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Thoughts on Sarah Palin
04 Sep 2008 09:34 am
They're a little scattered, since I spent the speech lying in bed and wheezing. So, bullet points. - This woman is an Obama-level political natural. She is a ferociously good speaker, and almost preternaturally composed.
- Sarah Palin is what the McCain camp has badly needed: an attack dog who can be deployed against Obama. She slides the stiletto in without either losing her femininity or coming across as catty, and given that she's married to an eskimo, it's going to be hard to fit her into the narrative of conservative closet racists trying to perpetuate white domination.
- She's going to be a hard act for McCain to follow tonight
- The Democrats are, as my colleague Clive Crooks notes, in trouble. Whatever you think of her as a potential president, she is a politically brilliant choice, and Democrats are going to have a very hard time finding traction to attack her.
Well, the Democrats have a problem. They had a few days of calling
her a clueless redneck, a stewardess, a nonentity, and she has hurled
that back in their bleeding gums. (If I were Joe Biden, I'd start
practising for October 2nd right now.) Even before tonight's speech,
they had backed off the "no experience" strategy, because (as the
Republicans intended) that was sending shrapnel in Obama's direction.
Their line right now is their default mode, that McCain-Palin is four
more years of George Bush. But this too is a completely untenable
strategy, since the Republican ticket now looks stunningly fresh to
voters, as fresh in fact as Obama-Biden. Where they will have to end up
is obvious: McCain-Palin is an extreme right-wing ticket. It is a team
that will prosecute the culture war against all that is decent and
civilized in the United States: that must be the line.
- Many Democratic bloggers are itching to go after this woman for all of her perceived flaws. I understand why, but if they do so, they are very likely to get McCain elected. If I were a Democratic strategist right now, I would be telling the campaign to pretend she doesn't exist. There is simply no way to attack her without alienating the swing voters they need by sending the message: "People like you are idiots who can't be trusted to make important decisions", and also, triggering the social opprobrium that falls on men who say nasty things about women. What can I say? Sometimes sexism works in womens' favor.
- The McCain/Palin ticket represents something that I think is fairly troubling: a sort of parody of traditional gender roles. McCain is, and is running as, a hyper-macho flyboy, one whom I personally find disappointingly adolescent. Palin's speech seemed to imply that her main qualification for office is having five kids and a great husband. What man would have characterized himself as a "hockey Dad" when introducing himself as a candidate for the second highest office in the land? Being a parent is hard and important, but it is no more a good qualification for higher office than is being a journalist, which is also hard and important. Palin's entire persona seems crafted to be the anti-Hillary: no man will find her a challenge to his masculine ego. I do not like the fact that this seems to be more successful than running on, say, actual policy positions.
- I have no reason to think that she would be a particularly bad president. Obama hasn't any more relevant experience than she has; he's simply been coaching for the thing longer. If he can get up to speed to be president in 18 months, presumably so can she, and I think its reasonable to expect McCain to live that long. We do not elect presidents because they are experts on everything that will come up during their presidency--they couldn't possibly be. We elect them because we think they have good judgement and values that match our own. Contra my Democratic friends, I'm not sure that voters will see "But McCain really might die in office!" as a bug, rather than a feature.
- The "hockey Mom" schtick is a political lie. You could not possibly be a hockey Mom and the vice president of the United States, or for that matter, governor of Alaska. Todd is a hockey Mom. Sarah Palin, whatever she has done in the past, is now exactly like male politicians: someone else is doing the main work of raising her kids. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, of cours, and as political hogwash goes, it's pretty low-grade.
- She really is more like ordinary voters than the other politicians here. Wail all you want about how she's super-pro-life, has five kids, and lives in a tiny town. Sarah Palin is not a member of an upper-middle-class elite that has been groomed all its life to seize the power they've been told they're entitled to. She doesn't vacation in Europe or go to the opera. Neither do most of the voters she's trying to attract.
- I'll be surprised if McCain doesn't get a sizeable convention bump. Democrats are in denial about the trouble--which I too find inexplicable--that the Obama campaign is in.
- As a person I like her. Politically, I dislike what she represents: populism, culture warmongering, and especially, the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility. I don't blame her for doing these things, since they seem to work. But I don't like living in a society where this works.
- Obama is already having HUGE trouble with the union rank and file in the old guard unions. I don't know what's happening in up-and-coming unions like the SEIU, but in traditional unions like the Laborers, leadership endorsement has failed to translate into support from the membership. The fact that Todd Palin was a steelworker is probably going to pull more of those people into the Republican camp, though of course, McCain's stance on trade will continue to cost him a lot of votes with the Steel and Auto workers.
- We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio.
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This post is proof that she successfully rallied the base.
"Married to an eskimo"? Are you heavily medicated?
Te Democrats are in denial about "being in trouble" because they're not in trouble. And Palin will still be attacked freely because her record as presented by the Repigs is a load of crap. Remember - she was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.
This is a pol who led a 527 for TED STEVENS. Some "reformer."
You know less about politics than the average moose does.
Brittain33:
According to polls, McCain already solidified the base. It's the independents they need to win.
There's always the risk of only posting things that agree with your opinion, but here's the only focus group I could find about the speech:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080903/NEWS15/80904002
If you're implying that I'm voting for McCain, Brittain33, you couldn't be more wrong. But she isn't hateful, any more than Obama is--or rather, she's hateful in exactly the same way Obama is, which is that she's damn good, and if you disagree with her, that's hateful.
JK's conscience, I know. That's why I'm not taking the same lesson from Palin's speech that some others are.
The main problem, I think, is that her speech was full of pretty obvious lies, and there is a slim chance that the media might call her out on them.
That and the fact that I have significantly greater foreign and economic policy knowledge, expertise, and experience than Palin, even though I'm just some dude surfing the web in my underwear.
"We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio."
So true. And how far we've come. I remember naively believing, when the extraordinary reality of a McCain-Obama matchup actually overcame the depressing inevitability of a Romney-Clinton campaign, that this year would be different, that it would be about issues, that we'd finally escape from all the culture warring of the Clinton and Bush years.
It's unsurprising that politics remains politics as usual even when the candidates aren't good old boys and connected coastal elites (quick quiz: which of those descriptors applies to GWB? Trick question - they both do! That's what makes him so infuriatingly special). Doesn't mean it's not depressing. November can't come soon enough.
"But she isn't hateful, any more than Obama is--or rather, she's hateful in exactly the same way Obama is, which is that she's damn good, and if you disagree with her, that's hateful."
Megan, surely you picked up on the extremely sarcastic and harsh personal criticism of Obama. ("Screw you, community organizers!") I don't think we've ever heard that sort of thing from Obama.
Megan writes: "she's hateful in exactly the same way Obama is"
Wrong. Palin is a flat-out liar, something Obama is not. When she claimed Obama and Biden were "sneering at her for being a smalltown mayor" she was quite simply lying. They haven't done anything of the sort.
Here's where criticism of Palin needs to go. She's a creationist who would like to see creationism taught in schools. She wanted to practice censorship over library content and tried to fire the librarian who resisted her efforts.
I do realize there are a lot of religious people in the US and these may seem to them more, as you say, features than bugs. But, this extremism really needs to be publicized widely.
Then, if the electorate elects her, they will get exactly what they deserve. Stupid, after all, is as stupid does.
"We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio."
So true. And how far we've come. I remember naively believing, when the extraordinary reality of a McCain-Obama matchup actually overcame the depressing inevitability of a Romney-Clinton campaign, that this year would be different, that it would be about issues, that we'd finally escape from all the culture warring of the Clinton and Bush years.
It's unsurprising that politics remains politics as usual even when the candidates aren't good old boys and connected coastal elites (quick quiz: which of those descriptors applies to GWB? Trick question - they both do! That's what makes him so infuriatingly special). Doesn't mean it's not depressing. November can't come soon enough.
You don't think she'd be a bad president, huh? A radically anti-abortion creationist who thinks the Iraq War is being waged as part of God's will? I'm sorry but 18 months on the job as governor of possibly the most corrupt state in the union is The McCain - Palin ticket is worse than Bush-Cheney. Hell, I'll say right now that given a choice between this act and a third Bush term, I'd go with Bush. Great blogging as always Megan.
Megan McArdle:
What are you talking about??? She was a former sportscaster!! Her job, once upon a time, was to read from a teleprompter. Who is her speech supposed to appeal to? McCain has to win over Independents. is he going to do it with her speech? This is the first time most of the public saw her. Do you like it when you meet someone for the first time and they are on the attack and lie a lot?
I'm not implying that you're voting for McCain, any more than I would imply that you're not pro-choice, don't support gay marriage, etc. It's not relevant to your role in the partisan split or how you position yourself to be heard, or how you feel about the parties and who you identify with and who you repeatedly criticize, more in sadness than in anger, for doing such a disservice to your shared views.
As far as the audience for people who already have a side they support and a side they have an antipathy to, orthogonal to their stands on the issue, she is successful at rallying one side.
If Palin wins over libertarians who have contempt for Democrats, well, color me scared.
Aaron Bergman:
Isn't that the focus group where Independents were even more turned off then Democrats?
Just stopped in to get the views of the "we make our own reality" crowd would be. Not very convincing, Megan, if I do say so. How is it that Obama leads in every poll and is in trouble? Why did McCain find it necessary to go with such a risky pick (who I think backfired with independents last night)? Because, my esteemed pundit, its McCain who's in big, big trouble, not Obama. As the reality-based world well recognizes.
I agree with some of what you said, but I get annoyed with this one line of thinking: "If he can get up to speed to be president in 18 months, presumably so can she, and I think its reasonable to expect McCain to live that long. We do not elect presidents because they are experts on everything that will come up during their presidency--they couldn't possibly be. We elect them because we think they have good judgement..."
The problem that I have with Palin is that she doesn't seem to even have an opinion, or have thought deeply thought about, foreign policy. You absolutely cannot say that of Obama (even Obama of 18 months ago) and, if you read the record, you couldn't have said that about Clinton in 1992. She might be a political juggernaut--and, I know, that's what wins--but I would be concerned with her as President not because of her experience, but because of her lack of interest this far into her life about the most important thing that a President does: guide foreign, security and military policy.
Despite your Palin love, I don't think this speech played well at all with independents. She came across as callow and petty. She came off as incredibly presumptuous. Who is she to be criticizing anyone? She's been on the national scene for 5 days. See my take here: http://www.theeliotinside.com/2008/09/palin-speech-ctd.html
To be concise: for a vegetarian, you have as big an appetite for the red meat she was serving up as any registered Republican. You've dished it out yourself on many occasions, as a Libertarian who despises the Democrats and their constituent groups. I don't care if you're motivated by hate or simple partisan interest; it's irrelevant. I'm saying that taking your own temperature to measure the response to a partisan speech is of limited value for the purposes you're making of it.
But she isn't hateful, any more than Obama is--or rather, she's hateful in exactly the same way Obama is, which is that she's damn good, and if you disagree with her, that's hateful.
As I said elsewhere, it's a fun exercise to read Obama's debut speech, the keynote at the convention, and Palin's speech here. One could say that her role as vice presidential nominee is different than Obama's as keynoter, but I think Rudy Giuliani's speech belies that.
Palin got up there and delivered attack lines well. So did Giuliani. Talk about low expectations. All it takes is a bit of well-delivered red meat, and it's the best speech ever? One week from now, tell me a single line anyone will remember from Palin's speech. Besides her remarks about special needs children, tell me a single inspirational thing she said.
Was it an effective speech? Well, it certainly fired up the base and the pundits. Beyond that, beats me. But it certainly wasn't a great speech. If this is the rise of a new talent, it's a talent for being an attack dog. I prefer someone inspirational.
And this idea (also promulgated by Ross) that she shouldn't be attacked is silly. Ham-handed attacks that smack of cultural elitism won't work, but they rarely do with anyone. Her deceit about earmarks and abuse of power, on the other hand, are fair game and if the Obama campaign aren't the pusillanimous twist that a fair chunk of the Democratic pundit class is, they'll go after her full force.
Palin's speech was successful with her base, but then again her base loved her from the outset. What we don't know is how the rest of the country will react. At this point it is purely speculative to say that she'll attract independents to the McCain ticket. VP's typically factor little into a voter's presidential choice. I haven't seen any evidence to date that would suggest this year would be any different. Once the hyperventilating from right ceases, we can more accurately gauge her impact on the election & her qualifications for the position.
What is disconcerting, and what Megan rightly points out, is that as much as possible, Republicans want to make this election about personalities not issues. Rick Davis said so the other day & they've been true to their word. That's unfortunate for the country. We have a number of serious issues that need serious debate.
twist -> twits
" ...We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war,..."
Megan: You kind of lost me with that comment. Why isn't culture a legitimate policy issue? I would think that our culture is our most prized possession, the one thing that we would want to pass along to our grandchildren, and far more important than any material possessions.
As a purely emotional and illogical aside: You and most of your readers are probably way too young to remember, but last night's speech really took me back to Camelot. It really seemed so reminiscent of the early Kennedy years: The young, articulate candidate with the photogenic family, etc. ... just the gender roles were reversed.
OK Megan, you just officially jumped-the-shark and have lost all credibility with me. This will be the last time I read your blog. To make such over-the-top statements based on one appearance from an unknown politician reading prepared remarks in an incredibly friendly environment, which were almost entirely policy free is just absurd. It shows you're just another easily manipulated automaton. She could very well turn out to be an incredible politician, but don't you think you're jumping the gun just a bit early?
Answer me this: Where has she shown "good judgment" so far? She may have it, I'd just like you to give an example rather than an emotional statement.
This libertarian thinks you just blew your libertarian cred all to hell with such a poorly written blog post. Like I said; she may turn out to be an incredible politician (or a disaster), but we simply don't know enough to make any kind of decision.
Good-bye!
Megan you're an Obama voter. She trashed your candidate. Even I understand some confusion about your reaction.
I thought the speech was quite good for the core audience of Republicans. I did spot some troubling distortions and misrepresentations though. Still the idea that she was a disastrous combination of militia-member and Fundamentalist preacher seems to have been overblown.
Yes, McCain has a hard act to follow, but I predict his absolute best tonight. It is tonight that his campaign strategy will be laid out- true reform, true change. It won't even matter if the details or his ability to get anything passed as president is in doubt.
It is ironic, but Obama is the candidate that made this election about change, but, for some unfathomable reason, promises less and less that can be called true change. McCain plans to take advantage of this. This is why Palin was selected over such others as Hutchinson.
What exactly have Republicans to be so angry about? They dominate small-town PTAs (as I can attest), the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years, the White House for the last 8 years... If the country is not as they would wish it to be, whose fault is it?
I've spent the better part of my life fighting (unsuccessfully) against petty small-town tyrants like Gov. Palin, but she's on a major party's national ticket, not me. How many times does her side need to win before they accept the fact that THEY are the elites, and that individualists, libertarians, and nonconformists are perpetual outcasts and losers in the public square? Do I have to burn my own books to satisfy her and her ilk?
I'm a bit worried about the McCain/Palin energy policy. (Especially drilling in ANWR) I think that one of the best things we can do is support 'green' business. For example, http://www.simplestop.net stops your postal junk mail and benefits the environment.
PS- If you're down at Sully's on U St., and hear some guy snickering at you all night, it's probably me.
Here's where criticism of Palin needs to go. She's a creationist who would like to see creationism taught in schools. She wanted to practice censorship over library content and tried to fire the librarian who resisted her efforts.
I do realize there are a lot of religious people in the US and these may seem to them more, as you say, features than bugs. But, this extremism really needs to be publicized widely.
Then, if the electorate elects her, they will get exactly what they deserve. Stupid, after all, is as stupid does.
Don't forget - she's got what Americans crave! She's got electrolytes!
My job isn't to get angry about her attacking Obama--or him attacking her. I don't think it will work, but I think it is personally legitimate, except when the lunatics start fulminating about how Trig is Todd's incestuous love-child, or Sarah Palin is forcing her daughter to get married. She attacked him on perfectly legitimate ground, and yes, the Obama campaign was indeed pushing the no-experience line until they realized it was backfiring.
I hated her speech--just ask the friend who listened to me rant for forty minutes last night, after the wheezing stopped, about what this says about what America thinks about powerful women. But I'm not her target audience, on so many levels. I'm betting the people who are her target audience--the union voters who supported Hillary, the exurban families, the rural northern Republicans sick of Bush, and so forth--loved it.
