More Partisan Hypocrisy

Am I the only one to remember that Republicans are supposed to be the party of “family values?” It used to be they were the party that attacked unwed mothers, parents who couldn’t stop their kids from sleeping around and getting knocked up, and celebrities as poor role models – from Murphy Brown to Barack Obama.

It remains too early to see what Sarah Palin will do to the GOP, but it seems to have transformed the party overnight into an all-welcoming clan that now embraces teen pregnancy (Sarah Palin’s, but not Jamie Lynn Spears!), mothers who work full time with an infant child (Sarah Palin, but not middle class mothers!) and denounces sexism (Sarah Palin, but not Hillary Clinton!). If I was Bristol Palin’s father, I would find the guy who impregnated my daughter and lay the smack down. But now the kid, instead of being investigated for statutory rape, will be showcased by the family values party as someone who is taking responsibility. The flip flopping is the worst of political grandstanding and reeks of desperation. The question is whether the American public will buy it.

I wonder if McCain picked Palin completely on his own without having anyone on his staff or the GOP doing a simple background check on her. If you view the blogosphere, you’ll find more things the mainstream media naturally has not touched. Here’s what was on the daddy-to-be’s MySpace page. Here’s info on a Jews for Jesus preacher that speaks at Palin’s church. And here’s Palin's support for the Bridge to Nowhere, a huge earmark of pork that McCain denounced.

Maybe there’s something Machiavellian about all this. I still maintain through my post below that most people don’t regard the VP too highly when they’re casting a vote. And McCain definitely knew he had to take the attention off Obama after last week, and since this pick was announced I have heard nothing about Obama in the mainstream media. It’s a classic diversion. When you’re losing a propaganda or PR war with an opponent, your best bet is to create a distraction to get the attention off your adversary and onto you.

I always thought McCain would pick Romney for his VP slot to fire up the new GOP religious right-wing base, which basically votes on abortion, creationism, gay marriage and nothing else (to be fair, there’s plenty on the left that vote the same way). He picked Palin instead, and succeeded in firing up the base but may have alienated too many others (here’s a CNN poll showing where those three issues rank to most voters – less than 2%). But those are the folks who show up on Election Day. To date, the Democrats still cannot mobilize their base the same way, and that’s why I think the final result will be far closer than most people think.