So when it came to the big jobs or tasks that required special skills and guaranteed results, I always relied on those who were at or near the top of their game. And that’s usually how it works in the non-union private sector, unlike union or government work which sometimes gets mired in job classifications, pay grade, job titles, and tenure. But, as in any work environment, one needs those average employees – sometimes referred to as the “worker bees” – to slog through the day-to-day, routine work. But outside that, it's the top performers that I wanted standing beside me, doing the work that was critical to the operation.
There is one job – a government one at that – where we need more than the average employee or the worker bee. And that is the job of the President and Vice President of the United States. I don’t want someone who is just cutting it to be the face of one of the world’s superpowers. Nor do I want someone in the White House who hasn’t demonstrated a clear ability to lead, manage large groups of people, or motivate and inspire. This has nothing to do with experience. While in some jobs, experience can give one street smarts and the ability to understand and avoid past mistakes, there are times that experience can saddle a person with too much baggage from things gone by.
Let's look at the candidate pairings for both sides.
There is one job – a government one at that – where we need more than the average employee or the worker bee. And that is the job of the President and Vice President of the United States. I don’t want someone who is just cutting it to be the face of one of the world’s superpowers. Nor do I want someone in the White House who hasn’t demonstrated a clear ability to lead, manage large groups of people, or motivate and inspire. This has nothing to do with experience. While in some jobs, experience can give one street smarts and the ability to understand and avoid past mistakes, there are times that experience can saddle a person with too much baggage from things gone by.
Let's look at the candidate pairings for both sides.
With the Obama/Biden ticket, Obama may be light on the experience, but we get experience in the VP candidate. With Obama we get leadership, management skill, and inspiration. The Obama campaign's money-raising talent has been remarkable, and the management of his staff has had no glitches of which I am aware. And he can certainly inspire and motivate, as evidenced by the packed venues that follow him wherever he goes. Obama's choice of Biden for his second banana helps bring experience to the ticket. And while Biden always mildly annoyed me, I think I can live with it if he had to step into the top slot, if the situation required.
With the McCain/Palin ticket, we get experience it in the Presidential candidate, but after that, not much else. Had John McCain added something in the VP slot to make up for the fact that he clearly doesn’t have "people skills", and can’t manage big projects (example: his early campaign management problems, including raising and managing money), he may have had a better chance in the November election. But all that Sarah Palin does is offer possible enticement to those women voters who may be shallow enough to vote for a woman just because she’s a woman. And with McCain’s age, despite his mother’s longevity, one has to ask the question of whether Sarah Palin would make a good President if McCain is unable to serve his full term. His choice makes me question McCain’s judgment if, after all the ads he’s aired about Obama’s lack of experience, that he chose a running mate with possibly less political experience, and certainly less experience in leading and motivating large groups of people. In fact, Sarah Palin looks barely average – at best – to me. And if John McCain thinks that average is what this country needs, then he won’t be getting my vote. Average just isn't good enough for what this country needs.
On a related issue, here’s some information from the LA Times about how Palin was vetted, if it can even be called that. It sounds like it was no better than a Google search.
With Palin revelations, McCain's gamble is clearer.
Details emerge one after another, and the campaign can't be sure what will capture and hold public interest.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2008
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- Only four days ago, the nation's voters were asked to accept John McCain's assurances that Sarah Palin, known to only a tiny portion of the public and barely to McCain himself, was fully suited to be vice president.
But now the magnitude of McCain's gamble is becoming clear.
For every piece of the portrait of Palin that the McCain campaign sketches, a far more complicated picture of the Alaska governor is drawn.
The youthful mother of five whose placement on the ticket was meant to reinforce traditional values has now revealed that her unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant -- a piece of information that the family and the campaign said they had hoped to keep private.
The woman introduced to America as a reform-minded Washington outsider who opposed the infamous "bridge to nowhere" -- the symbol of McCain's hatred of wasteful spending -- originally supported its construction. The governor who in her introductory speech decried the practice of budgetary "earmarks" sought, as the state's chief executive and as mayor of Wasilla, hundreds of millions of dollars in such federal funding for local projects.