People keep saying she won't attract independents. You're thinking of the wrong independents. We're not talking about parents on Long Island (or places with similar demographics) who are social liberals but fiscally moderate or conservative. Obviously, they may be scared off by Palin. We're talking about independents in Ohio, who are true red-staters culturally, but sometimes think the Democrats would be better for them economically or that the Republicans are corrupt and aren't worth voting for. Palin is a perfect candidate for these people. She talks about taking on the good ol' boys network. She says she's going to clean up corruption. And I'm sure soon enough she'll say "Joe Biden may talk about taking the Amtrak train home every night to Deleware, but I drove myself 90 minutes each way to the State Capitol. I've started a business. I'm a hockey mom. Who do you think understands your day-to-day problems more, a man who's been in the Senate his whole life, or me?
Megan,
You may have some cred among libertarians (though by pulling for Obama/Biden you pretty much negate that).
But let's be clear: You're also a New York kid, a recovering liberal who went to a 100% liberal high school, and you were educated in the heart of the Obama/Daley vortex in Chicago (NTTATWWT!)
You are a card-carrying member of the coastal cultural elite, on the full-time payroll of the same people who pay Andrew Sullivan.
Of COURSE you don't like what you perceive as culture war. Because this phenomenon that you call culture war is nothing more than most of America telling your media colleagues that they have taken their privileges and abused the public trust.
You, personally, have not, in my view. But Andrew Sullivan has, as has anyone who continues to bankroll his panty-sniffing hysteria lately. (I used to admire the guy, and my own blog was started with Sully as my primary influence.)
Natch, it goes way beyond the Atlantic (which has, indeed published some great stuff over the years). But what you're hearing isn't properly described as 'culture war.' The phrase 'culture war' is a lie coined by members of your tribe in order to dismiss their critics without dealing with the substance of their arguments (Jay Rosen, are you listening?)
To paraphrase Truman, what you're hearing is the rest of America, now with some publishing reach of our own (through blogs, etc. and now with an able champion in Palin, it seems) telling you what WE think, and you think it's culture war.
She's a natural on par with Obama? I disagree. One of Obama's great strengths is that his words and his speaking rhythm are allies in conveying what the message of his speech. Sarah Palin makes bizarre, unintuitive choices about which words to accent that really bother me as a listener. I also have a hard time taking anyone with the Alaskan/Canadian accent seriously. Imagine Sarah Palin (or a man with her accent) saying, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Just doesn't have the same force.
So if remove the fact that you are a member of the media, and are thus constitutionally required to frame everything, always, as bad for Democrats, what are we left with? Over and over and over again, history teaches us that people don't vote for the Vice President. Every election cycle, the media makes it out that the VP nod is the most important thing, and every election day, poll after poll reveals the fallacy of this kind of thinking. Who is Palin supposed to steal from Obama? This was a sop to the right wing base. Guess what? The right wing base isn't going to vote for Barack Obama under any circumstances. (Even if he were white!) I'm sure you're imagining that the election will be fought over women. But the people McCain actually had to energize was technocratic fiscal conservative men-- exactly the kind of people who would have been pleased with a Romney pick. Women are not going to vote against Barack Obama in significant numbers, and all of the early polling confirms that.
Is this going to be a tough fought, difficult election? Sure. McCain has an enormous advantage in the fact that the media has such a huge crush on him. But Obama has the fundamentals; he has the personal charisma and aesthetics; and he has the narrative. I'm feeling ok right now.
By the way, the Democrats aren't saying the things you're saying they are, and there are no Democratic bloggers. Stop pretending that people who like Obama speak for Obama, or start attacking McCain for calling Obama a drug-sniffing Muslim. Intellectual consistency requires such things.
The phrase 'culture war' is a lie coined by members of your tribe in order to dismiss their critics without dealing with the substance of their arguments (Jay Rosen, are you listening?)
You say, in the midst of a several paragraph long post that has not a single argument about policy within it.
Palin is also a subtle Southern Strategy. She's perceived as a home-spun white bread All American (i.e., white) gal who doesn't know how the do organizing in urban communities, but wants to return to a simpler America...
Get ready for an overdose of "shares your values" and vapid insights from pseudo-independent, pseudo-libertaian blogger pundits. We're doomed.
Come on, neither Biden nor Obama is "a member of an upper-middle-class elite that has been groomed all its life to seize the power they've been told they're entitled to." Both travel in elite circles now, but they've had to work their way in, much as Sarah Palin is doing right now. And little Trench or Tootsie Palin (or more likely Johnston) will be born with more of a leg up than Obama had as the child of a similarly young mother.
Speaking of the abuse of public trust, Rasmussen just published a poll that found that a majority of American voters believes that the media writ large is actively trying to harm Sarah Palin.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/51_say_reporters_are_trying_to_hurt_palin_39_say_she_has_better_experience_than_obama
If there's a culture war going on, it's your tribe that bombed Pearl Harbor and shot the Archduke.
Speaking of the abuse of public trust, Rasmussen just published a poll that found that a majority of American voters believes that the media writ large is actively trying to harm Sarah Palin.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/51_say_reporters_are_trying_to_hurt_palin_39_say_she_has_better_experience_than_obama
If there's a culture war going on, it's your tribe that bombed Pearl Harbor and shot the Archduke.
Whatever you think of her as a potential president, she is a politically brilliant choice, and Democrats are going to have a very hard time finding traction to attack her.
If Obama and Co. can't get traction calling out all the lies in her speech, then we are indeed in serious trouble.
Seriously, do you ACTUALLY believe that "Democrats are going to have a very hard time finding traction" against a rabidly divisive pro-lifer, dominionist, home-schooler, and ex-beauty queen who in 4 days has already been caught in a handful of lies?
I'm happy that the repubs finally have someone on the ticket who can read from a teleprompter, but let's not pretend that her speech "proves" anything. Sooner or later she's going to have to stand up live and answer questions about topics that actually matter to people, and her speech last night didn't prove anything except that she knows how to repeat juvenile rightwing boilerplate insults.
Let's talk about what's really happening:
1) McCain based his entire campaign since Day 1 about roping in indeps and Reagan Dems; That strategy has now gone out the window.
2) Obama's message since Day 1 has been let's put an end to partisan slime. This message has been well received. Palin's schtick merely plays into his hands.
3) People forget that the actual #1 job of a politician is campaigning, not governing. If it wasn't, Gore & Kerry would've been elected. Like it or not, experienced pols get where they are because they're good on the stump. As an example, 1/2 of NY hated Hillary when she ran for Senate, and probably more than half agreed with the positions Rick Lazio was pitching. But she creamed him because he was a neophyte and looked it when he was in positions where he had to act & think on his feet. If you think Biden's worried right now, you're dreaming.
4) McCain's only chance this year was to make the race about Obama's inexperience. As long as people are talking about Palin (for whatever reason) the focus on BO dissipates.
5) I'll leave it to you to guess how McCain looks tonite in comparison to his own inexperienced running mate. My guess is there's no way he looks as good unless he joins in the relentless "Obama is Satan" screeds -- at which point he looks to a lot of uncommitteds like a cranky old guy peddling more of the same..
As long as people are asking Palin about her family or Caribou or Eskimos she'll prob do alright. When they start asking her about real issues, I say good luck to you.
Anyone notice how the script of Palin's speech sounded just like Cheney's 2000 VP acceptance speech? Same speechwriters.
Palin's speech shows the same old tired Republican tactics, too:
(1) Attack Americans who don't agree with you to the point where you demonize them, then assure voters you have a warm heart by reminding them that you love our brave soldiers and you love God, as if voters will then forgive you for your lack of civility toward your fellow Americans.
(2)Convince voters that America is in imminent physical threat and the only party who can protect them is the Republican party.
(3) Avoid talking about all the huge mistakes the Republican party has made
(4)Lie to voters that you will cut their taxes and reduce government spending, even though the last 8 yrs of Republican rule have done the opposite.
I'm calling it here: America is not going to vote for a wolf in sheep's clothing (In Mrs Palin we have the same old Bush/Cheney ideas, just warapped up in a prettier package)
"conservative closet racists trying to perpetuate white domination."
Raaacist!
in my lifetime, the GOP has run a positive campaign exactly once: reagan's 1984 morning in america. campaigns that mock liberals have worked. but they really lost in 2000, and maximized the fundy base for a narrow victory in 04 by hating on the gay. with an 80+% wrong track number, and demographics working against them, will another juicing the base with a culture war fix get them 50% plus one? they obviously have concluded that is their only option. it may be (probably is) the only option they have at this point.
this is definitely obamas to lose.
That was enjoyable reading, but it was foolish writing. To the idea that people want a president who's affable and just like them, I have two words; George Bush. Democrats merely have to remind people that they're choosing a president, not a buddy, and they'll win resoundingly. McCain, of course, is not even someone that people would want as a buddy, but that's fodder for another thread.
Yes, I voted for Obama in the Primary. For that America, I humbly apologize_i was swayed away from the bitterness and incompetence of the last four years. Since the Ohio Primary, Obama has devolved into an empty suit lab test run amok. A combination of a Marxists and a typical South Side Chicago front man for an illegitimate machine.
Unbama and a caeer plagariser with their legion off whiny, bitter, petulant crybaby supporters who think the Lion King will part the Waters, nationalize everything and only tax the other guy because they have been told by Uhbama They deserve the other persons wealth.
Palin's speech flashy? Yes with the flash came he truth. Buying votes as a South Side Chicago pointy toed shoe Ward healer is not the foundation for a Presidential (or lower management in the real world)) bid.
Obama-Zero experience but a great ghost writer.
Biden-Can't hold a real job so he stays in D.C. pimping for his lobbyists.
McCain-22 yrs Navy and yes a Politician.
I think Palin is twelvefold times better than the rest of them. Too bad it isn't a Palin Bill Richardson Ticket!
Brilliant post, Megan. This is all stuff I've been saying for weeks, even before she was picked. I agree on nearly every point you make here. The Obama candidacy is in far deeper trouble than anyone here seems to realize, because it has literally (to borrow Biden's favorite word) nowhere to go. There are now no new policies to articulate. There is now no new voter base to reach out to. There are now no new swing states to campaign in. All they can do is snipe and play defense--and doing that caused a 10 point polling swing downward during the leadup to Obama's speech. I have a friend who's seen the internal tracking for the Repubs, and he says McCain has a solid 8 point lead but is only tied in the Electoral College. He says Obama really got zero bump from his speech and that Gallup just played with its data.
IMHO Obama lost this election the day he refused to run with Hillary. Because if he had picked her, that would have been Romney making that speech last night.
As an avowed Libertarian who will vote either Bob Barr or Ron Paul, depending on whether Barr get's on VA's ballot, I was very impressed by Palin's speech.
1) Veep nominees are supposed to be the attack dogs of the ticket. So holding the mocking attacks of Obama against Palin shows a lack of understanding of political theater in America.
2) Palin's lack of exposure on the national stage before now meant that she had to focus a large part of her speech just introducing herself. A litany of policy items would have bored the delegates and the home audience. She'll save that stuff for the stump and the debate. This was a debut. Take it for what it was worth.
3) I seem to recall another small-state governor with no foreign policy experience beating foreign policy masters quite handily, twice. What was his name again?
4) Palin is very appealing to people who are sick of the American political dynasties that have infected both parties. She's especially remarkable as a female politician because she has achieved political prominence entirely on her own. She is the not the child of a political family, like Speaker Pelosi. And her husband has nothing to do with politics at all! The idea that a mom could become Vice President after a start in the local PTA has a lot of resonance with many women.
5) Palin's family, flaws and all, is gorgeous. Though Palin herself could use a make-over. Her husband is attractive, her kids are good looking. Levi was cute in his awkward teenage boyfriend way. And who wasn't tickled by little Piper caught by the cameras fixing her baby brother's hair?
6) If Hillary Clinton had one-one hundredth of Palin's charisma, she would have run away with the nomination and election. You know she watched that speech in jealous awe. Americans vote for people they would like to be friends with. It's a sad fact but it's a fact. Democrats have ignored it the past two elections, and finally got it this time. Obama's charisma will win him the election, despite what little boost Palin will give McCain.
Megan, I'm not sure why you think the Obama campaign is in trouble. For those of us in denial, can you go into a little more detail?
Palin just took Penna. off the table. Why? A colleague remarked that Palin is "Rick Santorum in a dress." In other words, her brand of social conservatism -pregnant due to a rape, too bad - will not play well with independents in the Phila. suburbs. And, without them, there is no hope of overcoming the 99% black vote in Phila. and pittsburgh.
"especially, the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility."
I totally disagree, Megan. Where exactly would she hide her five children? That domesticity and fertility IS really part of her. We're so used to politicians acting, that it hard to accept that it'd be really hard for her to be faking a hunting, fishing, pta, mom, governor, wife persona. Until now, I've never seen a woman in politics not trying to act like a man. Trying to look like a woman has been a spectacular failure up to now. can't name one success. That's one reason why she seems so odd and striking as a politician. She's an example that a woman can be successful in a different way appealing to completely different cross-section of men and women. she's good for women as a whole. I'm excited even if I don't agree with her politics.
I think this proves that you shouldn't write blog posts when you're sick.
To the idea that people want a president who's affable and just like them, I have two words; George Bush. Democrats merely have to remind people that they're choosing a president, not a buddy, and they'll win resoundingly.
Where have you been for the last 16 years? Did that strategy work for the "nuanced", wonkish Kerry against George "I'd like to have a beer with that guy" Bush? Nope. Unfortunately, it really is true that one of the things voters look for in a candidate is empathy. Seriously, if people need to be reminded that they're choosing a president and not a buddy then it's already too late.
Finally, four words: I feel your pain.
"Many Democratic bloggers are itching to go after this woman for all of her perceived flaws. I understand why, but if they do so, they are very likely to get McCain elected."
As a stay at home dad, I'm already ready to switch to McCain if I hear one more liberal commentator or alleged "journalist" comment that her kids are too young and whose going to take care of the children.
This hypocrisy (not sure that's the best descriptor, but non-trolls know what I mean) was only topped by women's groups supporting Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair.
"I have a friend who's seen the internal tracking for the Repubs, and he says McCain has a solid 8 point lead but is only tied in the Electoral College. He says Obama really got zero bump from his speech and that Gallup just played with its data."
yes, and all of the other polls taken since the dem convention (exception CNN) were in the tank for obama, and mccain really has a big lead. and the many state polls showing BO with a healthy EC lead are also poisoned with left wing bias.
yes, b/c it just must be so.
Speaking of the abuse of public trust, Rasmussen just published a poll that found that a majority of American voters believes that the media writ large is actively trying to harm Sarah Palin.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/51_say_reporters_are_trying_to_hurt_palin_39_say_she_has_better_experience_than_obama
If there's a culture war going on, it's your tribe that bombed Pearl Harbor and shot the Archduke.
Here in LA, the SEIU is under investigation for the usual labor union money issues, so I'm not sure how up and coming they are.
@MoeLarry&J: Palin's husband is Inuit enough to be on the tribal rolls, so Megan's right. And what do you care?
As I recall, Bill Clinton's resume didn't include much foreign policy experience, as Arkansas doesn't have its own embassy. Palin's might be slight, but she's still got some. Do you think Sarkozy would refuse to meet with her? Dream on.
@Swells-- She asked about banning books as a small town mayor. Since no one thinks that experience means squat, who cares? She thinks creationism should be taught as well as science. It's troubling, but hardly a deal-breaker, as the White House doesn't set class curricula.
And at least when her prompter stalled, she kept going, unlike Obama.
Are readers of the Atlantic really so naive as to think all presidents and candidates write their own speeches?
Will Wilkinson has an interesting post on women, authority figures, and the mother image.
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/09/04/sex-culture-and-sarah-palin/Dear concerned citizens of America and mass media of the U.S.A.
As a concerned disabled American Veteran and American citizen, I consider it my duty and responsibility to address the following critical issues facing the voters of our Greatgrand nation, the United States of America [USA].
The citizens of the United States of America [USA] have the ultimate power and responsibility to elect the Right Ticket with the right joint "temperament, judgment, and statesmanship" to lead our nation as well as change our nation's present and future moral, political, economic, educational, health care, energy, military, and foundational soul.
In my firm professional, personal, and political opinion, the media should help the common voter to explore and discuss the following attributes of the present Republican and Democratic presidential slates:
1. Does the joint ticket have a calm, cool, and collected " temper and impulse" [Presidential Temperament]?
2. Does each ticket have sound and sustained "Judgment and Caliber"?
3. Does each ticket have a "presidential depth and degree" in regard to their purpose, policies, and positions?
4. Does each ticket have adequate, "understanding and knowledge" of workings around Washington"?
5. Does each ticket have enough "vigor, wisdom and Vision" for the future of our beloved Great-grand Nation?
6. Does each ticket possess enough joint foreign policy experience and ex-poser based on "American Values, Virtues, Vastness, and strong soul"?
7. Are their campaign talk, slogans, ads, plans, and programs based on facts and are they free of fear, fiction, frivolous labels, unfair attacks, negativity, and impulsivity?
If your answer to a majority of the above questions is yes, I suggest you vote for that ticket. As a Independent registered voter I have decided to vote for Obama-Biden ticket. I am sure they will protect our national security, Strong's, stamina and strong soul. Rebuild our nation from bottom up in all areas of need, OBAMA-BIDEN ticket will once again restore and rebuild our global standing with the use of maximum international humane diplomacy and minimal force if and when indicated.
Yours sincerely,
COL. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., Forensic psychiatrist, Colonel, US-AR / MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Iraq Freedom team.
PS: This nation will not buy into kitchen sink approah. We are getting deeper into internal and external holes thru these attack and world is laughing on us and enjoying our kitchen sink gimmics. I am sure GOP.RNC, FOX, RUSH, And McCains his surrogates will fail to dupe, decieve, and deprive USA its deserved leadership.
Right. Obama's in so much trouble that he's up five points in Rasmussen daily tracking. And Palin's husband really looks like an Eskimo, doesn't he?
I was revolted by Sara Palin's speach last night. It seems that she was chosen simply to pander to the far right wing. She is a cynical and frankly disturbing choice as VP. The Ultra right wing of the Republican party is now claiming that the "liberal media" is out on a witch hunt. So I guess that the McCain people want to media to back off and not ask Palin real questions about her record. Maybe they will hide her from everyone but the reporters from People magazine. Palin's strident, mocking speach did nothing to ease my concerns about her lack of experience and qualifications. Palin comparing herself to a pitbull revolted me.
>I seem to recall another small-state governor with no foreign policy experience beating foreign policy masters quite handily, twice. What was his name again?
Are you talking about the guy who was governor for 12 years, attorney general for another two, and actually studied abroad? Or are you referring to someone with credentials as thin as Palin's?
What's wrong with a good old culture war?
I actually think both sides would like to see it...
What's wrong with a good old culture war?
I actually think both sides would like to see it...
I think the media problem was they mixed valid criticisms of Palin, and there are many, with things that were irrelevant or unconfirmed. Because of that they ran the risk of making it all sound ludicrous, when some of it surely is not.
I do think that attacking the VP candidate overly much is usually an odd strategy. Even Quayle did not lose Bush the election, either time. I think they'd be wise to focus on substance and continue rejecting the tabloid stuff on her. Besides that place most focus on McCain who is in fact the candidate you know.
If last night is going to be typical I think it's possible Biden will be the one to get sympathy for being unfairly beat up on by Palin.
Jason Van Steenwyk says: "The phrase 'culture war' is a lie coined by members of your tribe in order to dismiss their critics without dealing with the substance of their arguments (Jay Rosen, are you listening?)"
The phrase "Culture War" was most famously used by Pat Buchanan in his speech at the 1992 Republican Convention. What tribe does Buchanan belong to, chuckles?
By the way, Pat was CALLING for a Culture War in that speech.
Freddie: You say, in the midst of a several paragraph long post that has not a single argument about policy within it.
Why on earth would someone start yapping about policy in a post about culture? They are two different things. You don't grasp this?
Freddie: Entry no. 8748 in The Big Book Of Why Democrats Lose Elections.
I think it is almost humorous that so many of the commenters here are accusing Sarah Palin of lying, when Obama has been caught red-handed in a particularly despicable lie on the born-alive survivors bill. See, for example:
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/08/breaking_news_n_1.html
If any of the major media were paying attention, this would be a serious problem for Obama. But, they seem to be determined to ignore it.
"Michelle! Where's the damn Grape Kool Aid?!"
i hated to admit it last night but despite all the time spent learning about issues i am no better than the average voter. sarah palin reminded me of that with her mocking, her refusal to acknowledge the state of her own party, her thought that if you disagree with your country you aren't a patriot, that if you believe that terrorists have rights you are weak... once again i am reminded that there is a cultural divide in this country and i am on the left side. obama isn't drawing me toward that side, the republicans are pushing me. i, like the average voter, am resorting to identity politics and I identify with the candidate with the foreign father, the higher education, and the with the color of his skin. i could deny this part of me, and rely on well-crafted arguments about policy, but sarah palin reminded me of who I am not and I cannot vote for who I am not.
Still a man hears what he want to hear and disregards the rest. La la la la...
So McCain and Palin have garnered the spotlight for a couple of days - so what? We're only looking at more of the same and even worse! Anyone who panders to the extreme right just to secure votes is trading country for politics. Little miss goody2shoes represents each and every policy that the majority of men and women in America abhor. Take a look around the convention floor and see just who this ticket represents - it ain't America! Culture wars - don't think so - the RNC doesn't represent the diverse culture of America! Look around John and Sarah and wake up!
I am sorry, but delivering a stilted rant in a flat voice hardly makes Palin a natural, unless you mean that term in the Shakespearean sense. She rallied the hard right base, which should not have been necessary if McCain were not in trouble, aroused the Democrats to a fierce determination, and offered EXACTLY NOTHING ON POLICY. The speech was:
Sentimental intro about her victim status
Some lies about her record, which were obvious
A certain amount of schlock about the candidate formerly known as Maverick
Some utterly inconsistent nonsense about her energy policy.
A canned sign-off.
All of this means more donors for Obama, who can spend the money, while McCain is now tied to public finance. A motivated Democratic base, which outnumbers the GOP base, Hillary women becoming stronger for Obama, and the independents looking at this and seeing the GOP as the nasty party. All this before the investigation of her has really got under way, while the tabloids are salivating, and while it's been made clear that she is open to attack by any media person who wants to go after her appalling record.
Heckuva a job.
Personally, I'd say that McCain tried to put lipstick on pit-bull, but missed Palin and got Giuliani.
This woman is an Obama-level political natural.
Did you watch the same speech as I did?
If John Kerry tapped Obama in 2004 and he gave an essentially insulting, divisive, partisan acceptance speech like that, where do you think Obama would have ended up in 2008 after they lost in '04?
Please. This is going to (actually already is) have huge negative repercussions among non-religious undecideds and independents. This was a terrible matching of candidate and tone- why on Earth would they let her speech be written by a male, Bush speechwriter?? Sure, she came out swinging. Don't be surprised when a few of the eyes she blackened turn out to be those of exactly who McCain needs to win in November.
The McCain-Palin ticket just secured the base and did irreparable damage to its "maverick" mythos.
"Drill here, drill now. POW POW POW. Elitists! Not Experiences!! POW POW POW!"
She would have been tremendously better served by a speech that illustrated her positives rather than as an attack dog when she is so unknown by independents (and it seems the McCain campaign itself). Where the Right is seeing a surrogate for McCain that can attack with impunity, they are drastically underestimating how she's going to come off when the blowback from her scandals hit.
Lipstick on a pitbull? Perhaps. But few people feel sorry for an overly aggressive pit bull that gets put down after it runs amok...
I agree with pb that the republicans are pushing me towards obama. I know a number of Sarah Palins (male and female...) who, while entitled to their own opinions, seem to think that I must agree with that opinion...and if you work for them you risk getting fired.
Had McCain gone with Pawlenty, Ridge, Lieberman or even Romney he could have had me.
But this sharp move to the extreme right is not who I am either.
I wasn't overwhelmed by her speech, myself. I wish there'd been more on the international gas pipeline, which would have checked the boxes for both energy policy and foreign experience.
Megan: The "hockey Mom" schtick is a political lie. You could not possibly be a hockey Mom and the vice president of the United States, or for that matter, governor of Alaska.
No, I take that to be a thumbnail description of her as being "more like ordinary voters than the other politicians here. ... Sarah Palin is not a member of an upper-middle-class elite ..." She got involved in the PTA, which developed into a political career.
Presumably it was the 19-year-old who played hockey, not the girls who're still living at home. Or am I being sexist?
I'm missing the culture war call to arms. What was that?
I think Megan's analysis is wrong. The Obama campaign is going to raise one important question: "Folks, haven't we had enough of these culture wars? Haven't we had enough of Karl Rove and George Bush trying to divide people? We've had eight years of it. You want more?"
It's that simple. And a party--the GOP--that runs and hides from its past eight years and then pretends to be about change--that party is damaged.
Megan's analysis is what she wants. It's not what is going to happen. Count on it.
She really is more like ordinary voters than the other politicians here. Wail all you want about how she's super-pro-life, has five kids, and lives in a tiny town. Sarah Palin is not a member of an upper-middle-class elite that has been groomed all its life to seize the power they've been told they're entitled to.
I presume you're referring to what I said. I am not "wailing". Barack Obama is not "a member of an upper-middle-class elite that has been groomed all its life to seize the power they've been told they're entitled to." He was raised by a single mom. His father was from Africa. He got what he got by working hard and being extremely smart. I don't know anything about Joe Biden's family background, but I am not aware of anything particularly aristocratic and Bush-like in that story.
Sarah Palin is more like your relatives than Barack Obama is. She is not more like "ordinary voters". You come from a background. There are lots of backgrounds in America. You may decide to participate in the spin the GOP is launching here, but that's what it is: spin.
Pat Buchanan didn't coin the term "culture war." Instead, he co-opted it from the left in order to use it against them. The term "culture war," in modern usage, goes back to the 1920s, when Marxists were arguing for a culture war in order to gain a monopoly over the media and other cultural institutions.
Specifically, Anton Gramsci, an Italian commie, expressly called for leftards to take over the media because it was the media bourgoisie that was holding up the revolution of the proletariat.
Gramsci called for a culture war to break up what he termed cultural hegemony. The war was specifically directed at the media elites in Europe at that time, who were viewed as being anti-proletariat.
I was wrong to say the term was "coined" by the cultural elite, though it was certainly coined by the left, not the right.
Except that when the left wasn't in the cultural elite, they loved the idea of practicing culture war.
Now?
Not so much.
When someone like Jay Rosen or Megan McArdle use the term "culture war" today, in the U.S., it's this history they are tapping into.
You all are really into blood sport politics. Remember that Congress (our elected reprehensibles) makes the laws, the Supreme Court tells us what Congress really meant when they rushed legislation through without reading or understanding it and the Pres/VP only propose legislation. Palin cannot write an Executive Order to fire librarians. Calm yourselves. The good stuff is only beginning.
Megan has articulated, in large part, much of my own reaction (though I've spent far more words to less effect).
It's quite clear why base has gone ga-ga over her, and while she did indeed take some pot-shots (and even told some real whoppers) last night, it's exactly what she was supposed to do.
And she did it well.
I agree, too, that the Dems have a problem on their hands. However, I'm not at all convinced that the coming days of more intimate exposure to her extreme social conservatism will help the Republicans, generally.
The culture wars to which Megan refers aren't just cross-partisan. There's a very serious rift w/in the GOP itself, and moderate Republicans are not going to be happy with the direction this pulls their party, I don't think.
Milk For Free: "One of Obama's great strengths is that his words and his speaking rhythm are allies in conveying what the message of his speech. Sarah Palin makes bizarre, unintuitive choices about which words to accent that really bother me as a listener. I also have a hard time taking anyone with the Alaskan/Canadian accent seriously."
You don't get it.
Sounding like "just plain folks" is *exactly* what made it a powerful speech. Just as Obama's "great orator" intonations infuse his more general and philosophical speeches with the needed gravitas, her down-home "He's still my guy." way of speaking projects her "I'm just like you" message in a way no choice of words and phrases possibly could.
You have a hard time taking her seriously because of her accent --- watch out. She's been misunderestimated before. And, although this fact is going to get over-discussed, some of us remember the exact same thing about Ronald Reagan. He too infuriated the "intellectual elite" by talking like an ordinary guy, and to this day many of them still think he was dumb.
Excellent post. I have only one quibble: Being a journalist is neither hard nor important.
Journalism, like food, is important. Individual journalists, like individual fry cooks, are not.
Also, you're not thinking straight if you believe that Palin isn't "more hateful" than Obama is. Palin gave a viciously partisan, sneering speech. Obama's speeches are respectful, ironic and inclusive to a fault. They have been so ever since he launched his political career. Palin is a solid platform from which to launch Rovian missiles. It's the same campaign they had in 2004; they just put a pretty girl's face on it.
Obama is running a different kind of campaign. He doesn't sneer at conservatives, doesn't sneer at small towns, doesn't attack religious people. The GOP has placed those words in his mouth because they need them to be there in order to run the campaign they want. But that's not what Obama is saying.
There is no Sarah Palin vision for America. There sure as hell isn't a McCain vision. There's a Barack Obama vision, and then there's a vicious campaign of denigration, resentment and intimidation, the same campaign the GOP has run since 2000 if not longer.
Van Steenwyk replies: "Pat Buchanan didn't coin the term "culture war." Instead, he co-opted it from the left in order to use it against them. "
I never said Buchanan coined the term. He's just the one who made it current in modern American politics. And what he meant by it was keeping America white and bashing homosexuals and non-Christians. That's been Pat's theme and the GOP way under the likes of Rove.
Palin brings Pat's culture warrior attitude to a new low - she's a cultureless prude who gets off on bullying librarians. The right finally has a 100% wackaloon near the top! No wonder the Buchanans are wetting their pants over her.
Jason Van Steenwyk:
Stay classy!! Leftards, huh? You've already lost the argument when you start with that.
He doesn't sneer at conservatives, doesn't sneer at small towns, doesn't attack religious people.
Since you did such a good job explicating the black liberation theology thing--about 6-12 times better than the Great Man himself--maybe you also have a plausible explanation to "clinging to guns and religion" which doesn't involve sneering at small towns or attacking religious people.
You guys are playing this culture war up way too much. You act like she was advocating a Theocracy last night, yet she never mentioned creationism, nor did she mention abortion once.
Her speech was thin on substance, but if her speech was to claim she is a capable candidate, that she does in fact have experience, then she did the job quite well.
As an avowed Libertarian who will vote either Bob Barr or Ron Paul, depending on whether Barr get's on VA's ballot, I was very impressed by Palin's speech.
1) Veep nominees are supposed to be the attack dogs of the ticket. So holding the mocking attacks of Obama against Palin shows a lack of understanding of political theater in America.
2) Palin's lack of exposure on the national stage before now meant that she had to focus a large part of her speech just introducing herself. A litany of policy items would have bored the delegates and the home audience. She'll save that stuff for the stump and the debate. This was a debut. Take it for what it was worth.
3) I seem to recall another small-state governor with no foreign policy experience beating foreign policy masters quite handily, twice. What was his name again?
4) Palin is very appealing to people who are sick of the American political dynasties that have infected both parties. She's especially remarkable as a female politician because she has achieved political prominence entirely on her own. She is the not the child of a political family, like Speaker Pelosi. And her husband has nothing to do with politics at all! The idea that a mom could become Vice President after a start in the local PTA has a lot of resonance with many women.
5) Palin's family, flaws and all, is gorgeous. Though Palin herself could use a make-over. Her husband is attractive, her kids are good looking. Levi was cute in his awkward teenage boyfriend way. And who wasn't tickled by little Piper caught by the cameras fixing her baby brother's hair?
6) If Hillary Clinton had one-one hundredth of Palin's charisma, she would have run away with the nomination and election. You know she watched that speech in jealous awe. Americans vote for people they would like to be friends with. It's a sad fact but it's a fact. Democrats have ignored it the past two elections, and finally got it this time. Obama's charisma will win him the election, despite what little boost Palin will give McCain.
I don't regard luring opponents to fly to the rhetorical defense of Italian Marxist revolutionaries as "losing the argument."
Now, had I fond myself accusing someone I didn't know of being a chickenhawk - suporting a war he was too chicken to fight in - and it turned out that he happened to have served as an infantry officer in that very war for nearly a year... now THAT'S called losing an argument, kiddo.
I'm surprised you haven't changed your nickname in shame after that one. ;-)
ZerObama has done NOTHING as a "Community Organizer" and voted "present" 130 times in the Senate.
Mr. ZerObama is not ready to lead this country. Sarah Palin is.
I don't regard luring opponents to fly to the rhetorical defense of Italian Marxist revolutionaries as "losing the argument."
Now, had I fond myself accusing someone I didn't know of being a chickenhawk - suporting a war he was too chicken to fight in - and it turned out that he happened to have served as an infantry officer in that very war for nearly a year... now THAT'S called losing an argument, kiddo.
I'm surprised you haven't changed your nickname in shame after that one. ;-)
I don't regard luring opponents to fly to the rhetorical defense of Italian Marxist revolutionaries as "losing the argument."
Now, had I fond myself accusing someone I didn't know of being a chickenhawk - suporting a war he was too chicken to fight in - and it turned out that he happened to have served as an infantry officer in that very war for nearly a year... now THAT'S called losing an argument, kiddo.
I'm surprised you haven't changed your nickname in shame after that one. ;-)
I saw red meat for the base. I was, at one time, in that base. I don't think this had as much appeal as you think it did, and I also don't think Palin's completely going to skate now that she's made her debut.
I also disagree that the Obama camp is in trouble. He's already beaten his real competition with his victory over Hillary. I think he's hanging back and giving the GOP enough rope.
I think they're going to hang themselves. They've been doing that for the past 8 years. I just don't see that changing.
We'll see.
Matt B: "Are you talking about the guy who was governor for 12 years, attorney general for another two, and actually studied abroad? Or are you referring to someone with credentials as thin as Palin's?"
That's going to be the trap for your side.
You make two excellent points, and then tack on "actually studied abroad".
That lets the GOP ticket get off the hook by mocking your suggestion that studying abroad is better foreign policy experience than, say, negotiating the trans-canadian pipeline.
It's silly, because your other two points are fine -- Clinton did have a longer resume than Palin has. But that point will get lost.
From Glenn Greenwald - a glimpse of the dingbat who would be VP:
"The first time her name ever appears in any news accounts, at least according to Nexis, was an April 3, 1996 article in The Anchorage Daily News that reported this:
Alaskans Line Up For a Whiff of Ivana
Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana.
And there, at J.C. Penney's cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.
"We want to see Ivana," said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, "because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture." "
ZerObama has done NOTHING as a "Community Organizer" and voted "present" 130 times in the Senate.
Mr. ZerObama is not ready to lead this country. Sarah Palin is.
Rob, do your best not to be a jerk.
There is a difference between the way you craft the statements you make as part of your campaign, and the off the cuff things you might say in a relatively private setting. That difference is not a matter of hypocrisy. It is a difference in how you conceive of yourself and of your mission as a public figure. Martin Luther King used to call rival civil-rights leaders absolutely disgusting and hilarious sexual epithets in private. Then he'd get up on the podium, and say the things he believed were important to say as a public figure at that time.
I don't think Sarah Palin is necessarily a mean and sneering person in private. (Actually I'm not sure about that. Maybe I do think she's a mean and sneering person in private. But I don't know that.) But she is a mean and divisive politician who conceives of her mission as insulting people like me in order to humiliate me, rile up her base, and make as many people as possible want to move away from me and towards her base in order to avoid being linked to humiliation.
That is not the kind of politician Barack Obama has decided to be. "We honor John McCain's service. But he just doesn't get it." - followed by an explanation of why the conservative vision of society is responsible for the economic and foreign policy failures of the Bush years. That is very different from the kind of speech Sarah Palin gave last night: a resentful Nixonian jeremiad against media elites and blah blah blah.
I agree with brooksfoe- what you say in private reveals less about your true feelings than what you say for public consumption.
"Are you talking about the guy who was governor for 12 years, attorney general for another two, and actually studied abroad? Or are you referring to someone with credentials as thin as Palin's?"
Are you actually comparing studying abroad with governing a state with international borders to protect?
Yeah, Clinton was in office longer, but that's not the charge being made anymore (because it reflects poorly on Obama's similarly short experience). The charge is that she has no foreign policy experience, and I'm simply pointing out that such a thing is neither necessary or sufficient for a successful presidential candidate.
Megan-
I know you don't like seeing a woman break through a glass ceiling by appearing domestic and "fertile" (your word) -- but I suspect this is how glass ceilings get shattered.
Once she's through, and does a reasonable job in the post, the next woman's gender won't be as big a deal.
Brooksfoe, thats ludicrous. He was speaking at a fundraiser, not a "relatively private setting". In other words, he was using contempt for rural religious types to rally support for his campaign. This wasn't Obama blowing off steam with his campaign staff. I'm sure every one of these candidates has said hyperbolically rude things about their opponents and the voters in the privacy of their own living rooms. That's not relevant. Sarah Palin is absolutely right on this one: when he thought that the rural people couldn't hear him, he reveled in coastal contempt for rural areas in order to raise money.
"She slides the stiletto in without either losing her femininity or coming across as catty"
I disagree completely - I thought she seemed incredibly petty, and almost everyone I've talked to was surprised by how petty she was, too. She's blown her chance to be the sympathy candidate AND given creedence to Obama's "Old Politics" vs. "New Politics" thing!
Palin and her ilk are a cancer on the body politic. She's the perfect Republican: a snide, holier-than-thou, fundamentalist freak who lies without compunction and would use the government to stomp on her enemies exactly like the current administration. She's already done these in both of her elected offices--why would she act any differently in the future?
Apparently shit floats in GOP cesspool. She was plucked from obscurity because she practiced her demented craft so well in the backwater of Wasilla. It's amazing that they found someone reasonably photogenic who so closely hews to the wingnut party line. She's disgusting--as a person, I loathe her. Anybody who believes that she would act any differently than Bush if she should somehow assume the office of the presidency should seek medical help. And Mcgargle, to see you swoon over this empty cipher can only make one question even more the status of your mental faculties. Good speachifiers are a dime a dozen. Take off the blinders, Megan, the woman--like McCain--would be as destructive to our country as Bush.
What is it about a strong pro-life woman that makes gay men in particular so exercised? Sullivan, Greenwald, and their ilk are obsessed with the girl.
Dare I say anal?
It's hilarious-- they finally have an interest in the opposite sex, but only because they perceive she threatens them in some way.
And this was a perceptive post by Megan. Ignore her and the warnings. Stay overconfident, inside the cocoon, and attack all who dare question the dogma.
"We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio."
Hurray for that.
"Issues" are boring. Personalities are fun.
Yancy, do your best not to be a jerk :)
brooksfoe, when I say you did a better job explaining and justifying the Wright association than did Obama, I do so for a simple but perhaps difficult to understand reason: you did. I wouldn't say that I'm totally cool with it, but--thanks to the informal writings of a pseudonymous Jewish expat--I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as it seemed to me at first.
Which fact, I'd hope you understand, speaks VERY POORLY for Obama, World's Greatest Communicator. Really, he ought to be in a better position to discuss black liberation theology that you, so his failure is kinda telling, is it not?
That said, you have an extraordinarily media-centric view of this campaign. Obama is qualified not by his experience in the Senate, but because he won the primary? His scripted, vetted public speeches are lovely and inclusive, so just ignore his obnoxious private opinions? He has enough political sense to say something nice about McCain's military service? Come on, how often did Bush mock Kerry's time in country?
In any case, I don't really want a president with Grand Visions. I don't like Grand Visions and I don't trust people who have them (neither should anyone who opposed the Iraq war). I want somebody who will leave me alone. I know full well I won't get that, but I'll take no-vision over Grand Vision if that's the only choice I have, because no-vision is less likely to get anything done.
Rob - Oh. Whoops. I thought you were being sarcastic, which doesn't speak well for my ability to identify sneers. Then again, it's 12:30 am here and I've just had a 1-liter bottle of Hanoi lager, so I better not post anymore.
To return the lovefest, I've always enjoyed reading your posts as well, and have learned a lot from them.
Surely you are kidding when you say "Obama hasn't any more relevant experience than she has; he's simply been coaching for the thing longer."
You could say that with McCain versus Obama, it's the same experience (senator), only more of it.
I do think some state experience is also a good thing to learn the local side of federal decisions. This is an experience that both Obama and Palin have.
I would say Palin's experience about matches Obama's 6 years in the Illinois senate, but there's nothing there that compares to 3-4 years of dealing with federal issues on senate committees and making senate votes. Obama has been on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and part of the US Senate.
Posted by Christina
"Are you actually comparing studying abroad with governing a state with international borders to protect?"
Wow. Are you talking about that dangerous border with those murderous terrorist heathens; the Canadians?
Oh, you mean the Bering Straight. Actually, that's not a "border".
The line of argument that because Alaska is near Russia she has some kind of international experience and bona fides for protecting the Fatherland is completely moronic. You embarrass yourself by peddling this tripe. I guess she holds wargames in case the Russkies attack! The Alaska National Guard is more likely to help out in natural disasters than to have anything to do with national security. Even so, her input as governor into anything defense related would be a BIG FAT ZERO.
Megan, I'm not sure why "Hockey Mom" so irks you. It's just shorthand for "I'm like you." You say no male politician would introduce themselves this way, but, in fact, many of them do.
When Edwards declared himself "the son of a mill worker" he was saying the same thing as "Hockey Mom."
When Obama announced Biden as "a boiler cleaner's son" and "still that scrappy kid from Scranton who beat the odds, a dedicated family man and Catholic" he was pushing the same common-touch line.
Megan: "I have no reason to think that she would be a particularly bad president."
She doesn't know much of anything about:
Economics
Foreign policy
Military affairs
Constitutional law
Climate science
You can add to the list yourself.
Does knowing stuff matter?
Why did you go to University of Chicago? Did you learn anything valuable?
My daughter is applying there (early decision) in the next couple of months.
Should she just not bother?
I have no reason to think that she would be a particularly bad president.
How about the fact that she lied repeatedly in her speech? Man, as a woman democrat I disagree with nearly everything you've said here.
The three rules are still (1) don't panic (2) don't panic, and (3) don't panic.
Clive Crook is wrong when he says that McCain-Palin is now as fresh as Obama-Biden. As Nate Silver says, the American public has had Obama in its eye for 18 months. He reckons Obama has acquired that teflon quality, like Bill Clinton has. It will take more than a hockey mom from Alaska to turn that around.
If Cheney put on a dress, most of that speech would be the same. They were basically the same old tropes as the ones flying around the blogosphere and the radio jocks for ages. Just because they came from a fresh voice does not mean that undecideds are suddenly going to take notice. Obama's favourable ratings have flatlined at 55-60% for months, the same incidentally as McCain's.
Ok, the base loved it, but so f**king what? The most annoying thing is that the corporate press have fallen to their knees and are crying "We're not worthy!" in the most cringeworthy manner possible. But let them. Have they surprised anyone?
There is no reason to believe that Obama-Biden have to break stride just yet. Not that Obama should not put some smart young strategists drawing up an emergency Palin-stopper, should it be needed.
"He was speaking at a fundraiser, not a "relatively private setting". In other words, he was using contempt for rural religious types to rally support for his campaign."
That is both mean-spirited and willfully ignorant of what happened, which is surprising, because this was the most heavily reported story of a significant period of time. Read the lines in context. He was doing his best to explain why he was doing poorly in rural areas without mentioning the no-doubt real reason of racism, because he brought it up, he'd be setting himself up for a fall. He wasn't trying to leverage people's contempt, he was trying to rationalize his own weaknesses to reassure people in no position to independently judge his comments he could win and so they should fund his campaign.
What exactly have Republicans to be so angry about? They dominate small-town PTAs (as I can attest), the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years, the White House for the last 8 years... If the country is not as they would wish it to be, whose fault is it?snowmobeelz -
They have controlled congress for the majority of recent years, but not dominated it. The Democrats have at least been able to stop measures they didn't like in many cases, and sometimes even push at least a bit of their own agenda.
Also its not like Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) are monolithic. Republicans may have had a majority in congress for a number of years (although far fewer than the Democrats had before Gingrich), but different Republicans have different ideas and agendas (even just within congress and the white house, let alone in the party as a whole).
As for Palin being a small town tyrant, what about her term of office as mayor or governor was tyrannical?
ZerObama has done NOTHING as a "Community Organizer" and voted "present" 130 times in the Senate.
Mr. ZerObama is not ready to lead this country. Sarah Palin is.
Megan,
Your advice to the Dems is the same as your colleague Ross D's: ignore Palin and let Obama's pets in the media pick at her. It's sound advice, and while Obama might be smart enough to follow it, I doubt his allies will be disciplined enough to toe that line.
Just as I find Obama's appeal utterly incomprehensible, I can recognize his ability to sway the minds of millions. I suggest that the Obamabots reading this blog might try to set aside their political preferences for a moment and try to look at Palin dispassionately. I think you will have to agree that, as Megan says, she's a natural, with a great ability to connect with people and to attack without seeming mean. That doesn't mean that you have to connect with her or agree with her attacks; you just have to see that millions of people will do both.
To those of us who view politics as theatre, this season promises to be one of the most entertaining of all time.
I see that for the most part the dem party faithful is on here spouting the same (5 day old) talking points. Get a clue: it won't work. Palin decimated her attackers last night with class, clarity, and poise. Some idiot on here said "shit floats in the GOP". Well, shit sinks in the Democrat party, and I think we'll be seeing some shit sinking pretty fast over the next couple weeks - starting with Obama's poll numbers.
ZerObama has done NOTHING as a "Community Organizer" and voted "present" 130 times in the Senate.
Mr. ZerObama is not ready to lead this country. Sarah Palin is.
Megan - fine, substitute "different" for "semi-private". MLK was actually at a planning meeting for the March on Washington a day or two before the event when he told Walter Abernathy that he should run for head of the National Association for the Advancement of Eating Pussy, because "in such an organization your pre-eminence would be unchallenged." It wasn't private at all, and he was doing it to impugn the guy's manhood. But he was confident that he was out of earshot of the audience for the "I Have a Dream" speech a day or two later. Different modes of speech are appropriate for different arenas.
You are smart enough to know that when Obama said the phrase "cling to guns and religion" he was saying "cling to making politics a battle over perceived threats to their right to carry guns or to practice their religion." Barack Obama obviously doesn't think religion as such is worthy of contempt or that people are to be sneered at because they're religious. (If he did his relationship with Rev. Wright would be truly hard to understand.) What he was saying was that people often dirempt economic and social anxieties into political battles over perceived threats to their religion or other elements of group identity. Which is an unremarkable thing to say; it's as true of American politics as it is of German or Pakistani politics. And it's as true of William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer as it is of Joe Schmoe from Columbia, MO.
Republican politics since Nixon has been based on cultivating voters' suspicions that the "establishment" despises average people. This is not a reality; it's a script, deeply rooted in American culture. What's "ludicrous" is to believe, when you see five words of Obama's taken out of context, that he is playing up contempt for rural people for political gain. Does this match your sense of how Obama campaigns? Does that sound like an Obama campaign to you? You understand what's going on here far better than that. The first words in Obama's sentence were something along the lines of "it's perfectly understandable that...". And it is.
Palin most bugs me because of ISSUES. After all, she's a pretty extreme lady to have an old heartbeat away from the Presidency.
She's against abortions for raped women, against sex ed, for creationism. She also tried to censor her local library and, when the librarians wouldn't kowtow, downsized one while raising her overall budget.
"the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility."
My mother - former board member of planned parenthood, so this is more than possible as a good democrat - had 8 children and was city attorney in our small-ish town.
It's not a notion, it just happens to be her reality.
Obama used his children in a very similar way. It's more a shift to families than a gendered thing. Which to libertarians can't be good, because the Strauss/Howe train is right on time with a wave of socially conservative but economically collective institution-building. Secular crisis indeed.
Generation 3, your turn.
Megan clearly hates America as much as Michelle Obama does.
For their debate, Will Biden Plagarize the French Army Motto Je capitule?
Imagine Palin and Uhbama in a grocery store when Palin asks Uhbama about the price of Cherrios? I hope the store security camera captures Uhbama dumbfounded glazed look. This is gonna be one fine Rodeo!
The three rules are still (1) don't panic (2) don't panic, and (3) don't panic.
Clive Crook is wrong when he says that McCain-Palin is now as fresh as Obama-Biden. As Nate Silver says, the American public has had Obama in its eye for 18 months. He reckons Obama has acquired that teflon quality, like Bill Clinton has. It will take more than a hockey mom from Alaska to turn that around.
If Cheney put on a dress, most of that speech would be the same. They were basically the same old tropes as the ones flying around the blogosphere and the radio jocks for ages. Just because they came from a fresh voice does not mean that undecideds are suddenly going to take notice. Obama's favourable ratings have flatlined at 55-60% for months, the same incidentally as McCain's.
Ok, the base loved it, but so f**king what? The most annoying thing is that the corporate press have fallen to their knees and are crying "We're not worthy!" in the most cringeworthy manner possible. But let them. Have they surprised anyone?
There is no reason to believe that Obama-Biden have to break stride just yet. Not that Obama should not put some smart young strategists drawing up an emergency Palin-stopper, should it be needed.
