Shared Values and Common Purpose

John McCain has an opinion piece in today's Australian. McCain's real connection with Asia and the South Pacific and committment to free trade are the best reasons why bloggers like The Hive, for example, are so excited about McCain's candidacy. The argument for McCain from an Antipodean point of view is put pretty well by Andrew Shearer at the Lowy Interpreter here.

It's heartening that as well as canvassing the long history of the Australia-US alliance and issues such as terrorism McCain includes a strong statement backing US leadership on climate change and against torture. The foreign policy statements seem to me to have a considerable neo-con, rather than Republican realist, flavour. (I can't resist noting that while it's true that Australians have "suffered terrible terrorist attacks" it shouldn't escape our attention that Australia has not.)

New Zealand readers of course will skim for that all important "Z"

In Asia this means engagement must begin with our allies. Our alliance with Australia sets the standard. Our ally Japan has proved a strong and reliable partner to the US and Australia. South Korea is taking on new global responsibilities. We can reinvigorate our traditional alliances with Thailand and The Philippines and build on newly strengthened partnerships with Singapore and India. And we should recognise our shared values and common purpose with New Zealand.

Now is that the same as small-a "allies"? Having run through 'allies' and 'partners' we get 'and we should recognise'? The tone is quite grudging.

Sarah Palin

McCain's choice of running mate is perplexing.

The first big problem I see is that the big McCain message of experience appears to be completely blown. Apparently the cable talking heads are hitting McCain surrogates very hard on this issue. Ezra Klein:

Watching the McCain flacks in a continual state of meltdown on CNN, it's striking how swiftly their central defense of Palin is backfiring. When the anchors question her experience -- 19 months in the Alaska statehouse, and before that the mayoralty of an 8,000 person town -- they question Obama's experience. Game, set, match? Not really.The problem for the McCain campaign, as Campbell Brown pointed out, is that Barack Obama doesn't think four years in the US Senate and eight in the Chicago statehouse are insufficient. It's the McCain campaign that believes Obama is inexperienced.

The second big problem seems to be that it's simply too much to ask someone, no matter how talented, to go straight from the Alaska governor's mansion into the heat of a presidential campaign, there will be a lot of public misteps. James Fallows at the Atlantic:

Let's assume that Sarah Palin is exactly as smart and disciplined as Barack Obama. But instead of the year and a half of nonstop campaigning he has behind him, and Joe Biden's even longer toughening-up process, she comes into the most intense period of the highest stakes campaign with absolutely zero warmup or preparation. If she has ever addressed an international issue, there's no evidence of it in internet-land.

The smartest person in the world could not prepare quickly enough to know the pitfalls, and to sound confident while doing so, on all the issues she will be forced to address. This is long before she gets to a debate with Biden; it's what the press is going to start out looking for.

Thirdly, I wouldn't be picking someone who was currently undergoing this kind of inquiry.