It goes without saying that the absurd selection of Sarah Palin to be John McCain's running mate is most interesting for what it says about McCain: Impulsive, daring, irresponsible, unable in the end to stand up for himself. But it says even more about the state of the Republican Party. The gleeful exclusion Monday night of the once-popular, now-detested two-term incumbent president suggests a party struggling to shed an old persona and adopt a new one. It was clear from the meager presidential field that the old party was finished: Notable figures from the late '90s and the Bush era, like former Wisconsin Governor and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson or former Senator Fred Thompson disappeared without a trace, leaving only Mitt Romney, the idiosyncratic McCain, and the social conservative Mike Huckabee -- two of them governors who had no connection to Bush, and one Senator who had simultaneously kept his distance and made his peace with Bush. But for vice president, it was clear that McCain had to find some way to cross over and find the next Republican Party. Because there is no alternative, it had to be some version of the "Sam's Club Republican" agenda advocated by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam that combines social conservatism with some modicum of support for struggling working families. The problem is, there are no actual Sam's Club Republicans. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty coined the phrase but in office has been a standard issue tax-cutting, infrastructure-neglecting right-winger. He was on McCain's short list, but evidently didn't make it -- perhaps because a guy who just cut his mullet is still a guy with a mullet! And that left Palin. The ordinary struggles of her family, the fact that her husband is a union member (Did Democrats boast about their candidates or their families being union members?) and the fact that she has a vaguely populist pitch about standing up to oil companies made her the closest thing to a Republican who could speak to the concerns to working class voters. The fact that she was probably at least one full term as governor away from crossing the threshold of credibility as a national candidate was the major downside, but what choice did they have. Unfortunately, as with Pawlenty and Huckabee, the problem is that Palin isn't much of a Sam's Club Republican either. She's pretty much a standard issue conservative, and as a right-wing populist, she has more scary views than reassuring ones. I think that because of some combination of personal life chaos, abuse of official power, dalliance with a secessionist party, or something we don't know about, she will be dropped from the ticket. But then the dilemma for McCain comes right back: Who to pick? The old Republican Party of Bush and Romney is dying; the new one is a long way from being born. The paradox that led to Palin is the state of today's Republican Party and conservative movement. --Mark Schmitt
