MCCAIN ON ROTC:I am heartened by Senators McCain's and Obama's statements that support the restoration of ROTC at Columbia University. However, it is not a new sentiment from the two candidates; it stands out only because they stated it on campus. The key is to turn general principled support for ROTC-return into substantive nuts-and-bolts reform involving the university, government and military, and Columbia ROTC advocates.
STENGEL: We have the greatest fighting army in the world, I think everyone would agree. But is there something about this picture that you think needs to change, this social imbalance?
MCCAIN: Well, I would remind you in the days of the draft that it was then most unfair because the lowest income Americans served and the wealthiest found ways of avoiding draft. I think the all- volunteer force is having difficulties recruiting and retaining because we're too small and we need to expand the size of our military and we need to do it as rapidly as possible.
And there are -- we have got to perhaps offer additional incentives. For a long time, years ago, the Navy and Air Force were losing pilots. So we paid them more and we had more of them stay in. Their first reason for serving is patriotism, but also, you have got to offer them incentives in order to do so.
And frankly, we're here in a wonderful institution. I'm proud that my daughter graduated from this school. But do you know that this school will not allow ROTC on this campus? I don't think that's right. Shouldn't the students here be exposed to the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer?
So maybe -- maybe the -- I would hope that these universities would re-examine -- I would hope that these universities would re-examine that policy of not even allowing people who come here to represent the military and other Ivy League schools and then maybe they will be able to attract some more.
OBAMA ON ROTC:
OBAMA: But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.
STENGEL: To that end, to get the best and brightest into the military, this university, your alma mater, invited President Ahmadinejad of Iran to be here last year, but they haven't invited ROTC to be on campus since 1969. Should Columbia and elite universities that have excluded ROTC invite them back on campus?
OBAMA: Yes. I think we've made a mistake on that.
(APPLAUSE)
I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy. But the notion that young people here at Columbia or anywhere, in any university, aren't offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake.
That does not mean we disregard any potential differences in various issues that are raised by the students here, but it does mean that we should have an honest debate while still offering opportunities for everybody to serve, and that's something that I'm pretty clear about.
Professor Nacos,Eric
From what I've seen, the negative talk against Governor Palin by Dems and some in the media has been harsh. The first attacks were leveled against her, and the McCain campaign and Palin effectively responded. The attacks were blunted for a moment while the Dems, media and the rest of us learned about Palin, but the attacks are picking up again.
Senator McCain surprised me by going in an unexpected direction with his campaign, by presenting himself as a virtual Independent and GOP reformer, and skillful timing. He effectively timed the announcement of his Palin pick to blunt the DNC bounce for Obama and then timed her unveiling at the RNC to fuel his RNC bounce. Round 1 of the Palin period of the campaign goes to the GOP. The Dems were knocked off balance and placed on the defensive for the 1st time in this election contest. It was only a learning or feeling out period, though. Now that Round 1 is past, and both sides have established their strategies and know each other, we can watch the real contest unfold. This election just got interesting.
Assorted observations:
Age-wise, Palin is 44, Obama is 47, and Bill Clinton was 46 when he became President. The age issue is an asset for the Dems in this election, but how do you raise it without sounding age-ist and alienating a large segment of the electorate? Biden turns 66 in November.
McCain's arguments against Obama resonate in large part because they're borrowed from the arguments formulated by Clinton against Obama.
It was a surprisingly dumb move by the Dems to disparage Palin as a small-town mayor in general, given Obama's controversial statements about small-town America during the Democrat primaries, but especially so when Palin is a sitting state governor, no longer a mayor. It practically invited the obvious counter-punch against Obama's experience.
So far, Governor Palin has shown herself to be a better counter-puncher against the Obama campaign than Senator Clinton was. Palin, it appears, is no Dan Quayle.
The Dems have to take special care attacking Palin, because the obvious avenues of attack boomerang back to Obama or Biden. For example, you point out Alaska's low population to devalue Palin's experience; however, Dems VPOTUS candidate Biden's state has an approx 900,000 count population compared to Alaska's approx 700,000 count population, while Alaska is geographically the largest state with its own unique governing challenges whereas Delaware is the 2nd smallest state. (I say this mostly tongue in cheek, but recall that popular TV series West Wing featured a President who was governor of New Hampshire.)
It's undeniable that Governor Palin owns the executive advantage in this election, which matters given that 4 of our last 5 presidents were governors while the other president was a 8-year VP. Which is to say, it doesn't help the Dems to highlight that the GOP VPOTUS candidate's experience compares favorably to the Dems POTUS candidate's experience. Even the scrutiny of Palin's controversies serve to highlight Obama's controversies (condescending against small town America, Rev Wright, Ayers, Rezko, etc).
The better criticism of Governor Palin's political experience is to point out that Alaska has an exceptionally large budget for an exceptionally low population, which is not representative of the rest of the US, although again, governing Alaska carries its own unique challenges.
Regarding your point about Sarah Palin's family under public scrutiny, it struck me watching the RNC how comfortable her children and husband looked in front of the cameras and under the lights, especially her youngest daughter. I don't know what kind of politics they play in Alaska, but the Palin family seems surprisingly well-trained for the political game. At least, they're certainly photogenic. Moreover, Palin's reaction to public scrutiny of her daughter's pregnancy was to push Bristol and her fiance out front, which shows Palin to be a counter-puncher rather than a cover-upper. It also shows that Palin teaches her kids to step forward, not back down, when faced with adversity.
My criticism of Palin regarding her children: While it reflects very well on Palin as a parent that her eldest son Track volunteered to serve as a soldier (balance: Biden's son is also a soldier deploying to Iraq, which reflects well upon him as a father), I wish she had kept her son off camera and didn't announce when he was deploying to Iraq as an infantryman. Remember how Prince Harry was pulled prematurely from his tour of duty in Afghanistan? Conceivably, Palin's son - Biden's son, too - can be serving in Iraq as the son of the VPOTUS, a high value target.
I don't understand the assertion that Governor Palin wasn't properly vetted by Senator McCain. What evidence is there of that? Certainly, Palin has appeared to be an effective pick so far with multiple strengths added to the campaign. If McCain did pick Palin based solely on 'gut', that's some kind of instinct. Also, if McCain meant to fish for the Hillary vote instead of energizing the GOP base, he easily could have picked another GOP woman. For example, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle actually appealed to my tastes (as a voter!) more than Governor Palin during the RNC speeches, and Lingle reminds more than Palin of Senator Clinton or even Geraldine Ferraro.
The McCain campaign has proven to be more adept than I expected. Senator McCain, rather than follow the standard GOP platform, has presented himself as a virtual Independent. Given the setting, McCain rather forcefully rebuked his own party during his acceptance speech. McCain is now cast as the substantive 'change' candidate, the career reformer, the outside-the-box maverick, who has a lifetime record of independent judgement and results, and a long family heritage of lives given to America-first public service. In effect, McCain has at least partially disowned and countered the GOP with his message of vote for or against me based on my merits versus Obama's merits, not on my party affiliation.
That said, the case the McCain campaign has put forward against Senator Obama is the same case that Senator Clinton put forward against Senator Obama, so it's not as though the McCain campaign has been forced to be innovative. The difference is that Clinton's anti-Obama argument is more compelling with the comparison of Senator McCain's record and (political and life) experience to Senator Obama's record and experience.
The Democrats have been front-running for so long in this election cycle, it was interesting that for the first time, they were forced to speak from a defensive position following the GOP convention. By emphasizing, as you have done Professor, that a vote for Obama ought to be a broader vote against the Republicans, the Dems have tacitly admitted that purely within a candidates-to-candidates comparison, McCain and Palin own distinct advantages over Obama and Biden.
I agree with you that arguing against Governor Palin's experience is a bad choice for the Democrats. First of all, it highlights the main flaw of the Dems presidential candidate, which is a poor pay-off when attacking a VICE-presidential candidate. It also emphasizes that Obama chose Biden to be his VP as a Cheney redux, highlighting Obama's lack of self-confidence in his foreign policy judgement, whereas McCain's Palin choice displays McCain's confidence in his own foreign policy judgement. The only way attacking Palin on experience can work is to be age-ist and imply that McCain is going to die in office, due to no other reason than his old age. Highlighting Palin in the campaign also backfires because her political experience actually compares favorably with Senator Obama's political experience. Of the Presidents in my lifetime, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush Jr were all governors before they became President. George Bush Sr, of course, was Vice-President for 8 years. In other words, history shows that high-level executive experience matters to the American people when we choose our Presidents. Of all the candidates in this election, Governor Palin holds the most and highest executive experience.
As an Independent, I wish Senator McCain was 10 years younger and that he was more inclined to the Democrats agenda rather than the GOP agenda. At the same time, I wish Senator Obama had a track record that reinforced his appealing pledges and he had served his country in the military in some capacity, at least something akin to President Bush's Air National Guard service.
On the Columbia issue, Senator Obama is a fellow Columbia grad, who even majored in Poli-Sci/IR like I did. Senator McCain's daughter graduated from Columbia, too, which is good, but I'll give the edge to Obama.
EXCERPT: "But Mr. Bush’s penchant to defer to commanders in the field and to a powerful defense secretary delayed the development of a new approach until conditions in Iraq, in the words of a November 2006 analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency, resembled anarchy and “civil war.”In this case, his penchant for delegating was near-disastrous, but when the crisis point was reached, he did take the necessary action. For the most part, President Bush is made out in the article to be a competent, committed leader who made a tough choice from among a set of strongly held diverging 'expert' views.
It is interesting that the Democrats are placed in the peculiar position that the best arguments against Governor Palin as a VP candidate highlight the best arguments against Senator Obama as the Presidential candidate. Governor Palin is essentially an approximate Republican version of Senator Obama.Here's an informative comment about Governor Palin at Chicagoboyz.
Regarding lack of foreign policy experience, hasn't that been the standard argument used against Presidential candidates coming from the governor ranks rather than the Senate ranks? I recall the same criticism directed toward Governors Clinton and Bush Jr during their respective campaigns. The off-set, of course, is that governors can tout their local domestic experience, which seemed more important in the 1992-2000 presidential elections, and greater executive qualifications for an executive position.
Of course, since 9/11, foreign policy has returned to the fore, so we have two Senators running for President, albeit one Senator has much less foreign policy experience than the other. In that sense, Senator Biden strikes me as a Democrat version of Dick Cheney in terms of an experienced foreign policy VP balancing a neophyte foreign policy President; however, just because Senator Obama is an approximate Democrat version of year-2000 Governor Bush in that respect, it doesn't mean the Bush-Cheney/Obama-Biden President-VP relationship is now the standard formula.
Assuming Senator McCain would handle his own foreign policy and survive at least his first term as President, Governor Palin seems better suited than McCain to handle the domestic aspects while comforting a Republican party that at times has been at odds with Senator McCain.
In terms of executive and legislative balance and foreign policy and domestic balance, the GOP ticket does seem more well-rounded at this point than the Dems ticket.
. . .
The Palin choice reflects Senator McCain's belief that he can run his own foreign policy and doesn't need a Cheney redux (Biden) as VP because unlike the last 2 Presidents (Bush Jr, Clinton) and the current Dem POTUS nominee, McCain trusts his own foreign policy experience. In that regard, McCain is more like President Bush Sr who also trusted his own foreign policy experience in a time of foreign policy need - remember, Bush Sr was elected during the Cold War - enough to add Dan Quayle as VP for other reasons.
The Palin choice, I believe, is meant to balance the GOP ticket where McCain is relatively weaker, not to create redundancies where McCain already is relatively stronger.
* Andrew Fong said: "What concerns me more is that the vetting on Palin was almost non-existent -- e.g. witness the total surprise by the Alaskan. That doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on Palin, but it does reflect poorly on McCain."Eric
It may be that I simply haven't been paying close enough attention, but what evidence is there that Senator McCain didn't sufficiently vet Governor Palin? I point this out because Dr. Barnett said something similar in his previous reaction post to the VP selection. Surprise on Governor Palin's part (aside: aren't beauty queens trained to express overly dramatic surprise upon victory?) doesn't mean Senator McCain didn't weigh his decision carefully, even if his 'gut' was part of that decision. So far, at least, and admittedly it's still early, Governor Palin seems to be a very good choice by McCain. Given that Governor Palin was a relative unknown, it can imply that McCain did *more* homework in order to decide on her. After all, Palin isn't the only woman GOP governor. (Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle at the GOP convention appealed more to me than Palin.) If it's true that McCain didn't do his due diligence, which doesn't ring true to me, than he's either very lucky or he has exceptional intuition working in his favor, not a bad trait in a dynamically changing world where we can't always rely on doing now as we've done before.
* Andrew Fong said: "McCain strikes me as the guy who's fond of big bold (symbolic) moves and doesn't like the day-to-day nitty-gritty -- e.g. loves the invasion, not too fond of the cleanup."
Wait a tic, Andrew . . . one of Senator McCain's strongest selling points is his advocacy of the 'Surge' and counterinsurgency strategy during a time when many pols, media, Bush admin, and military officials were advocating for an ASAP pull-out from Iraq. (See Michael Gordon's recent NY Times article about Bush's choice of the Petraeus-led 'doubling down' strategy change over many of his top officials' advice.) Andrew, 'Surge' and COIN = (belated) clean-up after the invasion. In contrast, many of the Dems and GOPers who voted for and supported the 2003 invasion - less based on Bush's case for war than our 12 year history with Iraq which had caused President Clinton to make regime change in Iraq our official policy by 1998 - subsequently turned against the post-war in Iraq. They - not Senator McCain - can fairly be accused of, as you describe it, loving the invasion but not being fond of the clean-up.
* UKBen said: "With Obama it's crystal clear that he will do a good job healing the badly damaged image of the US."
I'll buy that, but I'd like to draw upon Dr. Barnett's construction to ask a question regarding the perception of the candidates abroad. How do the Dems and GOP tickets play in the 'New Core' in contrast to how they play in the 'Old Core'? In large part due to my disappointment of NATO contribution in Afghanistan, building upon my disappointment in NATO during the 1990s, I wonder, which audience is it more constructive for us to please? Or asked in another way, does the prospect of Obama's "good job healing" include actual increased contributions by these nations or are we only talking about improved popular opinion polls? Which isn't to say I believe Senator McCain can draw more blood from a stone in terms of our 'Old Core' allies, but as a fan of Dr. Barnett, I am wondering in moving forward, who benefits our bottom-line more and how.
My short reaction to Palin is that I don't know her and am intrigued to find out why McCain picked her. So far, so good. I do find it curious that McCain is overtly positioning himself as a virtual Independent who's critical of the GOP, yet at the same time choosing a VP who energizes the GOP base. Although, Palin is known for taking on the Alaska GOP as an upstart, so perhaps Palin is energizing the GOP base as a reformer of the GOP, not as a GOP insider. I also believe McCain is choosing his VP according to a different POTUS-VPOTUS formula than the Dems. Obama's choice of Biden draws upon the Bush-Cheney POTUS-VPOTUS formula, where Obama's lack of confidence in his own foreign policy judgement demands redundancy in the foreign policy area. Whereas, McCain's choice of Palin reflects a division of labor formula. McCain trusts his foreign policy judgement as much as President Bush Sr trusted his foreign policy judgement during the closing of the Cold War, when Bush picked Dan Quayle as VP. Palin, a governor with grassroots, seems better suited to handle domestic and GOP base issues that probably don't interest McCain as much.
Furthermore, the McCain campaign made a smart move by choosing a governor, any governor. In my lifetime as an American, we've preferred to choose a governor for President, or at least a candidate with high-level executive experience, with good reason. We want a national leader who understands the bottom-line of CEO actions that effect all of us. As a New Yorker and (GOP-maligned) fellow-Obama Columbia alumnus, I know very little about Alaskan politics or Alaska in general, but from what I've heard, Palin has been an effective and popular governor in Alaska . . . even accounting for that huge oil-funded budget and low population she has had to work with. Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr were all governors, while Bush Sr was an 8-year VP. Because Obama, McCain and Biden are all senators, McCain's choice of Palin becomes an effective GOP monopoly of executive experience during this election. Clever. Again, if Palin was an impulsive choice by McCain, he's got some impressive intuition.
