Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- It takes a lot to reinsert reality into a presidential campaign once it devolves into the wholly trivial. Remember when America decided that a sighing Al Gore was as stiff as his Secret Service name -- Redwood -- and could neither tell nor take a joke, and that George W. Bush, the class clown, won the debate, sort of?
The results of that election finally are in: a crashing economy; a war we chose to fight in a country that didn't attack us at the expense of defeating the terrorists in the country that did; an infrastructure crumbling as fast as Baghdad's; health care a pricey crapshoot, and corporations plundering like pirates.
And yet for two weeks, the country obsessed over a Hockey Mom who could bounce back to work three days after giving birth. It took the fall of mighty Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to remove from the headlines the vital matter of whether ``lipstick on a pig'' is a sexist expression capable of sending Governor Sarah Palin to the fainting couch. Now that Republicans have begun monitoring sexism, they see it everywhere.
With the steepest market crash since 9/11, John McCain finds himself back in the real world of the Lower 48 states, where Palin is one more bubble bursting. In fairness to McCain, it's hard to do two things at once: claim vast experience and skill in maneuvering the levers of power while promising that he and his neophyte sidekick embody ``change'' and are ``coming to Washington to shake it up'' as if he'd never set foot there.
Better Off Now?
McCain is on the record pronouncing the economy and Bush's policies (which he has supported 90 percent of the time) just dandy. He's vowed to continue the Bush tax cuts he once labeled reckless. In January, McCain said Americans were better off than they were eight years ago. He was against helping people survive the mortgage crisis before he was for it.
As the Dow seesawed between awful and catastrophic, McCain, who has admitted he doesn't understand the economy, repeated that ``the fundamentals of the economy are strong.'' He quickly substituted ``workers'' for ``fundamentals'' when he came under fire, although that doesn't make sense either.
McCain touts his experience as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee as a reason to entrust him to end ``reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed'' on Wall Street. But McCain was among the legislators who wanted to leave Wall Street alone. He embraced legislation, along with then-Senator Phil Gramm, that swept aside rules regulating banking and insurance in favor of a free market. This paved the way for American International Group Inc. to become the largest welfare case in history.
Blackberry Inventor
To come up with an accomplishment as commerce chief for McCain, an aide credited the senator with inventing the Blackberry, quite an achievement for a man who says he doesn't do ``the e-mail.'' The claim was later dismissed by the campaign as a staffer's ``boneheaded joke.''
The boneheaded jokester in question happens to be McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who also said McCain didn't have a plan to help the economy because a strong leader doesn't need one. The candidate did propose a ``commission,'' leaving off ``blue-ribbon'' so as not to induce laughter with this old ruse to kick the can down the road.
Then Carly Fiorina, the most ubiquitous of McCain's surrogates, was asked if Palin had the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard Co., which Fiorina once headed before being ousted.
Fiorina said no, ``but that's not what she's running for.'' Sensing a faux pas, she then added everyone in the presidential race to the list of managerial incompetents.
Pulled Off Air
That didn't save her from being pulled off the air by the campaign. She may soon join former McCain campaign co-chairman Gramm in exile. He was deep-sixed after calling those worried about a recession ``a nation of whiners.''
With voters putting down People magazine's cover story on Palin to check out the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Web site to see exactly what ``insured up to $100,000'' means, McCain's pick for vice president looks like a rashly chosen novelty item that may blow up in his face.
Palin's fresh maverick image is getting sullied as her record trickles out. She fired Alaska's public safety commissioner because he allegedly wouldn't get rid of her brother-in-law; now, she's ignoring subpoenas issued by a majority Republican committee investigating it.
She raised spending, embraced earmarks and cut funds for the Special Olympics.
For the Bridge
Her most fetching lines don't bear parsing. Yes, she got rid of the state plane, but at a loss and not on EBay, as she claimed. She fired her chef, but she then charged the taxpayers a per diem for 312 nights of travel when staying at home, as well as expenses for her family.
When pressed, Palin admitted on ABC television that she was actually FOR the ``Bridge to Nowhere,'' but then when campaigning the next day looked straight into the teleprompter and repeated, ``I said `thanks, but no thanks' to that bridge to nowhere.''
Palin's first interview was the opposite of the 1960 presidential debate in which Richard Nixon won on the radio but lost among those who watched. If you saw Palin with the professorial ABC anchor Charlie Gibson, she got through. If you just listened, she was evasive and halting, the shakier her ground, the more defiant she was.
Afterward, leading lights among conservatives, from George Will to David Brooks to Charles Krauthammer conceded she's not up to the job.
If the country decides it cares more about its own survival than lipstick on a pig, McCain may wish he'd chosen an economic guru, not Phyllis Schlafly in a sled, even if she can field dress a moose.
(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
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