The price of voting for Palin

For all my excitement over Sarah Palin, there is a part of me that can't commit to voting McCain-Palin yet. Last week at this time I was almost certainly not going to vote for McCain. Now I'm likely to do it. But what holds me back is what Clark Stooksbury speaks to in this post:

Dreher is free to vote for McCain to spite the Kos Kretins; but he will also be voting for war with Iran and pointless brinksmanship with Russia, funded by another mountain range of debt. A McCain vote also gives a ringing endorsement to the last eight years of unnecessary war, torture and incompetence. In other words, it is a vote to cut off his nose in order to spite his face.

That's very succinctly and accurately put. If I vote McCain in the end, it will have to be in clear sight of these things, and with the faith that the risks that Clark rightly points out I'll be taking are worth the rewards of a Palin ascendancy. In truth, as much as I like Palin, especially for the enemies she's made, I don't know that I can affirm the reward justifies the risk of a McCain presidency.

I don't believe we'll have war with Iran. I do fear pointless brinksmanship with Russia, though I'm not sure that the Democrat will be that much better re: Russia (and might push reckless bellicosity with Pakistan). On the questions of debt, I am actually more hopeful that a Democratic Congress and a Republican president would stand a better chance of reducing the national debt and achieving entitlement reform than a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress -- though truth to tell, I don't believe either Obama or McCain will bring real change to Washington (more's the pity). I mean, look, Obama's campaign is claiming he'll bring tax cuts to 95 percent of middle class taxpayers. This is either not true, or irresponsible, given what the US is facing. (Obviously, the GOP is even worse in this regard).

So, from where I sit, the only real risk in voting McCain-Palin -- and it's a huge one, possibly the biggest one -- is putting into office a bellicose, perhaps reckless, president.

And the practical rewards? Several:

1. The Supreme Court will not have another conservative justice as long as Democrats hold the Senate, but at least it wouldn't have an ultraliberal if McCain was picking him or her.

2. The administration would be dispositionally favorable to social conservatives and our concerns, as opposed to unremittingly hostile.

3. Pro-lifers win a powerful exemplar of pro-life values in a high place, and an advocate at the policy table for a range of "culture of life" policies.

4. A real Sam's Club Republican -- a dynamic and articulate young woman -- is in position to take over the GOP when McCain passes from the scene. As Ross has put it somewhere, Sarah Palin is the kind of Republican young conservatives should want to rise in the party.

5. A politician who comes from somewhere particular, and whose loyalty to a certain place and its traditions shaped her character and worldview, will be suddenly helping lead the Republican Party.

These are perhaps modest gains, and many of them are not altogether tangible now -- I mean, they're premised on promise. But they're not trivial either. After the Palin afterglow subsides, the thing I will be looking at this fall is trying to determine whether the price of a McCain presidency is worth paying to enable a Palin ascendancy. Despite my real enthusiasm for Palin, it's still an open question for me.

Still, Richard Spencer makes a good point that we on the Alternative Right should ponder:

Sure, any of us in the alternative Right who vote Republican this year might end up looking like suckers: We would support a ticket because its figure-head VP looks and talks traditionalist--and be rewarded with Randy Scheuneman and Joe Lieberman cabinet appointments.

But then wouldn't we be remiss if we didn't seize the opportunity the Palin selection affords us and begin pushing for more moose-burger eating Alaskans, and others of this ilk, as Republican Party leaders? The neocons used Reagan as a trojan horse to gain entrance to the GOP, and that worked out pretty well for them. As opposed to drearily talking about how powerless we are, or how Palin wouldn't be legit unless she quotes Wendell Berry in her convention speech, maybe we should try to learn something from our enemies.