Supporters say McCain’s chances of winning this election by sticking to conventional wisdom are next to nil. At a time when the Republican party is hugely unpopular and a charismatic Obama has bestirred the nation, McCain had to do find a way to shake things up. Besides the value of surprise, Palin offered McCain a badly needed political bridge to the conservative base of the Republican party. Throughout his political career, the independent-minded McCain has had difficulty with conservatives. In his 2000 run against George W. Bush it was the Christian right that quickly derailed his candidacy.

By settling on a young conservative —- who is against high taxes, opposes gun control, and is anti-abortion— - McCain has certainly energised the Republican base. Palin, according to the calculations of the McCain campaign, should also help to end Obama’s current monopoly on the appealing slogan - bringing “change” to Washington. Obama’s running mate, Joseph Biden, serving his sixth term in the Senate, is very much the old face of Washington. While she might have a hard time debating Biden on foreign policy, Palin, as the next door working mother, McCain hopes, might sway socially conservative white working folk, the most sought after constituency in this election.

Family values

Barely two days after Palin was presented to the public, the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant opened a new line of attack against the Republican campaign. Obama, on his part, was quick to say that family matters should be off-limits during the campaign. Obama also pointed out that his own mother was only 18 when she gave birth to him.

Obama’s dignity is unlikely to rub off on the media, as it begins to invest big in the Palin story. In a country where there is no line between the personal and the political, Palin will have to survive some hostile scrutiny. The liberal partisans would not let go of the opportunity to debunk the Republican projection of Palin as an epitome of American ‘family values’.

Unlike in Europe and Asia, ‘family values’ remain an enduring locus of America’s culture wars. While the liberal life style of America’s coastal cities is not very different from that of other modern societies, opposition to abortion, pre-marital sex, and gay rights, are deeply held values in the US heartland. This pits the conservatives in an unending war with the liberals.

The McCain campaign says it was aware of the out of wedlock pregnancy of Palin’s teenage daughter when it decided on her as the running mate. It is confident that the story will reinforce her image as an upholder of family values. Palin herself had refused to abort a child with Down’s syndrome. The Republicans also hope that Palin’s support for her daughter’s decision to have the child, rather than abort it, and marry its father would be seen as an honest attempt at coping with a dilemma that most American families could face. What we don’t know at this stage is whether there is more to Palin that might be dug out in the coming days to the discomfort of the Republican campaign.

Political turnover

Beyond the personal, the Palin candidacy underlines a unique feature of American politics, where relative unknowns constantly show up at the top of the political heap. It is impossible to conceive of a Palin-like candidacy in the European democracies. Obama, too, was an obscure figure until recently. When he won the Democratic nomination and the presidency in 1992, Bill Clinton was the governor of a small state of Arkansas in the South with no ‘national experience’.

Thanks to the strong party system in Europe, national leaders emerge as young politicians steadily work their way up. But the United States is a large, diverse and federal democracy, that offers multiple channels for political mobility. These include the very dynamic local and state-level politics and the primary system that allows fresh faces to challenge the incumbents in their own parties.

There is also the pressure on presidential candidates to build effective social and political coalitions across the nation. A powerful media and a flourishing industry of political consultants also make it easier for outsiders to become insiders. It is the rapid turnover in the political leadership that makes the American democracy so very different and unpredictable.

The writer is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg