Aug 30th 2008

Why John McCain made his surprise choice

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain made an impulsive decision last week to select Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. He told his militant supporters that she is "exactly what we need".

Not everyone agrees with him.

McCain is known for his maverick decision-making; this choice is in character. Sarah Palin is a former sportswriter, beauty queen, mother of five and a first-term governor of the least populous American state. She has no national profile and was not at the top of the shortlists for this position.

McCain reportedly overrode his team's advice and decided to go with Mrs. Palin instead of the most probable candidate, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Some have called it a case of instant chemistry, like falling in love. Others have called it "a senior moment".

If McCain wanted to energize his campaign, divert attention from Democratic rival Barack Obama, and create excitement around his own official nomination at the Republican Convention, he has succeeded. The Palin decision has set off a storm of speculation over her impact on the presidential contest. Americans are talking about little else.

Most significantly, critics of the decision have expressed doubts that she could inherit the supposedly available 18 million disaffected women voters who backed Hillary Clinton and lost to Obama. Mrs. Palin's politics are in direct opposition, and her lack of experience makes her a controversial replacement for Hillary.

Mrs. Palin clearly has been thinking in national terms as the vice presidential decision neared. She has spoken of the U.S. need to have a strong military and sound energy policy. And pressing for the opening of Alaskan reserves, she has said it is "nonsense not to tap a safe domestic source of oil".

And she is not a believer in need to control carbon emissions to attenuate global warming. Before being selected by McCain, she said, "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

There is no doubt that McCain needed an injection of fresh energy in his lacklustre campaign. Although he was closing the gap against Obama in poll showings, he seemed to be heading for the underdog role in the coming two months - up against a man 25 years younger at the head of a Democratic Party in full resurgence. Tens of millions of new Democrats are registering around the country to vote on November 4.

Mrs. Palin may be able to temper this trend, at least in the short term. She is conservative enough to help bring the Republican right wing into line, she a fiscal conservative, pro-life (anti-abortion), an anti-corruption fighter, and a dedicated reformer.

She has publicly argued for U.S. Congressional authority to exploit more of Alaska's oil and gas reserves. She hunts, shoots and fishes, and she is a proud member of the National Rifle Association which runs the U.S. gun lobby for the right to bear arms.

In her initial appearances, she sparkled with youthful, combative energy, in contrast to McCain's hang-dog look and monotone stumbles through uninspired speeches. Mrs. Palin speaks well without a script. The crowds of McCain activists cheered her at the announcement ceremony. Within hours, the campaign seemed to have rebranded itself.

Now the test begins. Vice presidential candidates will hold several debates in the coming two months and her direct opponent will be Senator Joe Biden, a veteran debater and a Washington insider with international credentials. Facing him down will be a challenge for her.

Mrs. Palin has already been caricatured as a fabulous Christmas gift to the Obama campaign. She must now convince the Republican party and the great American undecided vote that her selection was more than a desperate move by John McCain.

Some Republicans are concerned that a woman with so little experience in government - and zero international record - should be a heartbeat away from the presidency. John McCain is 72 years old and has been fighting melanoma cancer for several years. His physical ability to complete his four years is in question.

I expected McCain to make his vice presidential selection on the assumption that the person would be capable of taking over his job in a health emergency. Sarah Palin, for all her political acumen, will be on trial for the next two months as the U.S. voters decide.

If you wish to comment on this article, you can do so on-line.

Should you wish to publish your own article on the Facts & Arts website, please contact us at info@factsandarts.com. Please note that Facts & Arts shares its advertising revenue with those who have contributed material and have signed an agreement with us.

 

This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.
 

