to conservative values. This is a constituency that McCain has made a career out of alienating to suit his own political needs. With Palin’s pick along with his performance at the Saddleback Forum, he has exploited the value of treating this large constituency as something other than yesterday’s garbage, as he has for the past twenty-five years.
• The chick factor - Ask any political consultant worth paying for and he will tell you that being a woman is a huge asset in a campaign, as a general rule. Unless you are already a highly polarizing candidate, like a  Hillary Rodham Clinton or Katherine Harris, the gender advantages that God has afforded women like Sarah Palin are considerable. Personal attacks [putting aside the spurious 4chan/DailyKos prank about her youngest son] are all but off limits, as voters are almost universally turned off by the appearance of a woman being ganged up on by men. Her maternal instincts and sensibilities can resonate with female voters, and even to younger male voters who can identify with their own moms when they see her in action.
• Looking long-term - The selection of Palin is an affirmation of the reality that John McCain is not going to be the standard bearer of the Republican Party for very long, even if he elected President. He and his generation have perhaps unwittingly conceded that their ideals and brand of politics are not long for this world, and that the inter-generational battle between the youth and the establishment of the GOP will enter into a new phase of entrenchment and advancement for the party’s rising stars. The splintering of the various factions of the GOP made plain by the Presidential primary will get worse before they get better, but with figures like Palin taking center stage, the possibility of a smoother transition now exists.

Cons

• The next Dan Quayle - Like Quayle, Palin is another nationally unknown figure picked to assuage concerns about the GOP’s nominee and his conservative credentials. Quayle did accomplish this to some extent, but his lack of name recognition allowed his detractors to aggressively define the Indiana University Law School grad as an ignorant boob, and possibly prevent an even greater landslide for George H.W. Bush in 1988. I am rather convinced that Palin can spell “potato” correctly, but her performance at the Vice Presidential debate will be a key factor in how voters perceive her.
• Experience - A major ace in the McCain campaign’s deck was their attacks on Obama’s lack of experience and perceived lack of preparedness to be President. The selection of Palin, not unlike Obama’s selection of Biden, at least temporarily throws a wrench into that narrative that the opposition can exploit. The Obama campaign, on balance, appears to have a more compelling case now on the “can she step in if McCain dies” question than the McCain camp has for Obama. However, with 65 days and a lot of other questions on the table, it remains to be seen if that question will mobilize voters in any direction and in any reasonable quanity.

The Palin pick certainly accomplished what the McCain campaign hoped for and more. She has stopped at least a bit of the momentum Obama could have gained from his convention speech, and has rejuvenated the Republican base in a way that McCain has not since the campaign began, with the possible exception of the grating “drill here, drill now” phenomenon (and credit for that goes to Newt Gingrich, anyway). Over the next week or so, she will get to experience the joy of the media smear machine just as Biden did in 1988. How she endures that will make a major impact on how her pick helps or hinders the McCain candidacy.

Overall - B plus.

It’s going to be a very exciting last couple of months, to be sure. Just make sure not to forget about your local elections as well. In the grand scheme of things, whoever wins the Presidency isn’t going to have much of an impact on your life compared to your Mayors and Sheriffs and County Commissioners and other local office holders. Florida primary turnout was absolutely abysmal last week; come November 4, we need to be on the ball and voting. That’s all.

EDIT: Oh, and an informative (if slanted) Palin site, courtesy of a friend.

http://palin4america.wordpress.com/

The University released their budget cuts for FY2009 today. These take effect 1 July 2009. Check them out. No one is sparred. Any ideas to improve the situation? Encourage people to play the lottery more? Cut Bright Futures? Raise tutition? Kick out the liberals?