What he was saying was that people often dirempt economic and social anxieties into political battles over perceived threats to their religion or other elements of group identity.
Let's assume that you have a talent for discerning Obama's "real" meaning with greatly exceeds his much-ballyhooed talent for expressing himself.
Your reading transforms his remarks into a rather rude suggestion that people don't oppose him for substantive reasons (that is, because his record on gun control and abortion is contrary to their beliefs) but for psychological ones (because they can't think about economic issues rationally and instead sublimate them into unrelated and irrelevant group-identity issues.)
Now, Obama might be entirely correct in his armchair diagnosis, but it still amounts to a sneer at the intelligence of people who don't vote for him--and by extension, a bit of back-patting for his donors who are much smarter than the confused rubes.
If you Democrats want to win the election, the last thing you need is to wage a culture war. Palin's cultural voting bloc is larger than yours.
If you want to win the election, go after the issues -- peace and civil rights. You know, the things your candidate used to champion, before he got the nomination.
You can also undermine McCain on economic issues if you point out that the GOP has spent us into borderline bankruptcy.
Or . . . you can try to make this a referrendum on the right to kill babies and grandmas, and see where that gets you.
Dear Megan-I'm an Alaskan male who voted for Palin. I've met her many times. Her "Hockey Mom" schtick as you say, is no schtick. She's actually a basketball mom too. One of her kids was at the same basketball camp as one of mine this summer. Palin and husband, with their newest, was there during the parent night, just walked in-no security, and watched like everyone else-no big deal. She's regular, she's approachable, and she is VERY real. You may not like her views on some things, however, you will come to love her for her brutal candor and down to earth personality. She has battled the traditional Republican good ole' boys network up here, and brought something fresh to Alaskan politics. She'll perform even better on her own all over America, where she doesn't have to give a canned speech. Simply watch things unfold, you'll see what I mean as time flies. She doesn't have an 80% approval rating up here for nothing, she's earned it.
The problem with Palin is that she's divisive, simplistic, and intolerant. I think in the long run, this tactic won't work. Alaska is a far cry from the rest of the U.S. in which where there is far more diversity, and more urban problems. After a few days of analysis, people will take a harder look at what they have heard. Effectiveness is not always measured by exercise of force, harsh rhetoric, and smugness. It is also measured by understanding and real solutions. What solutiions has Palin offered the nation? For example, she may be a "friend" to people whose children have special needs, but where is the financial support for those children? I personally think that McCain has chosen a VP with the same temperament problems he has. I wouldn't trust either one with the nuclear option.
Dear Megan-I'm an Alaskan male who voted for Palin. I've met her many times. Her "Hockey Mom" schtick as you say, is no schtick. She's actually a basketball mom too. One of her kids was at the same basketball camp as one of mine this summer. Palin and husband, with their newest, was there during the parent night, just walked in-no security, and watched like everyone else-no big deal. She's regular, she's approachable, and she is VERY real. You may not like her views on some things, however, you will come to love her for her brutal candor and down to earth personality. She has battled the traditional Republican good ole' boys network up here, and brought something fresh to Alaskan politics. She'll perform even better on her own all over America, where she doesn't have to give a canned speech. Simply watch things unfold, you'll see what I mean as time flies. She doesn't have an 80% approval rating up here for nothing, she's earned it.
Drill Baby Drill!!! Drill Baby Drill!!! Green Energy is a joke!!! Drill Baby Drill!!! You Go Sarah!!!
brooksfoe:
Why is it only small-town people who are expected to set aside their cultural concerns for economic ones? It seems to me that urban liberals haveen't shown any willingness to give up their social issues (that have cost them elections) in order to see their preferred economic policies enacted.
Even assuming that Democratic economic policies are better, why are rural and suburban voters the ones who should sacrifice their culture to their pocketbook?
'we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio.'
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
See, e.g., this piece from October 8, 1992:
Voters in Wasilla bucked tradition Tuesday and, by a slim margin, approved plans to start a police department financed by the city's first-ever sales tax. "I'd feel safer saying this if the margin was wider, but I think Wasilla finally sees the light. People see the need for change," said Sarah Palin, 28. Palin, a political newcomer, was one of two supporters of the police-sales tax plan elected to the city council Tuesday. Though his name...
There are at least 4 other articles in the Anchorage Daily News mentioning her name before the one Glenn Greenwald managed to find. Plus one mentioning her by her maiden name, Sarah Heath, as far back as 1988.
Who cares about Palin? The lefty bloggers wouldn't be trying to sully her if the goose-stepping right hadn't portrayed her as Holy Mary beacause she had a Downs baby -- as if only repulbicans would ever not abort a downs baby, just nonesense.
Problem is though, its hard to assert that your a staunch supporter of "abstinence only" education and then show up with a knocked up daughter. That either makes you stupid or a hippococrite. Let me restate that, its not because her daughter's pregnant, its because Sarah Palin is STILL abstinence only. She can't see that abstinence only is not effective????
So she's not perfect, now the republicans can go back to their brooding and the lefties can blog about something else.
HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: Obama has 260 electoral votes pretty much cinched, and McCain has 170 -- in both cases counting only states where the margin has consistently been more than 5%.
OBAMA ONLY NEEDS 10 MORE ELECTORAL VOTES. With over 100 still very much up for grabs, he could win this while on vacation.
Its a done deal, now lets all go home. Nice job everyone. Thanks for showing up. See you in four years.
Who cares about Palin? The lefty bloggers wouldn't be trying to sully her if the goose-stepping right hadn't portrayed her as Holy Mary beacause she had a Downs baby -- as if only repulbicans would ever not abort a downs baby, just nonesense.
Problem is though, its hard to assert that your a staunch supporter of "abstinence only" education and then show up with a knocked up daughter. That either makes you stupid or a hippococrite. Let me restate that, its not because her daughter's pregnant, its because Sarah Palin is STILL abstinence only. She can't see that abstinence only is not effective????
So she's not perfect, now the republicans can go back to their brooding and the lefties can blog about something else.
HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: Obama has 260 electoral votes pretty much cinched, and McCain has 170 -- in both cases counting only states where the margin has consistently been more than 5%.
OBAMA ONLY NEEDS 10 MORE ELECTORAL VOTES. With over 100 still very much up for grabs, he could win this while on vacation.
Its a done deal, now lets all go home. Nice job everyone. Thanks for showing up. See you in four years.
Who cares about Palin? The lefty bloggers wouldn't be trying to sully her if the goose-stepping right hadn't portrayed her as Holy Mary beacause she had a Downs baby -- as if only repulbicans would ever not abort a downs baby, just nonesense.
Problem is though, its hard to assert that your a staunch supporter of "abstinence only" education and then show up with a knocked up daughter. That either makes you stupid or a hippococrite. Let me restate that, its not because her daughter's pregnant, its because Sarah Palin is STILL abstinence only. She can't see that abstinence only is not effective????
So she's not perfect, now the republicans can go back to their brooding and the lefties can blog about something else.
HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: Obama has 260 electoral votes pretty much cinched, and McCain has 170 -- in both cases counting only states where the margin has consistently been more than 5%.
OBAMA ONLY NEEDS 10 MORE ELECTORAL VOTES. With over 100 still very much up for grabs, he could win this while on vacation.
Its a done deal, now lets all go home. Nice job everyone. Thanks for showing up. See you in four years.
"As a person I like her. Politically, I dislike what she represents: populism, culture warmongering, and especially, the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility. I don't blame her for doing these things, since they seem to work. But I don't like living in a society where this works."
Your view removes you from a greater reality: women are not men and should not directly compete with men by pretending they are men. Men become highly aggressive in the presence of other aggressive people and I can assure you there is always the threat of violence in stressful interactions between competitive men. Women can take men head on, but the problems arise when they pretend they are men. The normal result is domestic abuse.
Palin is strong because she forthrightly challenges men without abandonding her femininity. My wife was a world class martial artist who fought men, but never forgot she was a woman. When women challenge men as men, they get physically destroyed because something within men is programmed to prey upon the weak. Maybe this is a bad thing, but it exists. I hope you are able to find the reality in this dynamic for one day it may serve you well.
Jason, in a comment directed towards Ms. McCardle, said earlier today:
"You may have some cred among libertarians (though by pulling for Obama/Biden you pretty much negate that)."
Whoa now...hold on there.
I don't think deciding NOT to join the less than one percent of folks that will likely vote for the LP candidate* this year in a useless show of "solidarity" takes away anyone's libertarian cred.
My first chance to vote in a presidential election was in 1976. Gerald Ford got my vote.
In every presidential election since then I have voted for the Libertarian Party candidate. I would have been delighted to have voted for Ron Paul again but alas...
I have never voted for a Democrat for president but I will be doing just that this year. I have also donated a few hundred bucks to a Democratic presidential ticket - something I never would have imagined myself doing.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
*And don't give me that Bob Barr as Libertarian bullcrap. He has not at all atoned for his execrable behavior in the late 90's as former Republican Congressman from Georgia. As far as I am concerned he should still be burning in Hell!
Indeed. Notice how abortion is a basic human right when "clung to" by liberals/Democrats, but a "divisive wedge culture issue" when brought up by conservatives/Republicans?
The problem is that you view "culture wars" as merely something created by politicians, rather than actual "issues" that people care about.On a related, note:
A letter from someone who has known Sarah Palin since 1992
From: http://my2bucks.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/a-letter-from-someone-who-has-known-sarah-palin-since-1992/
Also
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/3671/the-reform-candidate
This is a balanced and fascinating chronicle of Palin’s public service. I would strongly recommend that both conservatives and liberals read this. If fiscal conservatives think that she will help McCain get the economy because of her ‘executive’ experience you really NEED to read this. She left Wasila, a town with zero debt prior to her tenure as mayor, 22 million dollars in debt. Yikes. A McCain/Palin administration would truly be third term of Bush when it comes to a tanking economy.
The veep selection process demonstrates that a McCain vote in November is a vote for Captain Chaos. From Cowboy Bush to Chaos McCain. Run in the opposite direction America.
I really liked her.
The problem is that there is so much crap flying around that it is really hard and time consuming trying to figure out which is which.
I totally love Lynne Spears .... er, I mean Sarah Palin and her daughter Jamie Lynne Spears .... er, I mean Bristol Palin.
Good luck.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/03/oh_baby_the_spears-palin_conne.html
The package, with a note reading, "Dear Bristol: Hang in there......xoxo, Jamie Lynn" was shipped off to the Alaska Capitol building.
.....
The best news: Saturday Night Live writers already have enough material for the entire season.
This is going to be brutal and the Dems don't have to do a thing.
This talk of worry for the Democrats assumes, of course, that nothing comes of the corruption charges.
I think whenever we read or hear obviously ridiculous praise of Palin we have to ask "Is real or is it Noonanex?"
I wonder how many of Palin's detractors on this site and others are paid Push Trollers?
The best thing that can happen for Palin is for people like the posters above, the Democrats in general and the media to continue to attack her -- the baser and more sexist language, the better.
Click, click, click -- every word they write or speak is one more independent voter for the McCain/Palin.
Please, keep typing LarryMoe, Libarbarian and others -- by all means, talk about her pregnant daughter, her accent, her "sarcastic" tone, her hair -- you're making it so easy.
John Kay: "She's against abortions for raped women, against sex ed, for creationism. She also tried to censor her local library and, when the librarians wouldn't kowtow, downsized one while raising her overall budget."
Given her recent appearance on the scene, and the shotgun scattershot of attacks on her... do you think it might be possible that her positions on one or more of these issues might not be quite as extreme as has been alleged? Or that the truth about the library story might be different than the very first version which appears on the web?
"possibly the most corrupt state in the union "?
As aa resident of Illinois, I beg to differ. And there is a great deal of difference between fighting corruption as Ms. Palin and endorsing it as Senator Obama has.
Dropped by to read the scared and angry comments. Ms. McCardle you are reasonable although policy wrong. She has not only energized the base, she has made it an army that will now work the door by door with a gusto that has not been seen since Reagan. To those who posted that she lied- no she did not- Obama has absolutely no executive experience-ZERO. Shakespeare anticipated any idiot that thinks that running a campaign is qualification for President without more, to quote the bard "you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things". By the way check out the poll numbers today. Luv you all anyway.
Where was the substance in her speech? She's EXACTLY what the uneducated whites in this Country love--and that makes her a terrible danger as that demographic has elected George Bush twice. They NEVER see through these vicious religious fanatics. They're killing us--economically and in every other way imaginable. And now watch them gobble her up like they do the wrestling channel!
For all you Obamoids out there who get offended at the slap at "community organizer," ya'll should find out just what Little O did as said "organizer." Huckster is more like it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/obamas_alinsky_jujitsu.html
It's laughable how clueless so many people on this comment list are. Oh, Palin is scary, huh? But when Obama says he's going to force all school kids from AGE 12 to do "community service" well that's, like, just so cool.
"I'm a libertarian." "I'm voting for Obama"
Could I have some cognition with that dissonance?
To LarryMoe and others who don't think think Todd Palin is Native American. He is partially Yupik (Eskimo) and carries enough of it in his genes that both he and his kids are enrolled members of the Bristol Bay Native Corporation. Do you expect him to look like Nanook of the North, live in an igloo, and wear fur 365 days a year?
There are many Native Americans who are enrolled members of Federally-recognized tribes and Native Corporations who don't fit YOUR stereotypes. I have friends and clients who are enrolled members of tribes such as the Eastern Band of Cherokee and the Catawba Nation who, if they hadn't told you, you wouldn't have a clue that they were Native Americans.
Jesus, you still haven't found man, gotten married, and produced children.
Same old crap.
Having children is a great qualification for being president. You wouldn't know since you're still living the life of the perpetual adolescent.
FWIW, she did a great job praising the POTUS candidate. Small town memorials except he came hom was trememndous.
As for community organizers, my reaction to the Obama's lauding of this "profession" is who pays for it? Taxpayers via government grants.
It is a team that will prosecute the culture war against all that is decent and civilized in the United States
One can only hope so. One can only hope.
"What man would have characterized himself as a "hockey Dad" when introducing himself as a candidate for the second highest office in the land?"
Abraham Lincoln: "Rail-splitter"
Grant's vice president, Henry Wilson, was known as "the cobbler from Natick"
So there's precedent.
Somebody's stuck in a Feminist Mental Conformity trap, I'd say.
"and especially, the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility."
Hogwash. A barracuda with a crate of hand grenades would be less threatening than Gov. Palin. The woman has balls of steel - and it wasn't an education in Women's Studies which gave them to her. Men recognize this right off, even if many women apparently don't. Men are not afraid of equals (though they're annoyed by mere wannabees).
Palin's "feminity" means that she can do stuff like shoot moose and serve as mayor and governor without wanting to be an ersatz man. This is feminism at a level which I doubt the '70s old-guard feminists can even imagine. So out on the rubbish heap of history with them.
Palin is great. About time someone stood up to that racist, lying, traitorous scumbag Obama.
Obama is a disgusting, soulless excuse for a human being.
This election comes down to good vs evil. Benedict Obama will do his best and the media will spread his lies, but don't count out the good and decent people yet. Evil can't always win, Obama and his minions can still be defeated.
All I can say is that after reading the comments here, it appears that regardless of who wins we are in for at least four more years of the same thing as the last eight years --- partisan hatred.
It began with Gore's despicable law suit in 2000 and it continues to this day. God Save America. Oh, wait can one say that to liberals?
I love how many commenting just know Sarah Palin's views on creationism, abortion, and economics.
Sarah Palin's views are still largely unknown. The creationist schtick being peddled by anti Christian bigots is an example. She never stated she was against the teaching of evolution. When asked she stated she thought local jurisdictions should have the option of teaching creationism as well as evolution.
Myself, I truely could not give a crap. Whether evolution is real or not would not matter in anyone's life anymore than if they knew whether or not Tyrannosaurus Rex was a hunter or scavenger. Besides the curious, who cares.
President Palin, from a state with the population the size of Brooklyn, NY, going head-to-head with Vladimir Putin or The People's Republic of China. Take a sleeping-pill and the nightmares may vanish,or not. Dream on, America!
Robert
Palin's entire persona seems crafted to be the anti-Hillary: no man will find her a challenge to his masculine ego.
This may be due, in part, to Palin being an entirely self-made woman. She, unlike Hillary, didn't piggyback on the success of her husband. As a result, Palin, unlike Hillary, has less pressure to overtly prove herself to be "as good as the men" -- her self-made success is proof enough.