 

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

The Crisis of American Leadership 
by Chris Patten
Aug 20th 2023
EXTRACT: "Since the end of World War II, the United Nations has been the cornerstone of the international rules-based order. While numerous other international agreements address issues such as chemical weapons, biological warfare, and regional stability, the UN has been entrusted with the overarching role of maintaining global peace and stability. What made it effective, at least for a while, was the support of the world’s liberal democracies and, crucially, the unwavering commitment of both Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States." ---- "That all changed with the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, a sovereign country, in the face of fierce international opposition and without the UN Security Council’s approval. In doing so, the US severely damaged its own credibility and undermined the global rules-based system,... "Many of America’s current domestic political divisions grew out of the Iraq War. Whereas presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated that effective leaders can make the world a safer and better place, even in the face of great adversity, Bush’s presidency showed that the opposite is equally true."
Understanding why burning the Qur’an isn’t illegal in Sweden means looking at the country’s long-held commitment to freedom of expression
by Mårten Schultz
Aug 20th 2023
EXTRACTS: "a period of parliamentary history between 1719 and 1772 called 'the age of liberty'. This marked the end of autocratic monarchy and the beginning of an era of parliamentary power " ---- "This was a period of large-scale legislative projects and freedom of speech became central to the idea of freedom from tyranny. The most important piece of legislation was the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766, a law that aimed to protect freedom of information as a means of promoting democracy. It has been amended since but its tenets remain the same. " ---- "Describing Muslims, to allude to the situation of the Qur’an burnings, as criminals would be criminal. But to burn the Qur’an is in itself not, according to the current formulation of the law, an attack on Muslims. It is rather seen as an attack on the religion of Islam. Such attacks are not illegal because the aim of the attack is not directed against a protected group of people but against a belief – an idea. That is not illegal."
The Real Cost of De-Dollarization 
by Benn Steil
Aug 18th 2023
EXTRACTS: "But if the dollar should lose its privileged place, what could replace it? At present, the euro, which accounts for 20% of global central-bank reserves, is the only currency that could realistically serve as a substitute. Its appeal, however, is undermined by the fragmentation of Europe’s national sovereign-debt markets, as well as lingering doubts about the European Union’s long-term viability in the wake of the UK’s departure.'" ---- "The Chinese renminbi, which accounts for less than 3% of global reserves, is not a serious threat to dollar hegemony. "
AI and the Productivity Imperative
by Michael Spence
Aug 12th 2023
EXTRACT: "Around the world, supply is struggling to keep up with demand. Inflation remains stubbornly high, despite aggressive interest-rate hikes. The global workforce is aging rapidly. Labor shortages are ubiquitous and persistent. These are just some of the forces behind the productivity challenge facing the global economy. And it has become increasingly clear that we must harness artificial intelligence to address that challenge."
For the Love of Trump 
by Ian Buruma
Aug 2nd 2023
EXTRACTS: "What explains the tenacity of Trump’s support? The force of his arguments is unlikely to be the key, because he makes few coherent arguments." ---- "The Trumpist bubble is deeply mired in pessimism. Some 89% of the GOP think the US is in steep decline, ...." ---- "There are several reasons for popular anxiety. Many American industrial workers feel left behind in a global economy where cheaper labor is sought overseas." --- "Trump has been a master at manipulating these conspiratorial anxieties," ---- "What is perhaps most important is that Trump, despite his success in stacking the Supreme Court with religious radicals, has not captured most of the elites, as Hitler did. "
Ukraine war: Crimean bridge attack is another blow to Putin’s strongman image
by Stefan Wolff
Jul 19th 2023
EXTRACTS: "Little wonder then that Crimea has been heavily militarised since Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in March 2014 – or that Russian troops there have increasingly been threatened by different anti-Putin partisan groups. These include both Russian volunteers and indigenous Crimean Tatars who have become more active since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive."
Russia's Fractured State 
by Nina L. Khrushcheva
Jul 19th 2023