The Florida Frontier is clearly doing something wrong. All the newspapers and cable news networks that I’ve seen in the past few days keep telling me that the United States is in a recession and this has caused a lot of people to get really pissed and/or worried. The evidence, however, shows that we aren’t in a recession. The Economist declared “The Great American Slowdown.” I think this might be more in line with reality than those in the media looking to get a profit on fear mongering. The Bureau of Economic Analysis released their findings here. Turns out our 4^th quarter 2007 growth was 0.6%. The same is expected for the first quarter (now) of 2008. This isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination but it’s nowhere near as catastrophic as I’ve seen it painted by some. It’s not too far off from what many European countries have come to expect in GDP growth.  Germany is looking at a 1.8% increase and France a 2.1% increase. Again, we should be growing at a much higher rate, above 3.5% or so, but there’s no need to make a run on the banks.

GDP is the output of a nation’s goods and services, so industry plays a large part in that. Take a look at this graph:

It shows that we are actually increasing our production. While these numbers aren’t fantastic, we haven’t hit a recession yet.

I wonder, do those who keep lamenting that our economy is in ruins not know any better? Or is it election year politicking? Any thoughts on that?

Lastly, I think there is real concern over the increasing cost of gas and food. Most have come to realize that the “green” fad and subsequent subsidies have lead to farmers not producing other food staples. As for gas, that takes someone far more intelligent that I to figure out. Maybe friend of the Frontier Ben Stein has some ideas.  

The difference between Micheal Moore and Ben Stein is plain and apparent: the purpose of Moore’s movies, every one of them, was to “close debate” as to what is truth: health care, gun laws, and that President Bush is evil. To do this, since all of these are clearly far from the truth, Moore had to riddle his movies with propaganda.

Stein, on the other hand, had the opposite purpose, to open debate. His movie was a push to get intellegent design back into the scientific realm and, and with reasons why to boot. His movie was just biting and ‘Hollywood’ enough to cut down the arrogant, egotistical atheist-evolutionist scientists who claim to know what cannot be known. This objective, in and of itself, makes the argument that Stein’s movie is ‘propaganda’ obsolete.
And why is it so hard to let both fields of study into the scientific realm? Evolutionary theory has NO - let me repeat - NO answers for how life came to be from simple chemicals. Intelligent Design has one, though. And Intelligent Design answers are supported by documents thousands and thousands of years old - some the earliest documents in existence. What is history but a collection of documents?
I don’t understand why it is so hard for atheists to accept that a higher power could have made the first complex chemicals, when they themselves admit they have no answers to the spark of life question. If evolution was such a ‘perfect’ and ‘complete’ theory, then why would this debate continue? Like the professor in the movie said, “those theories which never have perfect answers always see the most questions arise”. And, it’s true, evolutionary theory is full of holes. Perhaps, however, some cannot believe in an intangible answer to problems. Some cannot accept into reality what they cannot sense, and it will take that higher form of cognitive processing to open the debate back up to Intelligent Design.

In the March 2008 printed edition of this publication, the staff offered its endorsement in the Presidential race to Arizona Senator John S. McCain III. The Managing Editor notes that this endorsement was not unanimous, and while he does not disagree with the decision, he hereby exercises his right of reply with the following comments.

Unconvinced: A Commentary on John McCain.

One of the unfortunate consequences of being human is that despite all of our best efforts, and despite our attempts to construct institutions that attempt to produce the best possible solutions and policies to represent our interests, it is all too possible and all too common that we make mistakes. The sanctimonious defenders of democracy tell us that in party primaries, the “people make the right choices”, and that “the people must stand by the people their party nominates”. Perhaps I am too much of a capitalist, but the fallibility which makes us human combined with the need for a truly open marketplace of ideas in politics suggest that neither platitude has any basis in reality. Just as doctors with years of experience in medicine school can foul up basic medical procedures, so can members of political parties fail to nominate adequate candidates to represent them. When such mistakes occur, members of parties should not feel compelled to support these inadequate candidates out of a contrived sense of duty or loyalty. That duty and loyalty to party is far better invested in working internally of the party to make sure such mistakes are not repeated.