All this talk about lies. Why dont you go ahead and name them and then go find a conservative blogger who has answered them? Then you can ignore the facts, but at least you will have read them.
And "libarbarian", it's simply amazing that you could be so hateful about Bristol's situation and consider yourself some champion of personal freedom.
The irony of "libertarians" voting for a socialist is beautiful. I guess you wont mind losing your right to own private property as long as you can exercise your "reproductive rights" freely and smoke weed in public.
Funny how you all think being "pro-life" is part of some culture war, which you obviously feel yourself above. I'm anti-abortion because I know that pre-abortion there is a beating heart and post-abortion there is a baby in a trash can. It's very simple. It's a belief from which I could never be dissuaded, and it's profoundly important to me and to how I vote. I do think the "pro-death", anti-family culture of the coasts is sickening and destructive, but I don't think of this as a war between my viewpoint and yours. I'm right, you're wrong, and things will be put right in this life or the next. For your sake, let's hope this never does turn into a war between me and my religion and gun-clinging buddies. You'd either lose the war or you'd win the war while we all lost our freedom.
Culture war? Allright!!!!!
Which side has all the guns?
'I think Megan's analysis is wrong. The Obama campaign is going to raise one important question: "Folks, haven't we had enough of these culture wars? Haven't we had enough of Karl Rove and George Bush trying to divide people? We've had eight years of it. You want more?"'
There's a problem with this. Obama claims to want to end this "divisiveness", but I don't think that a lot of people think that political disagreement in America is such a huge problem. In fact, a lot of people think it's what a vibrant democracy looks like. I really don't think that this message means a thing to anyone who isn't already voting for Obama, because he's the candidate on the left side of the pre-existing divide -- which isn't going away.
Furthermore, Obama hasn't done anything to show nor suggested what he might do to bridge this "divide". Choosing his VP was an opportunity to demonstrate something, but he chose JOE BIDEN?!? I'm sorry, but that was a huge blunder. I ask, and I'm sure others also asked, "Who owed whom what, exactly?"
Finally, when Obama talks about ending "divisiveness", it sounds to many people like, "everyone will agree with ME!" Of course, they won't.
I doubt that Obama can win on the "end the division" platform. I doubt that either side can. Who in the real world believes it is possible, or even desirable, to have some monolithic society, all of whom are Democrats?
This won't happen if Obama wins by a landslide, any more than it happened when Reagan did.
'I think Megan's analysis is wrong. The Obama campaign is going to raise one important question: "Folks, haven't we had enough of these culture wars? Haven't we had enough of Karl Rove and George Bush trying to divide people? We've had eight years of it. You want more?"'
There's a problem with this. Obama claims to want to end this "divisiveness", but I don't think that a lot of people think that political disagreement in America is such a huge problem. In fact, a lot of people think it's what a vibrant democracy looks like. I really don't think that this message means a thing to anyone who isn't already voting for Obama, because he's the candidate on the left side of the pre-existing divide -- which isn't going away.
Furthermore, Obama hasn't done anything to show nor suggested what he might do to bridge this "divide". Choosing his VP was an opportunity to demonstrate something, but he chose JOE BIDEN?!? I'm sorry, but that was a huge blunder. I ask, and I'm sure others also asked, "Who owed whom what, exactly?"
Finally, when Obama talks about ending "divisiveness", it sounds to many people like, "everyone will agree with ME!" Of course, they won't.
I doubt that Obama can win on the "end the division" platform. I doubt that either side can. Who in the real world believes it is possible, or even desirable, to have some monolithic society, all of whom are Democrats?
This won't happen if Obama wins by a landslide, any more than it happened when Reagan did.
Most of you here are absolutely misunderstanding the appeal of this woman and this speech. It transcends typical policy differences and gets at something more fundamental, the same fundamental that has gradually eroded away a handful of former lefties since 2001, sending us more to the right if not completely to that side.
As Andrew McCarthy of Nat'l Review said in a post at their writer's blog The Corner:
"I have an article on the homepage today arguing why I think Sarah Palin's joyful jabs at Obama were pitch perfect. Here's the upshot:
"Palin is a natural. What we got is what she is: poised, sharp, charming, feisty, funny, and unapologetically patriotic. As she might have put it, the speech she gave in St. Paul is the same one she’d give in Scranton or San Francisco.
"More importantly, the speech tapped into a teeming reservoir of repressed rage. Memo to Barack Obama: You’re right, many of us are bitter. We are damn angry about being framed as “the American Taliban” because we love our country and think it’s exceptional as is; because we think you deal with evil by defeating it, not cozying up to it; because the change we think we need is a government that shrinks and gets out of the way, not a confiscatory, will-sapping Leviathan; because we don’t see “patriotism” as the willingness — the eagerness — to catalogue America’s flaws while never acknowledging her greatness; because when it comes to “reputation in the world,” we think it’s the “international community” not the United States that has a lot of catching up to do.
"But Sarah Palin didn’t court this anger with more anger. That would be a turn-off. What most frustrates Americans is that we are a happy, optimistic, can-do people ceaselessly harangued by media solons, delusional academics, post-sovereign Eurocrats, and the Democrats who love them. While we free and feed the world, they can’t tell us enough that we’re racist, imperialist, torturing louts. We know it’s a libel, an endless stream of slander. But we also know it’s an absurd libel. We’re tired of hearing it, but taking it too seriously would give it power it doesn’t deserve.
"So Sarah Palin was sarcastic and biting. That’s how a happy warrior deals with absurdity. That’s how a happy warrior rallies the troops."
It seems most lefties hear this as insanity; happily, most Americans don't - even many voting for Obama who might not pay all that much attention to the bitterness at the heart of the modern left.
I am seriously amused. Why does Palin need to have foreign policy experience? Cause dodgin' Joe Biden does? And why did Dodgin' Joe need foreign policy experience? Because Obama, the top of the ticket, not the VP candidate, does not.
In the McCain/Palin ticket, McCain THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, has FOREIGN POLICY experience. Obama has none. Okay, he's listed on the foreign relations committee but has spent about zero time attending any meetings and definitely zero authoring any bills, etc.
Biden is Obama's foreign policy tech. McCain doesn't need that.
Obama has "community organization" for internal policy. Palin brings "mayor and governor" with a history of working with energy policy. In otherwords, Palin brings the internal, national policy chops.
In truth, the tickets reflect their emphasis. Obama sees internal policy as the most important and foreign policy can be delegated. McCain says that the biggest dangers we face are external so he empahsizes foreign policy with internal policy being delegated.
Now, the question is, what do the voters see?
Most of you here are absolutely misunderstanding the appeal of this woman and this speech. It transcends typical policy differences and gets at something more fundamental, the same fundamental that has gradually eroded away a handful of former lefties since 2001, sending us more to the right if not completely to that side.
As Andrew McCarthy of Nat'l Review said in a post at their writer's blog The Corner:
"I have an article on the homepage today arguing why I think Sarah Palin's joyful jabs at Obama were pitch perfect. Here's the upshot:
"Palin is a natural. What we got is what she is: poised, sharp, charming, feisty, funny, and unapologetically patriotic. As she might have put it, the speech she gave in St. Paul is the same one she’d give in Scranton or San Francisco.
"More importantly, the speech tapped into a teeming reservoir of repressed rage. Memo to Barack Obama: You’re right, many of us are bitter. We are damn angry about being framed as “the American Taliban” because we love our country and think it’s exceptional as is; because we think you deal with evil by defeating it, not cozying up to it; because the change we think we need is a government that shrinks and gets out of the way, not a confiscatory, will-sapping Leviathan; because we don’t see “patriotism” as the willingness — the eagerness — to catalogue America’s flaws while never acknowledging her greatness; because when it comes to “reputation in the world,” we think it’s the “international community” not the United States that has a lot of catching up to do.
"But Sarah Palin didn’t court this anger with more anger. That would be a turn-off. What most frustrates Americans is that we are a happy, optimistic, can-do people ceaselessly harangued by media solons, delusional academics, post-sovereign Eurocrats, and the Democrats who love them. While we free and feed the world, they can’t tell us enough that we’re racist, imperialist, torturing louts. We know it’s a libel, an endless stream of slander. But we also know it’s an absurd libel. We’re tired of hearing it, but taking it too seriously would give it power it doesn’t deserve.
"So Sarah Palin was sarcastic and biting. That’s how a happy warrior deals with absurdity. That’s how a happy warrior rallies the troops."
It seems most lefties hear this as insanity; happily, most Americans don't - even many voting for Obama who might not pay all that much attention to the bitterness at the heart of the modern left.
>We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign
We will be talking about one important policy issue: Energy.
McCain and Palin will be talking about drilling for oil, using clean coal, and building nuclear.
Obama told us that “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.” He and Biden will oppose oil, nuclear, coal, and anything other than non-existent alternate energy.
Obama hasn't any more relevant experience than she has; he's simply been coaching for the thing longer.
He won a primary campaign that everyone thought was certain to be won by Clinton. That is pretty good proof of his ability. Palin does not have similar proof.
There is simply no way to attack her
I think they should ask why McCain wants her to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Certainly, he is the person to attack - no one votes on the Vice President.
I don't think that was the point of her comments at all. I think they were intended to do two things: to throw those two criticisms back at her critics by glorying in them; and to point out that political skills and smarts don't necessarily require an Ivy League degree, a prestigious internship, etc. Rather, it's possible to begin with a desire to make things better and a willingness to take risks and learn on the job. I like the notion that any woman can aspire to the (vice) presidency, not just the ones who went to the right schools or were fortunate enough to have the right parents or connections.
Oh, and having lived for years in troubled inner city neighborhoods, I salute her opinion of community organizers. No doubt some of them are motivated by the purest-souled possible intentions, but most of the ones I've run across rarely think of solutions that don't involve massive amounts of government aid, and I've not seen any appreciable improvement from their efforts.
"I don't blame her for doing these things, since they seem to work."
Wow. Really?
If it works, then it's okay (no blame!)
What an awful thing to say. Shame.
"We might as well not bother to talk about policy issues in this campaign; we're now in all out culture war, with the coasts and the heartland fighting for control of Ohio."
Megan,
Can you please cite some examples of how Palin has governed as a cultural warrior -- not her own views but actual laws put forth.
John
"Politically, I dislike what she represents: populism, culture warmongering, and especially, the notion that if a woman is to hold power, she has to make herself non-threatening by emphasizing her domesticity and fertility. I don't blame her for doing these things, since they seem to work. But I don't like living in a society where this works."
You've misunderstood the message and the motive. Male politicians have fallen over themselves *for years* to portray themselves as 'regular guys' who do 'regular things.' It's often absurd, because they aren't regular guys. Do you think Obama likes to bowl? Or Hillary likes to do shooters in blue collar bars? It's political theater by political elites who are trying to pretend that they aren't political elites in order to win an election.
In this case, however, the Republicans have stumbled across someone who really isn't a political elite. She really does like to hunt and fish. She really is a motivated mom. (she got her political toes wet in the PTA, for god's sake... Hillary ran straight for the US Senate after riding her husband's coat tails) She really is pro-life... she has 5 kids, including one with a problem that causes most other people to abort the fetus.
Demonstrating these qualities as genuine, because they are genuine, completely ruins the 'regular person' meme for the other side because they're lying when they do it, and she isn't. Every voter who feels enough of a connection to her (and thereby, her ticket) to *not vote against her* may as well be a vote gained.
Good grief, Megan, hasn't your doc heard of Advair, Flovent, or any other inhaled corticosteroids, with a modest little shot of systemic prednisone (maybe 10 mg or so twice a day for a couple of days)? Your asthma sounds like the way one would handle it in 1962.
And, confidential to "ad", who said about TVG (The Vacuous Garment) "He won a primary campaign that everyone thought was certain to be won by (Clinton)." Um, so the critical qualification for high office these days is to win not a series of primaries (they were basically a draw) as you said, but to collect enough caucus delegates in (mostly) red states because your competitor took her appeal for granted? Got it.
Governor Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.
McArdle, I'll just say this, skimming the first dozen comments then sicking up and refusing to read any more:
You certainly have the commenters you deserve.
McCain/Palin '08!
Palin/Jeb Bush '12!
RE: ". . .good speaker, and almost preternaturally composed."
Was it just me, or did that speech have kind of a Mary Katherine Ham vibe?
Quoting Megan: “Palin's speech seemed to imply that her main qualification for office is having five kids and a great husband.”
I think you misread the intent here. It was expected for her to show off her family; all the candidates do. She also demonstrated her ties to the greater middle class, which is only smart campaigning. Meanwhile, behind her back, she was jabbing a broomstick through the bars of the hyena cage, trying to get those lovable, timid Kos Kidz to render themselves unconscious flinging themselves at the bars trying to get at her, thus giving the whole zoo a bad name. This is your culture war. She didn’t mention any hot-button items. She was the hot-button item. She didn’t attack, she presented herself to be attacked. I think she was enjoying herself. But if you review all statements carefully, I think you won't find any verbal shots fired in the culture war.
Now what was John McCain’s role in all this? Remember, we’re dealing with a man with combat flying training. These guys are pretty good tactically. (Before someone indignantly brings it up, no, this is no particular qualification for the presidency.) All accusations aside, he apparently has been actively considering and vetting her for quite some time. I doubt there is much she can be attacked on, such as experience, that won't make either Obama or Biden look bad. Remember, Delaware's population isn't much larger than Alaska's, and it has rather less area. Most of the corruption hypocrsy charges can be easily dealt with by pointing out that she's wildly popular back home, where they know her. I don’t think it was any accident that McCain issued a polite video congratulating Obama and Biden, then quietly announced Sarah’s candidacy.
Immediately, the orcs started boiling up out of DailyKos, MoveOn, etc., making wild accusations and all sorts of fanciful “proofs” that she is both evil and incompetent. Kos Kidz please note; you’ve been had. Middle America, and the middle-class suburbs on the coasts, won’t have any trouble at all with her biography. They will have trouble with the attacks. I’m sorry, but they will get a kick out of the mooseburgers. I think I’ve a good insight on this. I’ve lived on both coasts (North Jersey, Sunnyvale CA) and now live in Kentucky. I’ve also lived a lot of other places.
Okay, this leaves with an obvious culture war instigated by the Republicans by forcing the Democrats to attack Sarah. How do we get to actually discuss the issues? I have a very devious suggestion: Try actually discussing the issues. This is entirely consistent with the First Law of Holes. It will also completely derail the evil plot; those stupid Republicans won’t know how to respond.
This Palin woman has an incredibly inflated view of herself. Rising this fast foreshadows a fast fall.
I would get into this just as I read the warning on commenters, thankfully that's tomorow, but:
Oh, good. Does that mean we can use real rubber suction arrows?
This Palin woman has an incredibly inflated view of herself. Rising this fast foreshadows a fast fall.
This Palin woman has an incredibly inflated view of herself. Rising this fast foreshadows a fast fall.
I view her more as the anti-elite rather than a populist or the leader of the culture war.
She threw meat to people who were gonna vote form them anyways- nothing she said resonated with any of the independents I watched it with.
Isn't Palin still breast-feeding her son? That's one job that won't be taken over by Todd for a while. So I'd say she gets to still call herself Mom if she wants.
She may not be a "Hockey Mom" now but there is no doubt that's how she still thinks of herself. I think it is a terrible mistake that she is portraying herself in any way at all. She is who she is, and is learning on the way. There is definitely a big step from mayor of Wasilla to Governor of Alaska, and a giant one to VP of the USA but she seems capable. But I really doubt she has learned to play all of the pretentious games that the modern political class seems to think are embedded in everyone in office.
Bitter Sarah did an excellent and almost exemplary
job of reading Karl Rove's programmed texts.
She does add a threatening and potentially winning
element to McCain's campaign. Obama and Joe have to walk on egg shells here and simply should ask questions such as:Sarah Palin what would do: as president if McCain no longer could function as president? free speech question and relate it to her wanting to remove books from a library resource system in Alaska? could a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape be denied an abortion? Questions at all times should be simple, friendly and meant to uncover the real right wing extremist that Sarah happens to be. America needs to know this fox in wolves clothing.
Megan
For years the MSM has had snarky little comments to the effect that the culture wars are over, and with their side in the ascendant.
Not so fast. Many of us weren't aware that there even was a war. If you want one, though, I'll be willing to oblige, and I don't think I'm alone. If you want peace, you'd best consider whether unconditional surrender is your optimal strategy.
