For McCain And Palin, A New Etiquette

The International Herald Tribune reports that “For now, the rule is simple: Hug your running mate, kiss your wife”:

When Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, came out on stage to congratulate his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, after her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last week, he gave her a hug, not a handshake. Palin got another hug at a rally here outside Kansas City on Monday.

The same McCain-Palin embrace — businesslike, to the point — was on display at a rally over the weekend in Colorado Springs, but this time McCain’s wife, Cindy, was on stage. Moving quickly after his clasp of his running mate, John McCain took a short side-step and planted a peck on his wife’s cheek.

It has been nearly a quarter century since Walter Mondale almost never touched Geraldine Ferraro in public when they shared the Democratic presidential ticket in 1984, and it is safe to say that times have changed. Back then, Mondale had a strict “hands off” policy and did not even put his palm on Ferraro’s back when the two stood side-by-side and waved with uplifted arms.

Anything more, and “people were afraid that it would look like, ‘Oh, my God, they’re dating,’ ” Ferraro recalled in a brief telephone interview on Monday, of what now seems like a political Victorian age.

A healthy distance between running mates is usually a good thing. Glad to see that McCain and Palin have learned from the costly mistakes made in 2004.