By DICK MORRIS
Last updated: 8:19 am
August 31, 2008
Posted: 3:44 am
August 31, 2008
Sarah Palin does not simply represent an opportunity to appeal to women voters and to add a new, charismatic presence to the ticket. Her selection signals the rebirth of John McCain, the courageous, independent senator who seemed to have been anesthetized during the long primary process.
Beaten down psychologically - as the Vietnamese could never do - by the drubbing he took in South Carolina's Republican primary in 2000, he seemed to pull his punches in this campaign. The crusading maverick, the take-no-guff independent, seemed to have been left behind in the Senate Office Building as a different McCain took to the campaign trail in 2008. Conscious of the discipline and uniformity of the GOP primary electorate, he seemed to morph into what he never was in the Senate (but Barack Obama accuses him of having been, anyway) - a Bush clone.
But Palin is McCain's kind of governor. She took on the corrupt establishment of the Republican hierarchy in Alaska and defeated incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski in a GOP primary. The Murkowski family and the family of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens have run the state for decades. Frank served as senator and then gave it up to run for governor. And into the Senate seat slid his daughter Lisa Murkowski, whom Alaska voters dutifully elected. To give you a gauge of how hard it was for Sarah to beat Murkowski for governor in a Republican primary, Stevens has just won his primary for re-election even though he is under indictment!
But Palin uncovered Republican corruption in the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which she had been appointed to lead. She reported the violations of ethical regulations by her co-commissioner (who also happened to be the Republican Party state chairman). Barred by state law from going public with her charges, she quit and revealed her accusations. She was vindicated when her co-commissioner agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking the state ethics law.
Then, in true McCain style, she took on the state attorney general over his corruption and forced him to resign. Finally, she challenged Gov. Murkowski himself in a primary and won 51 percent of the vote in a three-way contest. Since then, she has line-item-vetoed huge parts of the state budget that she found wasteful and has cleaned house from top to bottom.
Her appointment demonstrates the crucial flaw in the Democratic attack on McCain: the accusation that he is another George W. Bush. Bush chose Cheney. McCain chose Palin. That's emblematic of the difference between them.
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