On Friday, following McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin was his choice for running mate, like way too many others I allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy that this was the stupidest decision of a GOP presidential candidate since Dan Quayle was tapped for the role. Now that my post-DNC sense of invincibility has worn off, however, so has my triumphalism. I woke up yesterday morning with a much different sense of the Sarah Palin choice. I think it’s a trap.
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Of course, Palin is useless for any actual debate on the subject that might require policy expertise and persuasive argumentation. In that, she’s similar to McCain, who is not identified as a Senator with any special knowledge on economic issues, and has been exposed as an out of touch multimillionaire.
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The McCain campaign is going to trot Palin out whenever they need to make the case that they feel America’s pain. They’re going to contrast her story to Obama’s, and even to Biden’s (not the part about being a scrappy kid from Scranton, but the part about being in the Senate for a million years). They’re going to have her stick relentlessly to her personal biography, and avoid at all costs any discussion of policy.And whenever any Democrat attacks her for being inexperienced, they’re going to turn to working class voters and ask why all these Harvard-educated, pointy-headed know-it-alls think that they know better how to help working families than a woman who worked her way through a demanding career while raising five kids, stayed married to her hard-working husband, and was so successful that she became a governor and then a VP nominee.
#24 – QB – Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the father, a senior aide to Sen. John McCain confirmed to CNN Tuesday.
Damage control.
#32 – bobbo, “… And we should read anything else you post because……….”
I really don’t know or care what you do with your time. My arguments stand on their own, as should all poster’s. Of course, ad hominem is a tired and true blog technique.
and, “…guns, and no new taxes has this appeal to 50% of the voters is beyond me.”
Was good enough for the Founders to argue about it and insert Amendment II. Also Art. I, Section 8 specifying powers of Congress to tax and spend, amongst others. Ya, discussion of important issues likes guns and taxes should concern 100% of the electorate. The fact that the country is split 50/50 on these policies should not surprise.
#32 – bobbo, “You think your mom would make a good POTUS.”
An extension of, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
– William F. Buckley, Jr.”
A statement with which I wholeheartedly concur.
Kballweb, why do people use the term disabled instead of handicapped? Disable means you can’t do something, handicapped means it’s harder.
September 01, 2008
Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama
By Gerard Baker
Political experience
Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.
Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state’s government.
Political Biography
Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party’s internal politics: “community organizer”, law professor, state senator.
Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs – sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans..
Political history
Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn’t even live in the state.
Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party.
Appeal
Obama: A very attractive speaker whose celebrity has been compared to that of Britney Spears and who sends thrills up Chris Matthews’ leg
Palin: A very attractive woman, much better-looking than Britney Spears who speaks rather well too. She sends thrills up the leg of Rush Limbaugh (and me).
Executive experience
Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists
Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.
Religious influences
Obama: Regards people who “cling” to religion and guns as “bitter” . Spent 20 years being mentored and led spiritually by a man who proclaimed “God damn America” from his pulpit. Mysteriously, this mentor completely disappeared from public sight about four months ago.
Palin: Head of her high school Fellowship of Christian Athletes and for many years a member of the Assemblies of God congregation whose preachers have never been known to accuse the United States of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus. They remain in full public sight and can be seen every Sunday in churches across Alaska. A proud gun owner who has been known to cling only to the carcasses of dead caribou felled by her own aim.
Record of bipartisan achievement
Obama: Speaks movingly of the bipartisanship needed to end the destructive politics of “Red America” and “Blue America”, but votes in the Senate as a down-the-line Democrat, with one of the most liberal voting records in congress.
Palin: Ridiculed by liberals such as John Kerry as a crazed, barely human, Dick Cheney-type conservative but worked wit Democrats in the state legislature to secure landmark anti-corruption legislation.
Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz – a Democrat – said. “Gov. Palin has made her name fighting corruption within her own party, and I was honored when she stepped across party lines and asked me to co-author her ethics white paper.”
On Human Life
Obama: Devoutly pro-choice. Voted against a bill in the Illinois state senate that would have required doctors to save the lives of babies who survived abortion procedures. The implication of this position is that babies born prematurely during abortions would be left alone, unnourished and unmedicated, until they died.
