by Mark Silva
People are attempting to draw parallels between Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for president, and Dick Cheney, the vice president. There's not much there there, we suspect.
The shotgun-packing "hockey mom" from Alaska hails from similar political territory as the quail- (and occasionally attorney-)hunting vice president from Wyoming, but analogies sort of peter out after that.
This, as our colleague Johanna Neuman at Countdown to Crawford notes today, didn't stop Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, from saying in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos today that rival Republican nominee John McCain "chose somebody who may be even more aligned with George Bush -- or Dick Cheney -- or the politics we've seen over the last eight years -- than John McCain himself is."
This fits the "more of the same'' label that the Democratic ticket is attempt to affix to the Republican ticket.
Last week, Neuman notes, on the same ABC program, John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, called Palin a member of the "flat earth caucus,'' her views on climate change reminiscent of Cheney's. "With the choice of Gov. Palin, it's now the third term of Dick Cheney, because what he's done is he's chosen somebody who actually doesn't believe that climate change is man-made," said Kerry, calling Palin "Cheney-esque" on social issues.
(Indeed in an interview with Newsmax, Palin has said she does not believe that global warming is caused by humans: "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location," she told the magazine. "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."
But it really stops there in any true comparison of the two vice presidencies, should Palin win one: Cheney, in his time, has served four American presidents - as vice president with George Bush, defense secretary with the former President Bush, chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and an adviser to President Richard Nixon. He has terms served in Congress, and as CEO of Haliburton. First-term Alaska Gov. Palin has been mayor of Wasilla.
Cheney also has presided over the most powerful vice presidency in American history. As the Tribune first reported, he never has reported his classification or declassification of federal documents to the National Archives, as a presidential order requires of all executive agencies, because, as he has asserted, he is not part of the executive branch. The Senate pays the salary of its president, the vice president.
And, as an aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has asserted, the vice president's office even eavesdropped on the emails of the president's National Security Council, as the vice president maintained a reign over all matters national security for some time during the Bush administration.
This is not the role that Palin might play in the White House. Palin is the ultimate stump-speaker, which Cheney is not - if the vice president can put an audience to sleep, Palin can wake them up. Palin is a talker, not a national security player.
As much as the opposition may try to draw the Palin-Cheney comparison as part of the "more-of-the-same'' tactic, they're better off worrying about the real new threat which Palin pose for them: Stirring the base of the Republican Party in a way in which McCain cannot. In a contest which most polls portray as close nationwide, Palin is the McCain ticket's new, one-woman get-out-the vote strategy.
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Comments
Other than being out of touch and showing disdain for the media (ironic for former newscaster Palin)....
There is a parallel that while they both pander to right wingers, they both have daughters who are leading lives that don't adhere to the ideologies they espouse. (We remember the flak John Edwards caught for complimenting Cheney on his support for his daughter during the 2004 debates).
So while they each like to throw stones at the Left in front of the Right, when it comes to the realities of their own families, they better use ping pong balls.
Posted by: Kenny Bunkport☮ | September 7, 2008 2:12 PM
This is precisely why McCain's Palin pick was like, huh?
Palin has exactly zero national or international experience. What exactly is Palin's role going to be? Getting McCain's warm milk for him? There are Congressional pages who have more national and international experience than Palin does.
All I've really heard so far is how she's going to try to get Republicans and Democrats to play nice together. Where have we heard that before?
And the biggist hoot of the campaign so far: McCain is keeping Palin in the bubble and not allowing her any where near a reporter! Ready to lead? What a laugh, what a joke.
What was McCain thinking?
Posted by: Doug Zook | September 7, 2008 2:23 PM
I get a kick out of rightwing journalists like Mark Silva acting like Palin is all of a sudden credible because she gives a coherent speech.
What a bunch of crap, she's an ethics challanged creationist thug who's used to bullying here way around in small little ol Alaska where no one notices it.
