Opinion - Editorials

Republicans promise change

The Republican Party’s nominee for the 2008 presidential election, John McCain, evidently believes that he can hoodwink his way into the White House. After eight years spent in defending the Bush administration’s disastrous foreign and domestic policies 90 per cent of the time, the four-term Senator now presents himself as an agent of change. In his speech accepting the nomination at the party convention at St. Paul, Minnesota, the Republican standard-bearer tried to show that he was still a maverick. He promised to end the bipartisan rancour that has stymied Washington and to take on vested interests even within his own party when necessary. It is a fact that no candidate from the Grand Old Party can hope to win by casting himself as a symbol of continuity. Public opinion surveys conducted over several months have consistently shown that 80 per cent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Mr. McCain perhaps believes that positioning himself as a change-agent is a risk worth taking because he has secured the party base by picking a red-hot conservative as his running mate. Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential nominee, showcased her pro-life, pro-gun, pro-tax break credentials to galvanise the faithful at the convention. The delegates might have left St. Paul more upbeat than they were on arrival. However, to go by the speeches delivered, there were few signs that the Republicans were on the same wavelength as the millions of voters who are grappling with hard times.

In choosing Ms Palin as his running mate, Mr. McCain was making a blatant play for two constituencies that overwhelmingly preferred Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Whether this ploy will work with socially conservative white working class voters should become clear in a few weeks when the vice-presidential candidates start butting heads. Ms Palin and Democrat Joe Biden can both claim roots in this section of the electorate. However, it is highly unlikely that women voters will flock to a woman who opposes not only abortion but even sex education. Several skeletons have tumbled out of the cupboard after the Alaska Governor was given the second slot on the Republican ticket. Ms Palin, who supposedly opposes pork-barrel politics, was not averse to wheedling sizable funds out of Washington during her gubernatorial tenure and earlier when she was a small town mayor. The Republican running mate is also said to have misused her power to settle a family problem and to have tried to browbeat a librarian into censoring books she disliked.

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