Ex-Rival Says Palin Lacks Substance

Hundreds of students gathered in senior suites and House common rooms last Thursday to watch the showdown between Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden. While many people—from students to pundits—were vocal in their opinions of the candidates’ performances, few have the inside view of Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin for governor of Alaska in 2006.

Halcro, who attended an executive education program at the Kennedy School in 2003 and another at the Business School the following year, served as a Republican member of the Alaska House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002.

Halcro said that his chief disappointment in the gubernatorial race was that the campaign lacked substance—a criticism he specifically directed toward Palin.

“The fact is that Governor Palin’s message on issues never matured during the nine months that I was on the campaign trail with her,” Halcro said. “It didn’t have to because she was so good at populist appeals that she was never forced to understand how you improve health care in a state where we have so many uninsured people.”

Halcro said that Palin’s approach to the debate last Thursday was identical to her debating style in the gubernatorial race.

“Her performance in the debate was pretty much the same,” he said. “Stay on message, and provide sound byte after sound byte. There was no depth or specifics, and what I saw Thursday was certainly what I saw in 2006. How do you get away filling a 45-second segment with nothingness?”

Halcro did praise Palin’s political savvy, attributing her popularity to her ability to connect with voters.

“Governor Palin is charismatic, likeable, and has a compelling story that people want to relate to,” he said. “People want to like her. They view her as the girl next door, someone who will go to Juneau or Washington and fight the good fight for the people. She makes people feel like she has their best interests at heart, and that’s why she’s been so successful.”

While Halcro, like Palin, is a registered Republican, he decided to mount his 2006 gubernatorial campaign as an independent due to concerns about his ability to win the GOP nomination.

“I’m a moderate Republican, and we don’t survive closed Republican primaries because the conservative base always shows up,” Halcro said, referring to the fact that independents can’t vote in the Republican primary. “If I was going to invest my time and money, I wanted to actually get to the dance.”

As for his thoughts on the current race as a whole, Halcro—who is not publicly supporting either the Democratic or Republican ticket—expressed happiness with the emerging strength of the youth vote.

“I’ve been watching politics for 13 years now, and the one thing that’s really impressive this cycle is the motivation of the youth vote,” he said. “I never could figure out why the 18 to 24 age demographic didn’t catch fire beforehand and why they were reluctant to get involved.”

“When I was at Washington University [in St. Louis], the atmosphere was electric,” Halcro added. “The student body was unbelievable in terms of its enthusiasm for the election, an important fact because this country needs a fundamental change. There are just too many problems for us to leave for the future.”

—Staff writer Prateek Kumar can be reached kumar@fas.harvard.edu.