Palin is a small time Dick Cheney and she knows that she can't go off script or she'll be sunk so the McCain campaign will leave it to rightwing propaganda outlets like the Swamp to sell Palin's talking points for her while not bothering to ask why she can't or won't answer any questions that are off her Karl Rove written and approved script.
Palin = Empty Pantsuit!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sqWkaGv89E
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Posted by: Sweet Homies Live On! | September 7, 2008 2:38 PM
Want a more apt comparison? Obama with Karl Marx. Give according to your ability, take according to your needs (read "desires"). Or Obama and radical Saul Alinsky, whose supporters hired Obama as a community organizer. Or Obama and Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam whom Obama helped in his "million man march" which actually drew less than 200,000. Want even more comparisons? Let's not forget Che Guevara who had the same philosophy of redistribution of income as Obama. Let the comparisons begin!
Posted by: Bonita | September 7, 2008 2:47 PM
"But it really stops there in any true comparison of the two vice presidencies, should Palin win one..."
If this is what you have derived from Johanna Neuman's column, then it probably doesn't merit the time to read it.
You suggest that while Palin and Cheney have similarities, how Cheney ran his vice presidency will differ from how Palin will run hers because she is a talker, not a strategist.
Did it not occur to you that Cheney has now opened the door for future vice presidents to run secretive and clandestined offices?
So a Palin vice presidency CAN look like a Cheney vice presidency, especially given that Palin, like Cheney and Bush, believe many of the same things and is likely to hire many of the same-minded type of people, like Scooter Libby, for instance.
Get it together, Mark. Your analysis is starting to get real weak.
Posted by: Jorge from Bloomington | September 7, 2008 4:07 PM
The commentary is a bit off the point, I think.
Sarah was not a "newscaster" by the way. She reported sports for a short time. She got a journalism degree after transferring often from college to college. No one at her eventual alma mater remembers her.
Cheney actually acted as an executive, though a rapacious one. Palin did an awful job as mayor, a job way over her head, leaving office with the tiny city hugely in debt, responsible for paying off boondoggles.
At the state, despite it being awash in money, she has bought votes by adding to every Alaskan's oil company annual check of $2,069 by giving every Alaskan another $1,200 for supposed "energy costs."
She's hired her friends, incompetent associates, old birdbrained high school buddies, church members, for the highest positions in her administration. One of the few
commissioners of any merit held the Public Safety post and she fired him after she and her friends and family were unable to get him to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, over issues that had been dealt with years previously. She replaced that Commissioner with a fundamentalist sexual harassing small-town police chief who then left with a $10,000 severance check after two weeks.
I have not heard Sarah give a single speech when she has not spoken an easily disprovable lie, looking for undeserved credit such as for "stopping the Bridge to Nowhere," reforming state ethics, and refusing earmarks when she probably solicted more than any small town mayor in the U.S.
Posted by: Frank | September 7, 2008 4:51 PM
The Right Wing wack jobs would defend Larry the Cable Guy (a fictitious character) if he were chosen as McCain's running mate--as long as he pandered to their reactionary beliefs.
The truth of the matter is that Palin is an idiot; dumb as a rock; scary stupid. McCain should have chosen Ridge, or even Lieberman, but caved to the Dobson crowd.
I supported him in 2000, but will be voting and working for Obama this year. After McCain sold his soul to the Right, he lost me, and millions of others.
Posted by: Gibster | September 7, 2008 4:55 PM
Palin = Empty Pantsuit!
Gallup poll bounce 3 points ahead for McCain/Palin.
At the real-time poll that breaks with the news at http://www.bop-o-rama.com.
Obama 1051548 McCain 483,201
Team Obama is not getting it done. I think Team McCain will push Obama over 1,500,000 by the weekend. Where is Team Obama?
Palin is no Dick Cheney. She shoots what she is aiming at!
Posted by: acarponso | September 8, 2008 12:51 AM