Palin: Devoutly pro-life. Exercised the choice proclaimed by liberals to bring to full term a baby that had been diagnosed in utero with Down Syndrome.
Now it’s true there are other crucial differences. Sen Obama has appeared on Meet The Press every other week for the last four years. He has been the subject of hundreds of adoring articles in papers and newsweeklies and TV shows and has written two Emmy-award winning books.
Gov Palin has never appeared on Meet the Press, never been on the cover of Newsweek. She presumably feels that, as a mother of five children married to a snowmobile champion, who also happens to be the first woman and the youngest person ever to be elected governor of her state, she has not really done enough yet to merit an autobiography.
Then again, I’m willing to bet that if she had authored The Grapes of Wrath, sung like Edith Piaf and composed La Traviata , she still wouldn’t have won an Emmy.
MikeN, that was pretty silly. Both Palin and Obama worked their way up through different paths. For example, one does not become editor of the Harvard Law Review by pandering at cocktail parties.
They are both interesting candidates and have compelling stories. The biggest difference between them is that one is wholly urban and the other is wholly rural.
#35 – MikeN, thanks for the excellent comparison.
I’m starting my stopwatch for the first post related to Religious Nutcase, or Nazi/Fascist.
#4–geof==obviously, your arguments don’t stand on their own which is why you explain/spin them.
My response was not ad hominem.
The Harvard Faculty is not equivalent to the POTUS.
So, except for every conclusion you make, good post.
#38 “For example, one does not become editor of the Harvard Law Review by pandering at cocktail parties.”
Exactly. You have to have a mind that is geared towards legal minutia & rhetoric. Qualities that make you an excellent lawyer. NOT qualities that help you manage and run large entities with high productivity…
#37–Mike==actually I think you argue a valid point. In my view, there just isn’t enough of a track record to show how long her maverick tactics will be used. I haven’t gotten a good review on why she reversed herself on the bridge to nowhere or on the misuse of power in the troopergate affair.
Yes, she is religious. Very often such people substitute their view of evil for constitutional and administrative restrictions. Thats just fine when you agree with the goal, terrible if you are against the goal, and is procedurally defective.
These anti-abortion creationists care little about other people’s freedoms and should be looked at with disdain as “political leaders.” I agree with McCain–such people as his VP pick are agents of intolerance. Not good for “all” the people.
#41 Paddy-O
LOL That’s like saying the Sarah Palin’s mind is geared towards diaper minutia and PTA rhetoric.
It’s refreshing that it is no longer necessary to be a “middle-aged White guy in a suit” to make it to the White House. That is a good qualification to have dropped.
I’d like to bring up another Palin, Michael, of Monty Python fame (and also of Pole-to-Pole fame; he’s been to Alaska, in a ballsy way). Reminiscing about their magnum opus, “The Meaning of Life”, the Pythons chuckled that most of the budget for the movie was blown in the first few days with the expensively-choreographed, hilariously funny segment, “Every Sperm is Sacred”. Since daughter Palin didn’t know about or didn’t practice birth control, shouldn’t that segment become the Palin theme song?
Begining to look like Palin might be dropped like a HOT POTOAE (Thanks, Dan !!!) !!!
The Republican Way:
“Ooo, you want me for VP? Cool. I’m all yours. Loyalty to the Party. That’s my Prime Directive. Here’s a salute!”
“No, there are no–repeat, NO–skeletons in my closet.”
“Woopsie, pregnant daughter. That’s none of your business. This is the Party of Business, but that’s none of your business.”
“You didn’t ask about a pregnant unmarried daughter. How the hey am I supposed to know what you want? I thought you meant the OTHER kind of closet.”
“Five months. No doubt of it. I said FIVE.”
“Those pix of me at seven months pregger; those are REAL!!!! I just don’t get very big when I get pregger.”
“My daughter had mono for five months before my delivery of sweet little Trig. And now she doesn’t, but she’s pregger.”
