Republican presidential candidate John McCain stunned the US political establishment and bolstered his image as a maverick by choosing the little-known governor of Alaska as his running mate in the race against Democrat Barack Obama.
McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin also means that no matter who wins in November, US history will be made: Either the first black man will become president or the first woman will be vice president.
Palin offers risks and rewards for McCain. The choice of a 44-year-old, first-term governor to be his vice president could undermine one of McCain’s main campaign themes: that Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator, is too inexperienced to become president.
But Palin, whose nomination was announced on Friday, could help McCain rally social conservatives, a core Republican constituency that has had an uneasy relationship with McCain. Palin has a strong anti-abortion record and opposes gay marriage.
“I have found the right partner to help me stand up to those who value their privileges over their responsibilities, who put power over principle, and put their interests before your needs,” McCain told a crowd of supporters.
Choosing a young, female unknown could buttress McCain’s reputation as an unconventional candidate.
Both McCain and Obama are running against the political status quo, but Obama consistently notes that McCain has been in Washington for decades and regularly ties him in with the unpopular US President George W. Bush.
Vice presidential choices seldom have much effect on the presidential election. But McCain’s choice received extra scrutiny because of his age and bouts with skin cancer. He turned 72 on Friday and would be the oldest, first-term president in US history. If he dies or is incapacitated in office, Palin would succeed him — a point stressed by Obama’s campaign in pointing to her resume. She is only two years into her first term in governor, and her previous experience was as a small town mayor.
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Adrianne Marsh, a spokeswoman for Obama, said in a written statement.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS