The Palin Pick
I have to admit that I was hoping for a McCain-Romney ticket. But after watching the Democratic National Convention, I’ve become convinced that the Democrats have become the party of style over substance. Even with all the faux unity that Hillary oozed, it’s clear that the Democrats are a party on the verge of crisis.
The word I got from Denver was that the appearance of unity is masking a lot of discontent about the disenfranchising of Hillary supporters by her exclusion from the ticket. There are a lot of 35-64 women who find an Obama-Biden ticket a little nauseating.
So when John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his VP pick, I was initially skeptical. The Obama campaign seized on some of the obvious deficiences of Gov. Palin — too inexperienced, being the main critique. Now, I find this criticism pretty ironic, coming from Sen. Obama, who has spent most of his Senate career running for the White House. Obama has no executive experience. None. Zero. And he’s running for the highest office in the land. And he’s critical of Gov. Palin’s lack of experience?
Even worse, if this statement from the Obama campaign:
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,”
Again, Obama’s campaign belittles and marginalizes small-town America as being irrelevant and out-of-touch. That’s not going to play well in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia.
And as this comparison should remind us, Palin is more qualified for the job Obama is running for than he is.
The other major criticism from the Obama campaign has been Palin’s staunch pro-life stance. Unfortunately for Sen. Obama, who lacked the strength of conviction to walk out of Jeremiah Wright’s church, Gov. Palin has lived out her convictions.
In December, her doctor told her that prenatal tests indicated the child she was expecting in May would be born with Down syndrome, a genetic condition that stems from an extra chromosome and that impedes a child’s physical, intellectual and language development.
Only one year into her governorship and with four children at home already, a child with Down syndrome would present serious challenges. Studies in the late 90s showed that more than 80 percent of prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses end in abortion.
Ending the pregnancy, however, was never an option for the Palins. On April 18, Sarah Palin gave birth to a 6-pound, 2-ounce son, Trig Paxson Van Palin.
“We’ve both been very vocal about being pro-life,” Palin told the Associated Press, speaking of herself and her husband, Todd. “We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential.”
The day after the birth, the Palins released the following statement: “Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.”
And the kinds of attacks found here are disgusting and hardly reflect the kind of campaign that Sen. Obama claims to be running. It smacks of desperation. When you have to gin up this kind of stuff to make inroads, then your candidate is in big trouble.
I like the prospects of Joe Biden losing his mind in a debate with Palin and jumping all over her. If that’s the case, then you can kiss suburban soccer moms goodbye.
Zogby has the race essentially tied, after the DNC and the Palin announcement. Not the kind of bounce that Obama was expecting. Gallup has Obama ahead by 6. CNN has the race virtually tied.
You’ve got to figure that with the GOP about to hold a scaled-down convention that may ultimately minimize their risk to exposure (no Bush, no Cheney, no Schwarzenegger), we may enter the home stretch of this campaign with McCain/Palin in the driver’s seat with Obama/BIden playing catch-up. After all, Obama has played all his cards, in front of 85,000 people in Denver. What’s he got left? Meanwhile, the slow boil of McCain/Palin may simmer along until November quite nicely.
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I’m not a soccer mom…yet… but the pick impresses me. As someone who doens’t care all that much about politics and wasn’t excited to vote for either of the pres. candidates, I think Palin represents something I could cast a ballot for- honesty and integrity and a “no B.S.” approach to running a government. She is a mother of 5 so she has to be pretty good at organizing people and making sound decisions. She actually is what all those Hillary supporters wanted Hillary to be… a woman who shows the world that you can be both woman and in a position of political power without compromising your integrity in either role. McCain won at least one vote with this pick.
There’s not a lot of information that I can find about this election that isn’t anything more than half-truths marinated in propoganda, so having an informed and helpful discussion about said information is going to be difficult or impossible. However, this article (below, hopefully) by a conservative republican pretty much summs up my bafflement at McCain’s choice. That, plus the whole “she’s going to be deposed for a scandle” in Alaska, and the fact that even her conservative republican cronies in Alaska don’t want her to be on the ticket. I don’t think it comes down to experience so much as interest and thus-far-proven aptitude. But McCain’s lack of research on her is the most concerning and baffling to me by far. Anyway, like I said, I don’t intend to persuade, just discuss (with as few half truths as possible, please).
http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#stream/user%2F07619325356886069537%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Fbroadcast
Try this link instead: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/the-shock-of-pa.html
First, Andrew Sullivan is hardly a non-biased source. Is he quoting someone else? Sullivan is hardly a “conservative Republican”. He hasn’t endorsed a Republican since 2000. He’s openly gay and supportive of homosexual rights. He’s more libertarian than conservative. With all that said, whether they are his words or someone else’s, his argument against Palin is weak.
He’s comparing Obama to Palin. That’s apples to oranges. Obama is running on the top of the ticket while Palin is on the bottom of the ticket. They aren’t running for the same office.
In addition, I’m not sure how anyone can argue that Obama has any executive experience of note. Sure, he’s a deep thinker and probably a very smart person. But he’s not running for Dean of Harvard Law. He’s running for President of the United States. He’s spent all but one year in the Senate running for the White House, something he originally claimed he wouldn’t do.
Further, this idea that somehow McCain picked Palin in some knee jerk, shoot from the hip, crazy gut reaction kind of a response is simply ridiculous. In this day and age, does anyone really think that McCain didn’t think this one through? It’s a poltiical gamble, sure. Palin is relatively unknown, and she doesn’t have the political experience of either McCain or Joe Biden, but she’s clearly capable of holding her own at the executive level. Let’s be honest about that.
Um?! Obviously Sullivan is neither conservative nor republican, so obviously the quote I linked you to was not his. You’ll have to actually read what I sent you to before I’ll comment further.
I did read the link. Sullivan is quoting an unnamed conservative. That’s a pretty poor rhetorical technique. Attribute those ideas to someone or claim them yourself. He’s making an appeal to authority of sorts, which is a terrible logical fallacy.
The idea that McCain’s decision to pick Palin is somehow an example of McCain = Bush, it’s once again a logical fallacy.
These are simple-minded conclusions. Can’t we have a debate about ideas rather than personalities?