Memo for you, Megan, abortion on demand at any time during the pregnancy and for any reason is *not* where this will end. (Memo also for Gov. Palin -- abortion will continue to be legal.) I respect Governor Palin for the choice that she has made with respect to Trig, and I respect Bristol's choice. They recognize that they would pay a price for their choice, and they are paying it. But most Christians I know (not me -- I'm personally an atheist, but I believe in tolerance, unlike someone who writes "On Faith" for the Washington Post) also grasp that many, perhaps most, pregnant women who choose to terminate a pregnancy suffers a psycological price.
As far as Governor Palin's snarky digs at Senator Obama, if he can't take it he should drop out right now. After all the calumny dropped on G. W. Bush's head for eight years, are Democrats so stupid as to imagine that he'd get a free ride all his life?
Has anybody besides me read Sen. Obama's book? The one (I forget the title) where he owns up to the fact that the community organizing he did, at least at first, was as the black front man for a community organization that a white man had set up. How about the fact that he and lackeys from the Daley machine used dirty tricks to disqualify all of the other legitimate candidates for the state senate in his district? As far as I'm concerned Senator Obama has never really been tested, and if elected I doubt Mr. Putin and the terrorist organizations will waste any time testing him.
I married a nuclear scientist while we were graduate students back in the early 1970s, and I remember what women had to go through back then. In the MSM attacks on Sarah Palin I see echoes of that time, and I am *enraged*. I thought we were getting over that stuff. Memo to you, Megan, and also Gloria, Sally, and a whole lot of others. We're as ready to fight you today as we were to fight ignorant and chauvenistic professors thirty-five years ago! My wife does not need external genitalia to solve Schroedinger's equation, and I doubt Ms. Palin needs external genitalia to be an effective VP.
One last thought. Senator McCain and Governor Palin have one thing in common that everybody so far have overlooked. They both took on Ted Stevens and won. I don't know whether Joe Biden in 36 years in the Senate can say the same and I *know* that in his 150 days in the Senate Barack Obama cannot.
Read the Gettysburg Address. It's really all a bunch of bullshit.
Speeches are theater.
Most of the commentary is just chattering, by people who want to believe something.
We'll know in November. Until then, saying, "I don't know anyone who was/wasn't swayed by a speech", or "I don't know anyone who will vote for X" is just a load of crap from a bunch of bored people with internet connections. Myself included.
RE: ". . .good speaker, and almost preternaturally composed."
Was it just me, or did that speech have kind of a Mary Katherine Ham vibe?
At the risk of sounding like a moron...
I am not sure that I know what "populism" means. Every time I think I do, I hear it used in a different way with different context. Even the definition I looked up is rather vague and nonspecific. I am wondering if it means something different to, for example, an economist than to a politician? This is probably the wrong place to go to get this cleared up, but it's been driving me nuts.
These comments are so friggin' funny to read.
So Sarah Palin, a religious, fecund, hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, hockey mom, special-needs mom, basketball mom, military mom, small-business-owning, SUV-driving, Costco-shopping, carpooling, union-spouse, politician doesn't connect with you, a bunch of single, childless, deep-blue, latte-sipping, Brie-eating, Whole-Foods-arugula-shopping, bus/subway riding, irony-infused, snarky-ass Seinfeld-type city dwellers from places McCAIN ISN'T GOING TO WIN ANYWAY.
NO F'IN KIDDING. She's not TRYING to connect with you. You are ATYPICAL.
Do you have any idea how many tens of millions of voters, especially women, fall into a category touched on in some way by my description of Palin? Tens of millions.
This election, as the others in the last 20 years, will largely be decided by middle-of-the-road voters in about 10-12 swing states. All Palin has to do is switch a few percent of them and this election is over.
McCain hit it out of the park.
"Populism" means something different in different contexts. It's largely rhetorical.
Reagan was a populist (big government gets in the way of individuals and businesses who are trying to better themselves and the economy in the process).
Nader is a populist (big business externalizes costs in order to profit at the expense of American consumers while causing them injury, death or illness directly and/or through environmental degradation).
Mao (the People!) and Hitler (die Volk!) were populists as well.
"Populism" doesn't imply any political philosophy.
"Economic populism" does have some more specific implications, at least in the US. I'll leave the complete definition to someone else.
Before one starts screaming about the supposed lies Sarah Palin was throwing last night, one should look at the whoopers that the Obama camp has thrown around. And as far as the experience issue goes, the Republicans may be running a VP candidate with little experience on foreign policy, but the Democrats are running their Presidential candidate with just as little. I think the Dems really blew it, Hillary was a far more credible candidate for President than Barak.
I quote: "Politically, I dislike what she represents: populism, culture warmongering..."
Ah, yes we certainly can't have anyone as Vice-President that the people actually like. No, not at all. And what do all those bitter, gun-toting, God-worshiping Neanderthals in the hinderlands know about running the country? Better to leave that sort of thing to their betters in Upper Manhattan and inside the Beltway. Palin in particular should stay home and raise that outsized brood of hers. (/sarcasm)
And excuse me, but if memory serves me correctly, virtually every aspect of what is called her "cultural warmongering" is the result of an invasion by the other side into the lives of ordinary people. Cultural self-defense would be more apt. The moral arrogance of those who champion abortion at any time for any reason is nothing short of astounding.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace
agreene,
HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: Obama has 260 electoral votes pretty much cinched, and McCain has 170
Cute. Given your proclivity to count your chickens before they hatch, I'll bet you regularly patronize advance check-cashing establishments.
Remember the advice of General George S. Patton:
"I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!"
Question of the Day: Who do you think is "holding their position" and who do you think is on the advance?
Nobody, but nobody, is talking any more about "St. Barry's Sermon in Front of the Columns"...and that alone speaks volumes.
Along the lines of Kurt Cobain: "just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you..."
If, in fact, there actually IS a movement of some people with money and power, in specific geographical areas, to control the lives of the remainder of a country, state, whatever, by regulating, taxing, and otherwise coercing them, can it legitimately be denigrated as vulgar "populism" when the "other" dares to "speak truth to power"?
I think not.
So, one comes back to having to examine the assertions of the "populist". Each is either right or wrong.
I have no reason to think that she would be a particularly bad president.
If you spend all of your time online, as I presume you do, one would think you'd run across stories like these:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303210.html
Perhaps that's not a compelling enough reason (to you) for her not to serve as President, but I would hardly say it gives you "no reason" to imagine she's hardly the sort of person we'd like in that office.
What shocks me about the entire Palin “evening” is that she chose to put her very obviously pregnant unwed 17 year old daughter on the stage with her last night (and the father of the child who is 18 and not the daughter’s husband). I am a mother of three young daughters and a son and I am trying to teach them that becoming pregnant out of wedlock, risking their chances at education is extremely dangerous for their future. I hated having to explain why Tom Cruise got married after the baby was born, etc. etc. I am a Democrat, and I believe in moral values. We need to be teaching our children that they should not have sex in high school and it is not okay to be pregnant at 17. What kind of message did the center stage last night send our children. It is terribly depressing to me. The news surrounding Bill Clinton ten years ago forced us to talk about blow jobs with our children and convince them this was not okay and now this… I don’t let my children watch Disney channel anymore….now I can’t let them watch the Republican convention???? Where is the social conservative Republican outrage? Please tell me we don't think all this is just fine. Don’t say we can’t talk about a politician’s daughter and then put her out there for the world and my children to see!!
Xanthippas, your ah-ha article seems to indicate an angry governor expressing anger in an understandable way; anger in fact which is all wound up in her zeal to shake things up in Alaska. And hiding none of it. Here they are, the e-mails.
On reading the summary of the events behind the anger - and the context of the e-mails in which this anger was expressed - what I think you have here is another instance of Palin doing something and expressing emotions most people would find reasonable.
Is expressing anger a disqualifier for the presidency now? You really are a liberal, I guess.
I do notice two sets of details missing from this summary: the findings of the internal investigation against the trooper (and opinions on the veracity of those findings); and the reasons given for the firing of Monegan, the former public safety commissioner and the recipient of these e-mails.
First off, Sarah Palin is not "married to an eskimo". She's married to a man who has Inuit ancestry (I've read one-eighth to one-half, which goes to show the value of what passes for reportage these days). I also read that Wasilla, where she was mayor, had 9,000 people, 7,000 people, 4,00 people, and 5,000 people. Not that a few thousand or hundred off means a rat's patootie, but can't the so-called "reporters" get it right?
Second, I don't know what world you live in, but where I live, there are a lot of men whose male egos could be threatened by Palin's familiarity with guns, hunting, take-no-prisoners politics, and ferocious diss-my-family-at-your-peril attitude, but who instead choose to laugh, ruefully rub their necks, and admit she's a hell of a woman. I used to think this was what feminism was about.
Third, as a woman I don't agree with every position she takes, but frankly, I don't agree with nearly anything Obama says, and I'm not buying the vague "hope and change" airy-fairy crap anymore. Sarah Palin had a quintessential American upbringing. Barack Obama was raised by communist sympathizers and race-baiters.
Mary in North Carolina -
To quote Bob Dylan, "I don't believe you."
That is, I don't believe you're actually outraged that Palin didn't shun her daughter publicly at a moment like that.
Let me think really hard. Would there have been a doorway for liberal outrage if she had followed you recommendation?
Bitter Sarah did an excellent and almost exemplary
job of reading Karl Rove's programmed texts.
She does add a threatening and potentially winning
element to McCain's campaign. Obama and Joe have to walk on egg shells here and simply should ask questions such as:Sarah Palin what would do: as president if McCain no longer could function as president? free speech question and relate it to her wanting to remove books from a library resource system in Alaska? could a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape be denied an abortion? Questions at all times should be simple, friendly and meant to uncover the real right wing extremist that Sarah happens to be. America needs to know this fox in wolves clothing.
I dissent from the majority here in the comments. I found Megan’s response quite sensible, unlike most of the comments here. I’m a Democrat, but I think my fellow Democrats are so in love with the “ZOMG, this woman is a complete joke! Election over!” meme that they aren’t being rational about the real situation.
(1) Palin may not be the best choice for president, but she isn’t grossly unqualified either. (2) There are several legitimate concerns about her, but the press frenzy over the past week has gone way beyond them. (3) Focusing on even the legitimate concerns is not likely to prove politically efficacious for Democrats.
If Democrats give in to Palin derangement syndrome, this choice will prove a strategic positive for the Republicans. Even then, I still don’t think it’ll be enough for McCain to win the election; the fundamentals are too strongly against the Republicans. The election is the Democrats’ to lose. Obsessing about Palin is an opportunity to lose it. We should resist.
A pedantic nitpick for those above referring to Todd Palin as an Inuit: He is not Inuit, he is 1/8 Yupik.
“Inuit” is not synonymous with “Eskimo.” You can read the “Eskimo” article on Wikipedia for details, but in brief there are two types of Eskimos: Inuit and Yupik. Canada began calling their Eskimos “Inuit” because the name was deemed less offensive. Since nearly all Eskimos in Canada are Inuit, that is accurate. It does not mean, however, that all Eskimos are Inuit. Many Americans got the idea that “Inuit” is just the new P.C. word for “Eskimo”, as opposed to a specific subgroup. Alaska is home to both Inuit and Yupik, and Todd Palin’s grandmother comes from a group that is Yupik.
"Sarah Palin, whatever she has done in the past, is now exactly like male politicians: someone else is doing the main work of raising her kids."
Can Megan cite ANYTHING to assure me of this? I've been wondering about it myself. It didn't look that way to me on stage.
Being a parent is hard and important, but it is no more a good qualification for higher office than is being a journalist, which is also hard and important.
Is being a journalist harder than most other vocations? Can someone also be a journalist AND a parent or would that be TWO hard?
What do you imagine the relative hardness of being a parent is compared to a journalist?
The republicans look like a bunch of clowns. The ignorace of these people is incredible. What scares me is we have allot of ignorant people in our country that do not think for themselves. They just do what they are told. Sarah Palin is a not what we want this country to represent. She is a bitter Gun totting right wing nutjob. And Macain is a washed up fool. They represent violance and arogance and evangelical BS. If we let these two get into office we deserve whatever we get. And could you belive Laura Bush? Stepford Wife!!!!!! Theses are scarry people. America is full of scary people.
She is a bitter Gun totting right wing nutjob.
It's like they picked me, only older, female, and better qualified. What's not to like?
This election is a slam-dunk for the Republicans. Not that I'm happy about that. But Palin nailed it last night. The booboisie will eat this gal up. They will love her. It matters not a whit if she can do the policy wonk yak yak. She is clearly smart, ambitious and, what’s most impressive, utterly uncowed by one of the most vicious media attacks I've ever seen.
From the blogosphere to the beltway elite, they dumped on her and damn if she didn't give it right back at them with style, grace, wit and the warmest smile in all of christendom. She just might be America's Thatcher. I remember the oxbridge beat-up on the iron lady and how she dished it right back with wit and verve, qualities the poobahs just couldn't believe a grocer's daughter could possibly possess.
Next to Sarah Palin, Obama will seem like a vacuous airy-fairy poofball. An empty suit. A wimp. Nobody likes a wimp. Not even feminists.
I suspect there's going to be a new "Bradley effect": feminists who say they're voting for Obama and voting against the Republicans but… who go into the voting booth and pull the lever for the hockey mom. The more the MSM and leftie bloggers attack her, the more fed-up the non-rad feminist gals will get and silently defect to Sarah in the anonymity of the polling booth. The margin of Republican victory will shock.
The Clintons got this one right. The Dems picked the one guy who couldn't win. The inside-the-media-bubble policy wonks, right & left, don’t get it. They think elections are fought on “the issues.” They have a hard time grokking the Madison Avenue mores of US elections. Obama’s policy positions are obtuse gibberish. As are McCain’s. 95.67% of likely voters never read them. T’was ever thus.
Obama’s problem is that his personality quickly grates on most people. It's not his race. Average American could care less about race or gender. They care about performance, competence, and charisma. To them, Obama is boring, inarticulate (whadid he jes say??) and humourless. They gravitate to two opinions of BO: (a) clueless airhead and (b) wimp. And what he's accomplished, the Ivy degrees, the community organizer stuff, winning a couple of political offices just doesn't impress the great unwashed. Nor me. Which is rather frightening… to agree with mass opinion on anything.
Working folks are connecting big time with Palin and her stud muffin husband. Women love her because she doesn't take any guff from the big boys. She dishes right back but more effectively than they because wittier and funnier. Gals think, “Wow, the lady’s got guts. She’s tough. She doesn’t back off. She looks a lot like me (wishful thinking I admit) and goes toe to toe with the best of the best… and wins. You go girl!”.
Men love her because she's, well, sexy. Trust me. That's what wins elections. Obama and Biden? Couple of tired old hacks. And gawd what bores!!
Forget about whether there was any "substance" in Palin's speech. Forget about whether it was right or left. Electorate doesn't give a twig about wonkish policy stuff. Bores 'em to tears. They're too dumb to understand what it means. (So are most policy wonks BTW, who just can’t get their heads around Hayekian unintended consequences and the spontaneous way people & companies solve problems if left alone).
The masses vote for (a) witty sex appeal that doesn't sound dumb & seems to grok their frustrations (b) their pocketbooks and (c) at certain times of crisis they vote out of fear. Obama and Biden flop on all three. McCain will be sold to the booboisie as a fighter-pilot war hero who isn't going to raise their taxes (whether it's true or not is utterly unimportant to the masses). And Palin closes the deal with her guts, charisma, intelligence and pure, unadulterated sex appeal.
So a grumpy old Republican jet jockey is going to own the White House for the next four years. It's pathetic and frightening. But not quite as pathetic or frightening as "no there there" rad chic socialista Obama and his crazy old bloviating logarrheic Democratic fuddy duddy Biden buddy. No one likes a guy who can't shut up.
Repubs somehow, mirabile dictu, stumbled upon a new Thatcher. And, the Dems, well, they've put up another McGovern, Mondale, Dukaka Dud. Election will be a blowout. I'm heading to Intrade this very moment before the odds shift. I like easy money.
I agree with Megan's citation of Crooks. It is fairly obvious to me that the MSM has decided or will soon decide that Sarah Palin is going to have to be "Borked" as a right wing nutjob. And that is what they are going to proceed to try and do. Whether or not that will succeed remains to be seen.
By the way, I also agree that the Obama campaign had better start woodshedding Biden yesterday. He may be an icon to some Dems, but it is a fair criticism that he has trouble not coming across to most Americans as a windy jackass.
