Palin will reopen the great gender and race debates

There can be no doubting the fact that Republican presumptive nominee Senator John McCain’s selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate owes a lot to the decision of Democratic nominee Senator Barrack Obama’s decision not to invite Senator Hillary Clinton to the party. If Denver showed anything, it was that there is still a lot of resentment lingering among Hillary Clinton supporters, at firstly losing the nomination, and then not being asked to join the race for the White House.

The Republicans in turn have made an audacious, if somewhat risky, bid to try and capture a sizeable block of those 18 million voters who appear to follow the senator from New York. The problem is that should they achieve that this would constitute a vote for gender rather than anything related to Palin’s policies.

In reality Clinton and Palin are poles apart with the Alaskan governor somewhat right of the more centrist McCain. She will soon endear herself to the party faithful being anti-abortion and same sex marriages, pro-drilling for oil in Alaska and a hockey mom who likes to go hunting and fishing. How this would fit in with the liberal democratic voters who support Hillary is anyone’s guess. What it does show is that the GOP machine believes that women will vote for gender over policy.

As evidence of just how important the McCain camp considers this point of attack, we need only look at the ground he is prepared to surrender in order to pursue it. One of his key objections to Obama has been the senator’s lack of experience at this level and what that might mean in vital areas such as foreign policy. In selecting 44-year-old Palin, who has infinitely less experience than Obama, McCain is opening himself up to attacks of hypocrisy if he pursues that line again. Palin, with just 2 years experience in Alaska’s Statehouse, could be just a heartbeat away from becoming the next president of the USA.

Palin’s choice also says a lot about the McCain camp’s problems with image. Palin, as a mother of five and former beauty queen, stands in stark contrast to the 72-year-old grizzly senator while her evangelical Christian faith, anti-abortion stance and no-nonsense approach to corruption will endear her to the social conservatives in the party.

Of course this will also throw open the question that confronted the bruising Democratic nomination. Right throughout the Clinton versus Obama debate the question being asked was would the American voters rather elect their first black president or their first woman president? In that contest the choice was clear — Obama versus Clinton.

In the case of McCain versus Obama, it will arise again because if McCain at 72 should die or be unable to continue in office, then Palin would become president. Should the disaffected Clinton voters move across in sizeable numbers, then McCain is in with a good chance of overturning what seemed certain to be the year of the Democrats.

It would also indicate that American voters see issues such as gender and race above policy because besides being a woman, Palin has absolutely nothing in common with Hillary Clinton, while Obama and the senator are singing from the exact same hymn book.

Hang on to your seatbelts — the fur is going to fly.