What if McCain Wins?
As recent polls show a Sarah Palin-driven surge in Senator McCain’s prospects, the Democratic Party and the country in general need to carefully consider the magnitude of what might be at stake in this election. Let’s take a look at an entirely reasonable scenario after a McCain/Palin Win in November.
The Disappearance of Sarah Palin and the Mortality of John McCain
You only have to watch news footage of John McCain waving on the crowd as they cheer for Sarah Palin to see that he’s obviously enthusiastic about the energy that she brings to the campaign — as long as he can keep her on script and away from unsupervised access to the media. But what happens after the election?
The idea put forward by the McCain campaign, that Sarah Palin is going to get on the job training “at the knee of John McCain,” seems remarkably unlikely. President McCain is going to have more important things to do. In addition, Palin’s “rock star” status is going to quickly veer from a big positive to a clear negative once the election is won. What president truly wants a VP that outshines him in the public eye? Wasn’t that likely a reason we don’t now have an Obama/Clinton (with Bill too) ticket?
It’s a good bet that a Vice President Palin will disappear from the public eye very quickly, perhaps to be paraded out occasionally under highly scripted circumstances. In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that McCain himself is aware of Palin’s limitations and plans to revert to an almost a nineteen century model for the office of the Vice President.
All of this is possibly not a complete disaster for the country as long as John McCain is alive and well. While the Democrats have rightly argued that McCain will offer mostly an extension of Bush’s policies, in fact he has shown some independence on issues such as stem cell research and global warming. Most democrats would probably be prepared to make the painful acknowledgment that if we have to have another Republican administration, John McCain is probably the least appalling choice.
What is the risk that McCain will not survive his first term? A look at the actuarial tables shows that the risk is probably at least 30%, especially given his two bouts with skin cancer. McCain often points to his healthy 95 year old mother as evidence of his “good genes.” What he does not talk about is that fact that he has already outlived his father (who died at 70) by two years. In short, the probability that we could have a Palin presidency, perhaps within a relatively short time, is uncomfortably high.
President Palin and the Capability Vacuum
Upon John McCain untimely demise, we would be left with a president who, prior to the election:
- Can count on one hand the number of other countries to which she has traveled.
- Has never met the leader, or even a high official, of a foreign government.
- Is unfamiliar with the language of diplomacy.
- Has probably not met and certainly not had substantive discussions with the leaders of the US congress.
- Shows no evidence of having studied, or indeed even thought deeply about, the major issues facing the country, both foreign and domestic.
The implication of this is clear. While the enormous power that resides in the office of president will remain intact, the capability and judgment to wield that power will in all likelihood be largely absent. Like all vacuums, this absence of capability will be filled rapidly–as it will have to be in order to avoid a national emergency. The question then is who would fill this vacuum?
The easy answer would be to assume that McCain’s advisers will step into this role. While this would surely be true in the short term, history has shown that administrations simply do not survive intact when a president dies in office. Even Ted Sorensen, one of the very closest advisers to John Kennedy, was gone from the Johnson administration within a few months after the assassination.
In the longer term, as President Palin struggles to come to terms with the duties of her office, who would she likely turn to? Who would she trust? The answer seems clear: The previous president and vice president. Keep in mind that Palin, Bush and Cheney are all completely in tune with the beat of the far right Republican party core. John McCain is the outsider, remember? So what would happen if he were suddenly gone? How long would any “maverick” initiatives and policies survive him?
The scenario seems as clear as it is chilling. It is questionable that Sarah Palin would ever really develop the capability to govern as a truly independent president. Instead, she might continue to fulfill the role that she performs so effectively now: scripted engagements with the public while her handlers wield power behind the scenes. There can be little doubt as to who those handlers would be.
The greatest danger now facing the country is that if McCain prevails, the Democratic argument that we will see “four more years of Bush” may not be just political hyperbole–it could easily turn out to be literal fact.
Copyright (c) M.R. Ford 2008 All Rights Reserved