Moreover, Palin has now retained a lawyer to represent her in a controversy the McCain campaign said it had fully researched -- Palin's role in dismissing a state police official who had refused to fire a trooper who divorced Palin's sister.
On Monday, the McCain campaign dispatched lawyers to Alaska in a move described as an attempt to manage a growing crowd of journalists who have traveled there to inspect Palin's background. But the move raises the impression that the McCain campaign didn't know everything about his No. 2 and is now racing to learn what it can while trying to avoid tough questions about the Arizona senator's decision-making process.
"I really hope McCain did his homework," said David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush. "I cannot stifle a growing sense of unease that he didn't."
A former McCain advisor, Mike Murphy, said Monday that it remained an open question whether "the running mate in a good or bad way becomes a window into the skills of the nominee."
Most dangerous of all, McCain's team does not seem to know what new development, if any, might grab the public's attention.
One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.
The unease comes as Palin, 44, prepares for her next big public test: a prime-time, nationally televised speech Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.
She will no doubt receive an enthusiastic welcome from delegates and party activists who continued Monday to express unqualified excitement about Palin's presence on the ticket.
As a staunch opponent of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, Palin has invigorated religious conservatives and other members of the GOP base who have been cool to McCain's candidacy and reluctant to work for the campaign with the same verve that fueled President Bush's 2004 reelection.
And the speech by Palin is shaping up as a dramatic moment in a convention that has been muted by Hurricane Gustav.
Although grass-roots Republicans remain protective of Palin, the campaign has clearly moved from celebratory mode into a full defensive posture.
Critics continue to question why McCain, after months of assailing Democratic nominee Barack Obama as lacking foreign policy experience, would tap a running mate who has been governor for less than two years and before that was mayor of Wasilla, population 7,000.
McCain's wife, Cindy, told an interviewer over the weekend that Alaska's proximity to Russia bolstered Palin's credentials, and Palin has pointed to her leadership of the Alaska National Guard and her Army son's imminent service in Iraq as evidence of expertise.
The campaign has little room for error. A new CBS News poll found that 66% of registered voters were undecided about Palin. And although enthusiastic support from the GOP base is important, strategists know that McCain cannot win without appealing to moderate voters as well -- a bloc that the campaign had hoped Palin's middle-class roots would help win over.
"She remains very popular in the convention hall," said Murphy, "but it's the rest of the country that matters."
Palin could face questions in on other facets of her past, such as her 1990s membership in the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that has pushed for more than 30 years to give Alaskans a vote on whether to secede from the union.
Another potentially troublesome story line is Palin's past support for federally funded projects that she now claims to have opposed -- a key piece of her reformist image to which McCain was most attracted.
As mayor of Wasilla, Palin made regular trips to Washington seeking federal aid. The city received $26.9 million in earmarks during her tenure from fiscal year 2000 to 2003, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks pork barrel spending.
As The Times reported Monday, Palin has requested 31 earmarks in next year's federal budget worth about $197 million. On Friday, she portrayed herself as a champion of curbing the "abuses" of earmark spending.
For McCain, the Friday surprise of introducing Palin resulted in a weekend of buzz and anticipation. But if additional surprises surface about Palin, McCain could face stark choices.
Might he be forced to anger conservatives by dumping Palin? Could he risk an admission of poor judgment, tainting what he has long claimed as a key strength?
And if a new stumbling block could have been discovered by a more careful search, critics will no doubt question a well-known trait of McCain's: that he sometimes makes decisions on emotion instead of careful deliberation.
"John McCain is decisive and listens mainly to John McCain," said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.
"That is either comforting or discomforting, depending on whether you're trying to get him to do what you want."
Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.
On a related issue, here’s some information from the LA Times about how Palin was vetted, if it can even be called that. It sounds like it was no better than a Google search.
With Palin revelations, McCain's gamble is clearer.
Details emerge one after another, and the campaign can't be sure what will capture and hold public interest.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2008
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- Only four days ago, the nation's voters were asked to accept John McCain's assurances that Sarah Palin, known to only a tiny portion of the public and barely to McCain himself, was fully suited to be vice president.
But now the magnitude of McCain's gamble is becoming clear.
For every piece of the portrait of Palin that the McCain campaign sketches, a far more complicated picture of the Alaska governor is drawn.
The youthful mother of five whose placement on the ticket was meant to reinforce traditional values has now revealed that her unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant -- a piece of information that the family and the campaign said they had hoped to keep private.
The woman introduced to America as a reform-minded Washington outsider who opposed the infamous "bridge to nowhere" -- the symbol of McCain's hatred of wasteful spending -- originally supported its construction. The governor who in her introductory speech decried the practice of budgetary "earmarks" sought, as the state's chief executive and as mayor of Wasilla, hundreds of millions of dollars in such federal funding for local projects.
Moreover, Palin has now retained a lawyer to represent her in a controversy the McCain campaign said it had fully researched -- Palin's role in dismissing a state police official who had refused to fire a trooper who divorced Palin's sister.
On Monday, the McCain campaign dispatched lawyers to Alaska in a move described as an attempt to manage a growing crowd of journalists who have traveled there to inspect Palin's background. But the move raises the impression that the McCain campaign didn't know everything about his No. 2 and is now racing to learn what it can while trying to avoid tough questions about the Arizona senator's decision-making process.
"I really hope McCain did his homework," said David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush. "I cannot stifle a growing sense of unease that he didn't."
A former McCain advisor, Mike Murphy, said Monday that it remained an open question whether "the running mate in a good or bad way becomes a window into the skills of the nominee."
Most dangerous of all, McCain's team does not seem to know what new development, if any, might grab the public's attention.
One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.
The unease comes as Palin, 44, prepares for her next big public test: a prime-time, nationally televised speech Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.
She will no doubt receive an enthusiastic welcome from delegates and party activists who continued Monday to express unqualified excitement about Palin's presence on the ticket.
As a staunch opponent of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, Palin has invigorated religious conservatives and other members of the GOP base who have been cool to McCain's candidacy and reluctant to work for the campaign with the same verve that fueled President Bush's 2004 reelection.
And the speech by Palin is shaping up as a dramatic moment in a convention that has been muted by Hurricane Gustav.
Although grass-roots Republicans remain protective of Palin, the campaign has clearly moved from celebratory mode into a full defensive posture.
Critics continue to question why McCain, after months of assailing Democratic nominee Barack Obama as lacking foreign policy experience, would tap a running mate who has been governor for less than two years and before that was mayor of Wasilla, population 7,000.
McCain's wife, Cindy, told an interviewer over the weekend that Alaska's proximity to Russia bolstered Palin's credentials, and Palin has pointed to her leadership of the Alaska National Guard and her Army son's imminent service in Iraq as evidence of expertise.
The campaign has little room for error. A new CBS News poll found that 66% of registered voters were undecided about Palin. And although enthusiastic support from the GOP base is important, strategists know that McCain cannot win without appealing to moderate voters as well -- a bloc that the campaign had hoped Palin's middle-class roots would help win over.
"She remains very popular in the convention hall," said Murphy, "but it's the rest of the country that matters."
Palin could face questions in on other facets of her past, such as her 1990s membership in the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that has pushed for more than 30 years to give Alaskans a vote on whether to secede from the union.
Another potentially troublesome story line is Palin's past support for federally funded projects that she now claims to have opposed -- a key piece of her reformist image to which McCain was most attracted.
As mayor of Wasilla, Palin made regular trips to Washington seeking federal aid. The city received $26.9 million in earmarks during her tenure from fiscal year 2000 to 2003, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks pork barrel spending.
As The Times reported Monday, Palin has requested 31 earmarks in next year's federal budget worth about $197 million. On Friday, she portrayed herself as a champion of curbing the "abuses" of earmark spending.
For McCain, the Friday surprise of introducing Palin resulted in a weekend of buzz and anticipation. But if additional surprises surface about Palin, McCain could face stark choices.
Might he be forced to anger conservatives by dumping Palin? Could he risk an admission of poor judgment, tainting what he has long claimed as a key strength?
And if a new stumbling block could have been discovered by a more careful search, critics will no doubt question a well-known trait of McCain's: that he sometimes makes decisions on emotion instead of careful deliberation.
"John McCain is decisive and listens mainly to John McCain," said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.
"That is either comforting or discomforting, depending on whether you're trying to get him to do what you want."
Check out my blog home page for the latest information, here.
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