Palin tough target for Obama to hit Lisa Lerer, Tim Grieve 1 hour, 17 minutes ago
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate presents the Obama-Biden campaign with an unwelcome and unexpected challenge: How do you go after a 44-year-old mother of five without once alienating the female voters you’ve just spent the last week trying to win back?
The answer so far: Not very well.
Minutes after the McCain campaign confirmed that Palin would be the Republican’s VP pick, Obama spokesman Bill Burton dismissed the Alasaka governor as a lightweight.
McCain, he said, had put "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."
Almost immediately, the campaign seemed to reconsider its tough-guy approach.
In a statement distributed by the campaign, Barack Obama and Joe Biden said Palin’s selection was “yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics. While we obviously have differences over how best to lead this country forward, Gov. Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign.”
By contrast, EMILY’s List president Ellen Malcolm tried to walk a fine line — making the point that, because a candidate is a woman, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the candidate represents women’s views.
“McCain clearly sees the power of women voters in this election but has just as clearly failed to support any of the issues that they care about,” Malcolm said in a statement. “His choice for vice president only reinforces that failure.”
Throughout the Democratic primary, the Obama campaign and its supporters faced charges of sexism from Clinton’s campaign and some of her supporters. After an early Democratic debate, a Clinton adviser complained to The Washington Post that it was “six guys against her.” The campaign itself complained that the “politics of hope” and been replaced by the “politics of pile-on.”
Many of Clinton’s supporters continue to believe that sexism played a large role in her defeat.
For her part, Palin made an explicit play for Clinton’s supporters at a rally in Dayton on Friday.
"It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest hardest class ceiling in America,” she said. “But it turns out that the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.”
Then again, Palin hasn't always viewed Clinton so kindly. At a 2007 forum, she said in response to a question about Clinton's treatment in the press, "Any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism. ... I think, man, that doesn't do us any good, women in politics, women in general, wanting to progress this country."
Poster Comment:
Much as I hate McCain, Palin was strategically a very smart pick for him. 1) Many Clinton voters who went for Hillary because they wanted a woman in the white house will now vote for McCain.
2) Her main weakness is her inexperience, but junior Senator Obama isn't in a position to criticize anybody on that count.