EXTRACT: "Prigozhin’s fighters would not have been able to travel almost a thousand kilometers (621 miles) within Russian territory in less than a day without help from members of Putin’s inner circle or the military. Rumors are swirling that the billionaire brothers Yuri and Mikhail Kovalchuk may have played a role. The Kovalchuks, close associates of Putin, reportedly share Prigozhin’s belief that Russia has not been forceful enough in the war or in its broader confrontation with the West. Another possible collaborator is General Sergei Surovikin. Like Prigozhin, Surovikin has reportedly advocated a far more brutal war effort than Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu seems willing to conduct. Since the mutiny, he has not been seen in public, and is said to be “resting.” "
The Kremlin's Mobster Code
by Dina Khapaeva
Jul 19th 2023
EXTRACTS:" While Western experts continue to view Russia as a modern state, they overlook the fact that Putin’s cronies, who represent the mingling of the security services – particularly the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB – and organized crime, control most state functions as their private domains." .... "The existence of multiple private armies will make these power games more destabilizing. As a commentator on RIA Novosti, Russia’s official news agency, put it after documenting the private armies of several oil companies: “[W]e are on the verge of a major increase in corporate and other paramilitary structures, as well as major changes in the very approach to the use of military force.” Against this backdrop, the Russian army has become another gang vying for power and property. But as the Kremlin’s grip on power slips, Russia’s generals will likely organize a putsch against Putin and his KGB/FSB cronies – the army’s historical rival."
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a ‘dirty bomb’ waiting to happen – a nuclear expert explains
by Tilman Ruff
Jul 16th 2023
EXTRACTS: "The fuel inside nuclear reactors needs continuous, active cooling for many months after a reactor shutdown" ..... "The world saw in dramatic fashion in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 what can happen when continuous, active cooling of nuclear reactors is disrupted. More than 70% of the total radioactivity at the Fukushima power plant was in the spent fuel ponds" .... "In his classic 1981 book Nuclear Radiation in Warfare, Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist Joseph Rotblat documented how 'in a pressurised water reactor, the meltdown of the core could occur within less than one minute after the loss of coolant'. The radioactivity released from damaged spent fuel ponds could be even greater than from a meltdown at the reactor itself, he wrote. His study makes clear that a military attack on a reactor or spent fuel pond could release more radioactivity – and longer-lasting radioactivity – than even a large (megaton range) nuclear weapon."
Heightened Risk from a Weakened Russia 
by Joschka Fischer
Jul 6th 2023
EXTRACT: "The closer we get to the endgame, the greater the risk that the Kremlin will resort to some irrational act like ordering the use of a nuclear weapon. Prigozhin’s revolt offers a preview of the chaos that awaits. Almost anything is conceivable now, from the disintegration of the Russian Federation to the rise of another ultra-nationalist regime with neo-czarist dreams of imperial restoration. Like Putin’s Russia, this one would remain locked in the past, far removed from any prospect of social, political, or economic modernization. It would pose a permanent threat to Europe’s eastern flank, and to global stability more broadly. We will have to arm ourselves against it, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will most likely have to do the same."
Twenty-Four Hours That Shook the Kremlin 
by Nina L. Khrushcheva
Jun 27th 2023
EXTRACT: "So, who might seize the throne? Two obvious possibilities are Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, and his son Dmitry, the minister of agriculture. Another is Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who deliberately appeared on television hard at work during the crisis, while Putin reportedly flew to safety in Valdai, far from the Kremlin. Then there is Dyumin, as well as Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who controls his own powerful armed force."
Has Putin Lost Russia? 
by Wacław Radziwinowicz
Jun 25th 2023
EXTRACT: "......because Prigozhin and his men enjoy the supportof many Russians. For them, Prigozhin is a hero, not a traitor, because he is one of the only public figures who dares to speak the truth about the Kremlin’s incompetent management of the war. And they also see in him a fatherly commander standing up for the soldiers whose lives are being thrown away needlessly by Putin’s clumsy, corrupt generals. People who think this way may well make up a very large part of Russian society. Whether Prigozhin ultimately is imprisoned, executed, or victorious, he will remain an icon for them."
Microbiome: certain gut microbes may warn of Alzheimer’s disease long before the first symptoms begin
by Catherine Purse
Jun 25th 2023
EXTRACT: "While it might be tempting to conclude that the gut microbes identified as being associated with signs of preclinical Alzheimer’s are also contributing to developing the disease, the study does not provide any evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship. However, if a connection can be established, it opens up an exciting possibility that future treatments for Alzheimer’s might target the microbes in our gut."
America's Mythical Fiscal Conservatives 
by Jeffrey Frankel
