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Palin brings excitement, but little experience, to ticket

BY TOM BRUNE | tom.brune@newsday.com

August 30, 2008

DAYTON, Ohio - By unexpectedly choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, Republican John McCain appears to be gambling that the excitement and energy she brings to the ticket will outweigh her obscurity and inexperience.

In her brief, meteoric political career, Palin, 44, rose in 16 years from a small-town council member to become Alaska's first woman governor, always running as a "good government" reformer, a tax-and-budget cutter and an anti-abortion social conservative.

Her biggest asset to the McCain ticket will be her historic role as a woman, an aspect mentioned by nearly every Republican praising her appointment.

In one fell swoop, McCain managed to not only appeal to disappointed Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters, but also to level the playing field with Democrat Barack Obama by making the election of either the McCain or Obama ticket a historical first. If Obama wins, it's the first black president. If McCain wins, it's the first woman vice president.

But Palin's appeal goes deeper than gender. A self-described "hockey mom," she's a former small business owner and a tenacious woman who has, as she said Friday, gone up against the "good ol' boys network." Her husband is a blue-collar worker.

That profile will seem familiar to many blue-collar women and struggling middle-class families in key swing states of Ohio and Michigan already uneasy about Obama and his perceived elitism.

Her distance from Washington - can't get much farther than Alaska - and her battles with her state's GOP leaders both reinforce McCain's maverick image and also allow voters to see separation between the established Republican Party - including the Bush Administration - and the McCain-Palin ticket.

But as a mother of five and an ardent anti-abortion advocate she also helps shore up McCain's standing with the Republican Party's social conservative base.

Yet there are drawbacks to her selection.

Her inexperience in national issues, foreign policy and national security appears to undercut McCain's main complaint about Obama: that he is inexperienced and not ready to lead a country in a time of war and international crisis.

If McCain believes she could step in at a moment's notice to take his place, it raises questions about how he can say Obama is unprepared to lead the country - a point made repeatedly by Democrats Friday.

Her youth may add zest to the ticket, but it also accentuates McCain's age. He turned 72 Friday.

Then there is the fact that she is little-known outside of Alaska, meaning that she brings almost no national following, as Clinton would, and that she remains to be defined.

Already, liberal groups such as MoveOn.org are depicting her as out-of-the-mainstream: opposing abortion even in cases of rape or incest; supporter of teaching creationism in schools; and doubter that humans are creating global warming.

And she's untested in the rough-and-tumble of a national political campaign, making it unclear whether she'll be able to go toe-to-toe with her much more seasoned counterpart, Joe Biden, a two-time presidential contender and senator since 1972.

But there are some issues that her selection raises that are a wash when compared with Biden.

While she's very much unfamiliar in and with Washington - she told CNBC interviewer Lawrence Kudlow a month ago she doesn't know what a vice president does - Biden appears to be the ultimate old-time insider politician.

And while Palin faces an investigation underwritten by the Alaska state legislature over her firing of a state law enforcement commissioner, Biden's brother and son have faced scrutiny for a hedge fund deal that involves Biden campaign contributors.

And finally if Palin has a tendency to shoot from the hip in her comments, Biden tends to stumble into gaffes.

WHAT OBSERVERS SAY are the strengths and weaknesses of Republican presidential candidate John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.