“We are cashing in a lot of chits on this one, getting the whole story off onto page nine. You think the Repubs are powerless. Look around.”
“Any more Qs?”
Pregnant Daughter. Hmm. As someone who has actually raised a daughter to adulthood, I can say with all honesty that it is hard. At about 14 they start to hate to you. You can’t do anything right. If you give them an expensive car, you are trying to win their love. If you make them buy their own, you don’t love them (I made mine buy hers).
Luckily, my daughter graduated HS drug-free, jail-free, and child-free.
But I have friends are weren’t so lucky. One friend’s daughter (he has two daughters) has a multi-racial child by a drug dealer . The other daughter is 180 degrees — scholarship, good part time job, etc. He did divorce his wife while the kids were still in HS but why would one go bad and the other not?
People seem to think that as parents you have complete control over everything your kids do. That’s not so. All you can do is teach the lesson. Sometimes it sticks.
What does this have to do with Mrs. Palin? She is obviously human and probably a nervous wreck right now. And her husband is probably cleaning the shotgun getting ready for a wedding.
What does this have to do with the nation’s monetary policy or foreign policy? I haven’t a clue. All the damned Palin articles in this blog are turning it into a tabloid.
I would like to see more articles on the issues and not the spectacles, please.
I think Palin is doing plenty of damage to Dems because so many Dems seem to be doing such a good job making themselves look like bleep over Palin’s family.
Nothing is apt to hurt Obama much worse than bunch of out of control supporters that make people want to spew.
As one man once said, “I can deal with my enemies but God save me from my friends,” or words to that effect.
I think we are giving the GOP way too much credit here.
The other laughable thing was “Bush did 9/11”. Gimme a break, bush is such a moron he couldn’t conduct such an elegant conspiracy.
I attribute such things as 9/11 and Sarah Palin’s VP choice to mere GOP idiocy, which can be so extreme it gets confused with conspiracy.
Just enjoy, it will get worse I can guarantee it. Next thing you know the baby will be from incest, or the daughter gets caught with 1 kilo of colombian cocaine, or Palin actually is a man or something.
A Trap for the Dems ??? No, the INEPT REPUKES just backed McBush INTO A BUZZ-SAW !!! How can John SAVE HIS A$$ ??? New Veep, seems the only way !!!
#47, Tom,
What does this have to do with the nation’s monetary policy or foreign policy? I haven’t a clue. All the damned Palin articles in this blog are turning it into a tabloid.
It demonstrates her integrity. McCain brought her, three of her children, and a grandchild on stage. Palin was held up as a virtuous mother before we even knew what her policies were. She is being shown as disingenuous and how her policy of anti-contraception, anti-sex education, and anti-abortion doesn’t work. Does what else she believes in work as well?
So your point is very valid, her private life shouldn’t matter. Yet because she made it part of her political persona, it has become an open topic. Add this to the fact that she is under investigation for corruption by the Alaska legislature.
Add this to the fact she tried to fire the town Librarian because she wouldn’t ban books Palin thought objectionable. Palin backed down when the Librarian caved. She fired the town Police Chief because he enforced the law as written. She fired the town streets Maintenance Manager because he couldn’t plow all the streets with the budget and reduced manpower given him.
The Dems could trip by making too big a point of her lack of qualifications and directly of McCain as well.
Its been fun so far listening to the liars defending her record.
My favorite so far really has been several who have said “Alaska is close to Russia.” I would never have thought of that one.
I’ve also heard “If you can raise 5 kids you have executive experience.” But that is an old saw brought out routinely.
Twist and shout. Spin and pander.
#52, Bobbo,
You forgot. Alaska also borders Canada. Therefore she has foreign experience on twice the fronts as any other Governor. Plus, there are all the illegal Eskimos from Siberia slipping across the ice.
UPDATE: The illegal Eskimos immigration has stopped for now. Apparently they can’t slip across the ice as the North Pole is ice free. Once the weather cools, look for them to start hitching rides with the Ice Road Truckers.
You can put big ears on Obama but he is still a chauvinist pig. I wonder what is running down Chris Matthews leg now?