Jun 18th 2023
EXTRACT: "When it comes to sustainability, however, US fiscal policy receives a low score. Amid the short-term fluctuations, it is often easy to lose sight of the long-term trajectory. Public debt, as a share of GDP, peaked at the end of World War II and then gradually declined until the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, which led to record deficits. Since then, the debt-to-GDP ratio has steadily risen, almost reaching its 1946 record in 2020. Only during the period 1996-2000, under President Bill Clinton, did this trend temporarily reverse."
The US role in the global financial system is changing – here’s how it could affect the world’s economy
by Steve Schifferes
Jun 14th 2023
EXTRACT: "It is by no means clear that the latest banking crisis has run its course. There are concerns about the so-called shadow banking system, largely unregulated financial institutions that now make up half of all global financial assets. For example, in the US many people invest in money market funds, which pay higher interest than banks, but provide no deposit insurance."
Can the ECB Escape Its Own Trap? 
by Otmar Issing
Jun 9th 2023
EXTRACT: "Given the scale of the ECB’s bond holdings, however, its approach to quantitative tightening (QT) seems downright homeopathic. At the current rate, bringing the asset-purchase program to zero will take roughly 15 years (and this does not even account for the fact that the ECB continues to reinvest all maturing assets purchased under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program). "
The Poverty of AI Pessimism 
by Jim O'Neill
Jun 9th 2023
EXTRACT: "Hardly a week goes by without various pioneers in artificial intelligence issuing dire warnings about the technology that they introduced to the world." ---- " I have my doubts. Since the start of my professional life in the 1980s (and of course for much longer), technological progress has repeatedly been held up as a major threat to jobs in key industries such as automobile manufacturing. Yet...."
RERUN FROM OCT 1918: An AI Wake-Up Call From Ancient Greece
by Adrienne Mayor
May 31st 2023
EXTRACT: "In discussions about the implications of artificial intelligence (AI), someone almost always evokes the ancient Greek myth of Pandora’s box. In the modern fairytale version of the story, Pandora is depicted as a tragically curious young woman who opens a sealed urn and inadvertently releases eternal misery on humankind. Like the genie that has escaped the bottle, the horse that has fled the barn, and the train that has left the station, the myth has become a cliché. And yet the actual story of Pandora is far more apropos to debates about AI and machine learning than many realize. What it shows is that it is better to listen to “Prometheans” who are concerned about humanity’s future than “Epimetheans” who are easily dazzled by the prospect of short-term gains. One of the oldest Greek myths, the story of Pandora was first recorded more than 2,500 years ago, in the time of Homer. In the original telling, Pandora was not some innocent girl who succumbed to the temptation to open a forbidden jar. Rather, as the poet Hesiod tells us, Pandora was “made, not born.” Having been commissioned by all-powerful Zeus and designed to his cruel specifications by Hephaestus, the god of invention, Pandora was a lifelike android created to look like a bewitching maiden. Her purpose was to entrap mortals as a manifestation of kalos kakon: “evil hidden in beauty.”
AI, Democracy, and the Global Order
by Manuel Muñiz and Samir Saran
May 31st 2023
EXTRACT: "Specifically, many believe that the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI) – an AI that can teach itself to perform any cognitive task that humans can do – will pose an existential threat to humanity. A carelessly designed AGI (or one governed by unknown “black box” processes) could carry out its tasks in ways that compromise fundamental elements of our humanity. After that, what it means to be human could come to be mediated by AGI."
he Myth of Western Decline 
by Chris Patten
May 29th 2023
EXTRACT: "In his 2018 book Destined For War, political scientist Graham Allison observes that the US and China are headed toward what he called the “Thucydides’ Trap,” a reference to the ancient Greek historian’s account of Sparta’s efforts to suppress the rise of Athens, which ultimately culminated in the Peloponnesian War. A better analogy, however, is the message sent by the Athenians to the inhabitants of the besieged island of Melos before executing the men and enslaving the women and children: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." ---- Allowing China and other authoritarian countries to shape the rules would result in a world order based solely on this “realist” principle. It is a nightmare scenario that the G7 countries and other liberal democracies must strive to prevent. ---- China’s assertions about the decline of the West reveal an underlying anxiety. After all, if liberal democracy is failing, why do Chinese officials consistently express their fear of it? The fact that leaders of the Communist Party of China have instructed rank-and-file members to engage in an “intense struggle” against liberal-democratic values indicates that they view open societies as an existential threat."