McCain's Palin Gambit: Are Americans Weary of the Culture Wars?

After Sarah Palin's acceptance of her party's nomination to the GOP ticket, the pundits couldn't stop praising her speech as "red meat" for the Republican base. If that was considered a red meat speech, why am I left feeling so undernourished? It was almost entirely devoid of policy substance and focused instead on character and personality.

This was not an oversight. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis has already clearly announced his strategy for the rest of the campaign: "This election is not about issues. ... This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." In other words, they are going back to the culture war well for more buckets of slime. This kind of red meat, however, offers little protein and suffers from the proverbial Chinese food complaint: An hour later you're hungry again, for something more substantive.

The culture war strategy tends to get better traction when voters are relatively content and prosperous. It's another matter when people realize the treasury has been looted by Republican cronies; their family members have been sent off to a pointless war; their homes are about to be foreclosed; they can't afford the gas to look for a new job; and hurricanes amplified by global warming are backed up across the Atlantic like the landing pattern at O'Hare. At that point, hope is more filling and satisfying than sarcasm and bitterness. When your country is going down the drain, Obama's "happy talk" trumps McCain's (and Karl Rove's) "silly season." Palin's convention afterglow was more of a sugar rush that will wear off quickly than it was a hearty meal that could sustain the party through November.

The McCain-Palin strategists know that their core voters relate to personalities better than policies. They want this election fought over "Access Hollywood" personality-style reporting rather than wonky PBS snoozefests because Americans tend to have more opinions about celebrity "character and misbehavior" than about dry policy details. This is a double-edged sword, however. If Palin is going to attack Obama on personality and character, then she exposes herself and her family to the same scrutiny. Nothing Palin said in her speech will make up for the fact that she wasn't properly "vetted." Given all the political land mines that litter her personal narrative, it seems as if she was "scouted" for the "Jerry Springer Show" rather than vetted for a presidential race. One can imagine the viral videos that will come out of the next "SNL" episode after Tina Fey picks over this buffet of rich plotlines. The inconvenient truths behind Palin's life story are a comedy writer's dream come true -- what the military calls "a target-rich environment." If it's true that nearly everyone has a water-cooler opinion about celebrity scandals, then McCain's early use of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to attack Obama may yet come back to haunt his running mate.

It's no wonder that the McCain campaign declared that any media reporting on Palin's background should be off limits because it's "sexist" and that the liberal media are "out to destroy her." They cannot quarantine her family and history forever, however, if they are also using them for campaign talking points and photo opportunities. Hence, the devastating "Daily Show" segment on sexism and double standards that aired after her speech should be the first of many hypocrisy fact-checks this season. The facts they turned up are too glaring and funny not to go viral on the Internet and seep into mainstream media coverage. After a few weeks of late-night comedy routines, Palin's convention bounce could land her in a deep crater.

Playing the culture war card has worked for Republicans in the past (and it's the only viable card they have left to play), but to do it through an untested vehicle like Palin is much riskier than doing it through a veteran politico like Mike Huckabee or even Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Moreover, there is a very real danger of culture war weariness in the electorate. Hating liberals won't keep the bank from foreclosing on your home, secure health care for your family or get the kids through college. What worked in the 1990s isn't going to work forever as a new generation of post-baby boom voters come of age. The quasi-fictional Murphy Brown vs. Dan Quayle controversy of the 1988 campaign seems like a quaint museum relic today. Younger voters aren't invested in the cultural and political schisms of the 1960s generation.