But enough of the abstraction and on to the central thesis of these comments. I’ve called myself a Republican for longer than some would care to know. I still consider myself a loyal member of the GOP despite eight rather disappointing years under the leadership of a President who would fit in frighteningly well with the Christian Democrat parties of Latin America. But when it comes to the 2008 Republican Presidential race, there is no sense crying over spilled milk when it comes to who my party’s nominee will be [In the interest of full disclosure, I remain a Ron Paul supporter]. After years of enjoying a self-styled perception of the “Republican maverick in the Senate”, John Sidney McCain III is the Republican nominee for President this year. The stats do not lie when considering the question of who gave McCain the nomination. In a field crowded with candidates vying for the title of “the true conservative” (whatever that means in a post G.W. Bush era), McCain earned the grudging trust of self-declared conservative Republicans, in addition to more moderate voters who vote in open primary states. The nomination is his, and it is now time for Republicans to determine if he is deserving of the Oval Office.

The fact that his Democratic opponent in November will be far less palatable to rank-and-file Republicans than McCain should not hide the fact that we Republicans royally screwed up this primary. The fact that Hillary or Obama could be our only alternative to McCain in the general election should not blind Republicans to the reality that we simply picked the wrong nominee for our party. At one point in this race, eleven men were running for our nomination. Of those running, McCain might have been more qualified to be our nominee than four of them…at most [Brownback, Gilmore, Hunter, Tancredo]. McCain’s almost-nauseating resilience compounded by the media’s veritable love affair with him, allowed him to overcome staffing snafus, money woes and being demonstrably misinformed on a variety of critical issues to take our party’s nomination. Now that we are stuck with McCain for the forseeable future (and if his mother is any indication, possibly the next eight years), it is time to not only weigh our priorities in 2008, but also to do what is necessary to reform the Republican nominating schema to reduce our chances of screwing up in the future.

Make no mistake about this, folks. For all of McCain’s many faults, and for all of his irksome positions on the environment, taxes and internationalism, and despite his growing senility, is far more palatable a choice for conservatives than anybody the Democrats nominate this election. Furthermore, any Democratic nominee will present a serious contrast to McCain on major issues that will define the future or our country. The Constitution may nominate Alan Keyes, and the Libertarian Party may nominate former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, but other than fine oratory and a hypnotic porn star mustache respectively, neither offer much in the way of reasonable alternatives to a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton Administration other than a smug sense of ideological purity for those conservatives who might support them. While I certainly can empathize with the desire and to be forthright am considering supporting Barr in November still, all do so at their own peril, considering the risks of a Clinton or Obama Presidency becoming a reality.

However, on the matter of this publication’s endorsement of Senator McCain, I cannot join with my colleagues or my Editor in Chief. This should not be construed to imply that I would not or will not vote for Senator McCain come Election Day. But would I in fact cast my ballot for him, it would not be an endorsement of his candidacy, but rather a statement of opposition to that of the Democratic nominee. But on account of the failure of the nomination regime of my party to ensure the best candidate earned the nomination of actual party membership, combined with McCain’s casual understanding of party loyalty, I cannot and will not endorse him for President.

After 2008, the Republican National Committee must resolve several critical flaws in their rules for delegate nominations by the state Republican parties. First and foremost, they ought to amend their nomination rules to only accept delegates chosen from completely closed primaries. Caucuses have proven to be detrimental to ensuring party members their right to participate in their own party’s work, and open primaries have for far too long been notorious for independent voters pooling together to “game the system” and undermine political parties (see the 1950 Wisconsin Senate Republican Primary and the 1988 Michigan Democratic Presidential Primary as prime examples). Second, the GOP must impose strict proportional representation requirements for these primaries. In Florida, John McCain won all 57 of the states GOP convention delegates while winning just 36% of the vote. Putting an end to winner take all primaries will allow for a more deliberative nomination process without opening the door for the slugfest we see in the DNC over superdelegates and other such nonsense.

We must learn from our mistakes in the future, but until we can put those lessons to use, we have to live with our mistakes. John McCain is today’s mistake for the Republican Party and its members. The question now is whether the bigger mistake was for us to nominate Senator McCain or to allow a far less desirable person to become President out of bitterness. No party member should feel compelled to support Senator McCain, but every party member should be able to figure out which is the more grievous error.

I dissent.

I just finished uploading the Nov. ‘07 issue of the frontier, it’s accessible from the menu bar, in Archives.  Check it out!