Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman on the promise and the peril of Sarah Palin's speech tonight at the Republican convention.
We are about to see a true rarity in politics: an unpredictable,
unscripted, scripted moment. Wednesday night, an unknown and barely
tested woman from a small town in far away Alaska will make her debut
as a would-be global leader in front of the Republican convention, the
country and the entire world.
No one has the faintest
idea what will happen. These occasions are so rare: when pundits,
reporters and insiders alike have no idea how a major figure will
perform. The reason for their ignorance is that Gov. Sarah Palin has
been a "major figure" for about … five minutes. It's unprecedented, which is what makes the occasion riveting.
Even
as the country watches and judges Palin—first impressions mean
everything in politics—the person who really will be on trial Wednesday
night is the man who picked her: John McCain. Voters will measure him,
and his ability to lead, based on her performance. After all, picking
her as his running mate was his first big "presidential" decision...
On the floor and in the hallways of
the GOP convention, the sentiment was a combination of aggressive
defensiveness about her—from evangelicals and other cultural
conservatives—to a cautious wait-and-see hopefulness from delegates who
found it hard to believe that McCain had chosen Palin with what
appeared to be a hurried-up, last-minute vetting process last week.
It
was as if the skeptics were saying: OK McCain, we didn't like you that
much to begin with, so you had better be right about Sarah Palin. But
for the time being, until we hear her speak, we will give you the
benefit of the doubt. Friends of former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney, speaking not for attribution, were caustic. "She
is unqualified for the job and everyone knows it," said one.
Whether
or not that is true, it's hard to imagine anyone who would be qualified
for the raft of personal and political challenges Palin faces. Over the
next months, and all at once, a list of the things she'll need to deal
with:
- her continuing duties as governor of Alaska
- a
legislature-funded investigation into questions of whether she has
abused her office in a vendetta against her former brother-in-law, a
probe that prompted her to hire a personal attorney
- the
care of her fifth child, Trig, born this spring with Down syndrome—a
condition that requires close parental attention and care, especially
in the first year of the child's life
- the pregnancy and pending marriage of her teenage daughter Bristol, who is planning to wed the father before Election Day
- learning
the routines and rituals of the national campaign trail, which she will
be required to traverse on her own plane, with her own staff
- getting a sense of the Lower 48 states, most of which she has never visited
- figuring out how to deal with McCain, whom she barely knows
- handling
whatever national press interviews the McCain campaign allows her to
do—and she will have to do some to prepare herself for later events
- prep
for the nationally televised vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe
Biden, a legislator with 36 years of seniority, who is personally
acquainted with the rulers of nations Palin may never have even heard of
At
first glance, this is a little like dropping Peter Pan into the middle
of Anbar province. On the other hand, former senator Fred Thompson
pointed out last night that Palin may be the only national candidate in
history who knows how to field-dress a moose.
It's hard to see how that skill will translate into politics, but we are about to find out.
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