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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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A Great GOP Switcheroo?
You Heard It Here First
of TheColumnists.com
Why am I beginning to think that the Republicans are ready to spring another bombshell on the public? Why do I suspect that a monumental switcheroo may be in the offing. I suggest that the Republicans will reverse their ticket and establish Sarah Palin as the Presidential nominee and John McCain as Vice President.
This almost seems inevitable in the wake of developments since the Republican convention. Palin is hot, she is tough, she has revitalized the party. McCain is old, he is tired. Under pressure his mental facilities have begun to be suspect.
This dynamic has been obvious on the campaign trial. Before Palin joined McCain on the ticket he would draw quiet crowds of some 100 people. Since Wonder Woman arrived he has been drawing crowds of 5,000 and 10,000 people.
Typical was a stop in Lancaster, Pa. where Larry Eichel wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“The Republican ticket, featuring Sarah Palin, wowed a frenzied crowd estimated at 7,000 at Franklin and Marshall College. …Although McCain received a loud and enthusiastic reception, there was no doubting the real star of the show. The crowd chanted ‘Sar-ah, Sar-ah’ at every opportunity, and continued long after the program had ended. She spoke as long as he did--an unusually prominent role for a Number Two.”
With each passing day since Palin was named, I can sense the idea of a reverse ticket stirring in the hearts of Republican movers and shakers, i.e Karl Rove and his disciple Steve Schmitt. I can almost hear one of them greeting the unveiling of would-be President Palin with the comment, “We have seen what the public wants and we are responding to their desires.”
A woman named Denise Milkowski, a Republican at the Lancaster rally, spoke of the unspoken desires of the party faithful when she said, “I think we’re looking at the next president, the next vice-president-and the next president after that.”
It was the line, “the next president after that” that could have planted the seed of a reverse ticket for the Republicans. Their argument would be, “Why wait for her later? Why take a chance of losing with McCain when we can have her win it for us now?”
With all that, the Republicans have reason to worry about McCain. The man seems fuzzy, an old 72. Some of his many gaffes may be nothing but simple, bald-faced lies. Or they may be the actions of a man who is losing it a bit.
In April of 2007, he walked through a neighborhood in Baghdad and said it was proof that it was safe for people. How could he say that when it turned out he was accompanied by 100 soldiers and three helicopters on his safe stroll? When he was told about this, he seemed a little nonplussed. And there was the time he had to be prompted by his pal Joe (Connecticut’s Finest) Lieberman when he mixed up Iraq and Iran.
More recently, McCain couldn’t answer alertly when asked how many houses he owned. He phoomphed, seeming lame and confused, allowing the Democrats to mock him in commercials.
Ruth Rosen, a visiting professor of history at U.C. Berkeley has written, “I’m hardly alone in noting the changes that have occurred in John McCain. People are whispering about his confusion, his slow delivery, his deterioration. But unlike the issue of Obama’s race, it is not being openly discussed.”
It may not be in the open but it obviously would be the big factor along with Palin’s emergence as the reason for a great switcheroo on the Republican ticket.
So the inevitable question must be asked. Can the Republicans legally reverse the ticket? And the answer could be, well, why not?
I checked with Donald Dowd, the constitutional scholar, professor emeritus at Villanova University. At first he said, “Well that’s an interesting fantasy you have, but it is a fantasy. The Republican would never do that.”
Shortly after that Dowd called back and said. “Well, it’s still a fantasy but there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent that. And I suppose it could be done by having both McCain and Palin resign; and the proper party people would then reposition them on the ticket.”
He cited a precedent. In 1972 George McGovern dropped Tom Eagleton as the Vice President on the Democratic ticket because it was revealed that Eagleton had treatment for depression.
Dowd said it was still a fantasy because the Republicans would not make a switch that would put the woefully inexperienced Palin at the top of the ticket. They wouldn’t?
Since Palin became the hottest thing since sliced polar bear meat, many questions have surfaced about her lack of experience; about her truthfulness; her flip-flopping on the “Bridge to Nowhere”; her questionable personal finances; her desire to censor the librarian; her arbitrary style of governing; her scary evangelistic beliefs. And who knows how much more is out there?
I don’t see that any of this would bother the Republicans who have been manipulating McCain. Republican official Rick Davis says the race is not about issues but personalities. Nor are they bothered by a right-wing stance that makes her even more faithful than McCain to the lame duck disaster, George Bush. John Feehery, another Republican strategist says, “As long as she is popular, little facts don’t matter.”
The Republicans are not bothered by any of her flip-flops, because they know how to handle all charges. They lie and deny. And they lie some more.
Politicians have always lied. For example, in the closing days of the 1932 campaign, Franklin Roosevelt promised a crowd in Pittsburgh that he’d balance the budget while cutting government operations by 25 per cent. He did neither and four years later as he prepared for another trip to western Pennsylvania, he asked speechwriter Sam Rosenman what he should say if his earlier vow came up. “Deny you were ever in Pittsburgh,” Rosenman said.
It’s just that since Richard Nixon and his dirty tricks crowd the Republicans have been better at lying. Listening to them talk about change, you begin to wonder if it has been the Republicans or the Democrats--or the Whigs--who have been running Washington into the ground the past eight years.
A great switcheroo? You heard it here.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted Sept. 15, 2008.
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