John McCain and Sarah Palin slip up in the growing economic gloom

Is Hurricane Sarah a spent force? Latest opinion polls suggest that the boost to the Republican campaign that came two weeks ago with the surprise announcement of Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's vice-presidential pick has all but disappeared.

Latest polls show the contest with the Democrats tied and as the economy becomes the dominating factor, McCain and his inexperienced running mate - neither of whom offer strong economic credentials - are looking troubled.

As Alexander Cockburn writes today in his column for The First Post, McCain has been struggling to keep up with the latest crisis on Wall Street, hardly helped by the fact that his closest advisor, Phil Gramm, is seen as one of the architects of the culture of deregulation that led to the latest crash.

In particular, McCain has been caught out by the US government's $85bn government bail-out of insurance giant AIG. Initially opposing the rescue package, he was then forced to change his position when it became clear that the livelihoods of millions of American were at stake.

The bail-out was necessary, he suddenly agreed, because of "failed regulation, reckless management and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America."

At the same time, after initial excitement in the media, it is clear that the choice of Palin has not gone down well among serious conservative opinion formers.

"Sarah Palin has many virtues," David Brooks wrote in The New York Times. "But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

The Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer says that McCain "fatally" undermined his entire line of attack on the Democratic candidate - that Barack Obama was the least experienced, least prepared presidential nominee in living memory - by choosing an equally inexperienced running mate.

"The vice-president's only constitutional duty of any significance is to become president at a moment's notice," he wrote. "Palin is not ready.
Nor is Obama. But with Palin, the case against Obama evaporates."

Neither has McCain been helped by criticism - even if unintended - from within his own camp. One of his chief economic advisors, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, suggested this week in the course of a radio interview that neither McCain nor Palin was capable of running a large corporation.

The Obama campaign leapt on the gaffe. "If John McCain's top economic adviser doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?" As for Fiorina, she has been bundled off the scene pronto, all further media appearances abrubtly cancelled.

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2008