Back to the Borking point, though, the reporting coming from Alaska so far does not convince me that such attacks will work. And with 60 days to go, there is time for the truth to be known. The reports so far are that, unlike Robert Bork, she seems to be far too pragmatic and non-egotistical to allow that happen. The reporting indicates that she has not been aggressive in imposing her personal beliefs onto public policy. For example, the Alaska reporting appears to be that she is pro-life, and thinks abstinence should be urged, she is not anti-contraception. Other reporting indicates that while she may believe in creationism herself, she has not tried to change Alaska public school and library policy to reflect that point of view. She may hunt and kill large mammals, but I have not heard that she has tried to make that mandatory for all Alaskans. Her husband may work or have worked in the oil fields, but being a union member hourly worker in The Patch doesn't really make you a tool of Big Oil.
Also, Bork was frankly a grouchy ugly old rich white guy who was pretty scary to look at. Palin may be scary for Andrew Sullivan to look at, but most people (male, female, transgendered, straight, gay, or bi) will have to concede that Sarah is rather easy on the eyes. And in a telegenic political world (I don't recall many Dems complaining that JFK was too handsome) that ain't a liability.
Unlike some, I do not believe that the Palin pick makes the election a lock for McCain. I do agree that it is, however, a game changer and that is what the old combat pilot McCain knew he had to do with it. As far as I am aware, I was the first to suggest that the Palin pick was McCain's decision/action is his application of the OODA Loop against the Obama campaign. An election cycle, like war/combat, is a bilateral and dynamic process and it remains to be seen whether McCain can maneauver Obama into being "out of altitude, out of air speed, and out of ideas" within the next 60 days. But the Palin pick has certainly proved to be a helluva first move across the Rubicon.
I am a life long republican and a neuro-surgeon who also runs an investment bank in the far east when I am not engaged in
quantum nano-structure genetic experimentation . I cannot possibly support a completely inexperienced untested woman,
especially one too dumb to realize that raising children is a full time job. Her speech was pathetic .
Where were the ums and ahs that a gifted speaker like Obama is able to use freely ?
Moreover she is not a lawyer, hasnt graduated from harvard and her husband works with his hands !!
People like this are not supposed to hold elected office in this great democracy .
She wouldnt know a great chablis is it was poured in her lap. I am DISGUSTED !!!
Palin's claim was that liberal elites (e.g. a black guy brought up by a single mother) look down on small town life and culture. Yet she said to a reporter in 1996 that she wanted to get a glimpse of Ivana Trump because "we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture."
Palin is a good presenter and tough but she sounds like a hypocrite and a demagague to me. She claimed she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere but actually strongly supported the pork project to help get her elected. Then once elected, she converted the bridge funds to other pork because Alaska was being nationally mocked for this pork. She claims to hate pork but hired a lobbyist to get $26 million in pork for a town of 6000. She claims she is a reformer but has abused her office to fire not one, but two police chiefs for personal and political reasons, and she tried to fire a librarian who stood up to Palin's demand to burn books. Palin is a hypocrite and McCain's judgement continues to deteriorate the more desperate he is to win power.
"America is full of scary people."
Well, you just pull that tinfoil hat down a bit tighter and you might be ok there Martin.
I got thru the first 1/3 or so of the comments and my God the projection that is going on here.
I can see the leftists don't get it.
When the water recedes from the beach, run to high ground. They won't. They can't. Kos has said so. Let His will be done. Let there be Four More Years.
All Palin has to do is persuade 50,000 Ohio voters to go for McCain/Palin, and the race is over. The Digital Brownshirts may irk that many voters by the weekend, and reap the whirlwind in November.
It's cold in Ohio in November.
Democrats are correct to consider Palin a redneck. She proudly filed for a business license by a "classy" version of that name. On June 8, 2005, the Anchorage Daily News published an interview with Palin called "Palin is ready for return to the public arena and service; Q&A." The interviewer, Joseph Ditzler, asked Palin about the meaning of the name she filed on a business license acquired in her name. She responded:
"Rouge Cou, it's a classy way of saying redneck. It's a French word, rouge is red, cou is neck. It's for marketing and consulting, in case I wanted to go that route, I'd have my ducks all lined up and have a business license. I just was granted that business license."
Swift is right. Women can be strong and feminine. They have throughout time. What they did not have was legal recognition except recently by historical standards.
The reason that people are excited is that she resonates with the American mythos of a frontier woman.
Let me count they ways: beautiful, sexy, motherly, faithful, shoots and hunts, cooks, capable, competent, fearless, willing to take on her own state Chairman in a corruption scandal. Plus she is real. Most politicians fake this stuff.
Plus she can deliver a speech with wit and humor and still skewer the opponent. She is charismatic. All these item appeal on an emotional level.
If you do not cherish the frontier traditions then she would not resonate with you. But most Americans do cherish the American myth and will love her for that alone.
The bonus is that she is for government for the people by returning money to people, fiscal conservative, low taxes, and wants to expand our energy production. Not a hostage to environmental fanatics. She like a clean environment but balances that with proper development.
She is for a strong America. You know she believes in peace through strength a Reagan motto.
She has the same values as most Americans. She has not tried to mandate her faith on others and she has integrity. Her first veto was against legislation that would have banned state benefits to homosexual couples. She checked the constitution and found the legislation unconstitutional, even though she did not want to promote benefits for gays, she vetoes the banned and implemented benefits.
shenandoah, I believed you nailed it with your extremely insightful commentary.
I'm rather surprised there is someone in San Francisco that is actually able to rationally analyze the election. Living next door in the East Bay, I'm typically annoyed by the foaming-at-the-mouth extremism of the typical SF resident.
FYI, I don't like Palin's excessively conservative stance on social issues. I love her past dealing with corruption and the good-ol-boy network.
Oh, and the next person who tells me I'm a racist because I won't vote for Obama gets punched. I won't vote for ANY socialist.
Ogre,
Good thing about being in a teentsy minority here: I get to feel superior surrounded by SF's lightweight socialist rubes. And I can go about my business with fewer distractions. Why would I want to discuss anything interesting with religious fundamentalists?
I feel sorry for Mrs. Palin. A decent, mega-talented woman heading into the DC monster. It will devour her soul in ways that won't be pretty. Hope I'm wrong.
They call you racist because they are incoherent. They don't know how to respond to logical argument. They don't know what it is.
I've lived all over the world during the past 25 years and discovered to my surprise that Americans are the least racist people on planet earth. Reason is simple. All races live here. E.g., I grew up in Louisiana. Half the people in my home town were genetically european and half were genetically African. Had to learn to get along with each other. Any other choice was suicidal. The delightful ethnic smorgasbord of SF is one reason I love this place.
If anyone were to call a me racist for ANY reason and I felt like continuing the conversation, I'd ask them a simple question: Define what you mean by racist? Then I'd keep up a rapid-fire Socratic line of questioning to get at their basic assumptions, which you'd inevitably discover were nonsense.
But, honestly, it's never worth it. People call others racist when they have no coherent rejoinders.
And I will never be subjected to that epithet in the current context. I've never voted in a political election and don't intend to start now. Don't like wasting my time.
Sarah Palin is nothing more than a smoke screen that the Maverick is using to fool us.He was a POW,we heard over 2000 times.He went throw some tough shit,so did OBAMA, BIBEN, HILARY, and everyone alive .Stop the maddness Mccain/Palin (lying ###)is just BUSH/CHENNEY for 4 more years.P.S any black american supporting Hockey mom/and I WAS A POW is just confussed.
Note the comment by C.O, is an perfect example of what Shenadoah said. Incoherant anger.
Megan, just to say that Wednesday you saw a new POTUS on the nations stage. What an entrance!!
Shakespeare could not have done better to present the newest phenomenon.
I am just curious here but if thats all someone has to do is throw a few words about god's will into thier speech to get elected and votes ,its a shame.Iraq is not god's will it was bush's and we dont need to be paving anyone's roads but ours here at home.McCain backed bush almost the entire time and bush even campaigns for him.Palin is a liar just like mccain and the only reason they pulled her card is because hillary dropped out.Palin is no hillary! She represents everything the american people have been in mccains words *whining about* .WHy would we elect her as vp? honestly? because shes a white woman? she beleives in god's will for everything? because she backs a man that backs bush more than not and we want bush out why would we put these two in? thats right ...so bush can control the puppet that says we won the war yet my friends are still over there ! Dont we want our soldiers home??? Mccain and palin want permanant posts ? Cmon for the south to vote for palin and mccain because shes country and religious is awsome to the point we wont vote in a black man because he doesnt play hockey and have pregnant teenage kids ? Shes just as much a rhetoric as mccain and i will not put up with 4 more years of our country going down the tubes and my friends and family being left overseas in a war mccain and palin say we have won,yet my friends and family are still dying .Think about it.who cares if shes a woman or a good mom or a bible thumper ? id rather vote for black man with a plan than a white woman we have never heard of let alone seen any results from.like carlin said,ill stay home that day and when it hits the fan it wasnt me that voted i was home that day.Way to replace hillary with palin reps...Palin will never be as classy or as knowledgeable on the presidency or fixing what bush and his buddy mccain has done to our country and its families.
"He won a primary campaign that everyone thought was certain to be won by Clinton. That is pretty good proof of his ability."
Skill in campaigning is not the equivalent of competent governance. See Bill Clinton. Heck, see FDR.
"Her first veto was against legislation that would have banned state benefits to homosexual couples. She checked the constitution and found the legislation unconstitutional, even though she did not want to promote benefits for gays, she vetoes the banned and implemented benefits."
Wow, so she threw same sex Alaskan couples a mere bone based on integrity of The Constitution? They should all be so very grateful to her...
You are certainly correct to add that she did not WANT to do it. Examples of that are listed below...
If McCain and Palin are elected, this is what gay Americans would look forward to:
* They oppose the right of same-sex couples to adopt.
* They oppose relationship recognition of any kind for same-sex couples.
* They oppose ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban.
* McCain has voted against the Matthew Shepard Hates Crimes Act three times.
* Palin is against any hate crime law because she just believes all crimes are hate crimes.
* They support abstinence-only education that is ineffective in combating the spread of HIV and other STDs.
* Palin has said during her run for Governor that she didn't know if people choose to be gay or not.
* She also said she supported a 1998 ballot initiative to put a ban on same-sex marriage in the Alaskan constitution.
---------------------
Speaking as a gay female in a super long-termed relationship, I can say that I long for the day when I can be legally recognized as something more than "friend," or "other," to her.
I am not "flaming" or promiscuous. I don't march, I don't lure young kids into homosexual thought and I've hurt no one due to being a lesbian, yet I would be an oddity to be dismissed by McCain and Palin. They hate us. There is No way in LIVING, BREATHING HELL they getting MY vote...
"The "hockey Mom" schtick is a political lie. You could not possibly be a hockey Mom and the vice president of the United States, or for that matter, governor of Alaska. Todd is a hockey Mom. Sarah Palin, whatever she has done in the past, is now exactly like male politicians: someone else is doing the main work of raising her kids."
Megan, I don't think that's right. Yes, I know that every mom is a hockey mom at heart, even if she's now a CEO and never sees them. But Palin is much closer to her roots. She hasn't been in the governor's mansion very long, and even there, there's a video out of her walking to work one day. A hockey mom is allowed to be busy.
Personally, I, who have such severe limitations, find it very annoying that there are people who can do three hundred different tasks every day. But I know people like that, and some of them are even nice about it.
Anyhow, Megan, please don't you start telling everybody that any successful woman has to present herself like Hilary Clinton, or she's lying. Each of us not only decides how much time to give to different parts of our being. We also choose our self-image. I personally think it's neat and beautiful that women can make a success of their outside lives and still present themselves, and even think of themselves, as being true home-makers. Please don't paint feminists into a box.
Hope you feel better.
I don't think I agree with your analysis on this: I didn't see her emphasizing her fertility (5 kids) any more than McCain did (7 kids). I think the domesticity and fertility stuff you might be seeing is main-line Republican values both for men and women. One of the big criticisms I heard from Republicans about Guliani was the sense that he wasn't a traditional family man.
Personally, I thought that her Annie Oakley-style is really appealing. I forgot who said that this is Feminism of the "hang on while I reload this thing" variety instead of the English lit major variety.
ok, if I'm saying what someone else already has, sorry.
Here's my personal experience: I'm a mother of 5, who comes from a small town, in my 40's, who is generally respected in the community, fairly conservative, but yes, pro-choice.
Here's what bothers me: look at this family. Sorry, but if my children were going to be on national TV, represening me and my country, I would go ahead and take out that second mortgage and get them some decent clothes. These children are very sloppily dressed, in clothes that are not age appropriate (8 year olds in black chiffon are not appropriate) or even approriate at all (no red minidressed for politician's children).
And yes, maybe that is superficial. But has anyone seen Mr. Palin holding his baby during the convention? Not that I've watched every minute, but what I've seen is two teenage girls holding an infant. And not in a way that indicates that they are comfortable with it.
Just please, look at the family dynamics and think about how family oriented this group of people looks.
OMG, you Obama people really are idiots! The Republican attack machine hasn't even warmed up yet and Obama has supplied them with enough ammunition to start WWIII. Do yourself a favor, please Google:
Ayers Obama
Wright Obama
Farrakhan Obama
Odinga Obama
al Mansour Obama
Rezko Obama
Believe me, the Republicans already have.
And now a lawsuit has been filed by a Democrat challenging Obama's citizenship. Can you say "October surprise?"
It ought to be said that anyone who's undecided at this point is a frickin moron. Trying to get them to lean one way or the other is essentially a behavioral-psych endeavor on the level of getting a pigeon to peck the red or blue circle.
You did miss what's really terrifying about Sarah Palin: she's a fundamentalist Christian who is a true believer.
As a mother and an American, I am upset about the education gap that already exists comparing the U.S. to many other countries. Do we really want someone in office who believes Darwin and sex-education should be removed from school curriculum?
Does the world stage need another extreme fundamentalist in power? President Bush's current ideological views, which are LESS extreme than Ms. Palin's, have brought us to a pretty low place on the international stage.
I believe I am a Patriot too - with family members serving in Iraq. But separation of church and state is one of the most basic characteristics of our nation, and people like Ms. Palin not only don't respect that, they have very little compassion and understanding of people who may not be right wing Christians. That's not who I want representing me and my family, either domestically, or internationally!! Am I crazy here, why isn't anyone talking about this?
Sarah Palin has experience and is ready to be the potential occupant of the White House. How convincing is that statement? Let’s examine some of that experience. When Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the population was approximately 7,000. The current mayor of Wasilla is also a woman, Dianne Keller. Would John McCain have considered her as a potential running mate? How many small town mayors across the country would consider themselves ready to become President of the United States? After serving as mayor for two terms, Sarah Palin moved up to become the Governor of Alaska. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the population estimate for the state is 670,053. In comparison the population of the State of Rhode Island is roughly double that of Alaska. Could it be that not all governors are equal? More importantly, could it be that not all experience is equal. If Sarah Palin had decided on her own to seek the office of President of the United States, how likely is it that she would have succeeded? During the recent Presidential Primaries both major parties fielded an array of highly qualified candidates. Anyone of which arguably would have been as qualified or more qualified to become President of the United States than Governor Palin. So what makes Sarah Palin qualified? She has yet to make a convincing argument. Ultimately her qualifications for the job need to be examined and we need to ask, “how and why did John McCain make this choice?” Furthermore, we the voters need to ask, “are we ready to entrust Sarah Palin with that level of responsibility?” John McCain may be ready to take the risk, but are we ready to take the risk?
The size of Wasilla is pretty irrelevant considering she did become a governor after she was mayor.
The population of Alaska is perhaps slightly relevant, but not very much. Whether or not "all governors are equal", I'd say that being a governor of a small (in population) state is enough to be considered potentially qualified for VP. What really matters is her, and her opinions and proposals, and specific history, not her list of previous jobs, but to the extent you care about the job list, being a governor is at least an executive position, so in a sense she has more relevant experience than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.
Also your a bit low on Alaska's population (but not low enough for the mistake to be significant)
683,478
http://www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2007-01.csv
re: "If Sarah Palin had decided on her own to seek the office of President of the United States, how likely is it that she would have succeeded?"
Not particularly likely, but that doesn't say much about how qualified she is, only about how much political name recognition and fund raising potential she had.
re: "Furthermore, we the voters need to ask, “are we ready to entrust Sarah Palin with that level of responsibility"
More than I'm ready to trust Obama or Biden.
The Republican Party has been high-jacked by the religious right as McCain’s selection of Palin proves. I thought McCain might bring some sanity to back to the party but it turns out experience does count and he is following the George Bush/Carl Rove play book of appealing to the "Gun tottin, God fearin" mob with his choice of Sarah Palin. The least you can say for George Bush is that he picked Cheney, whatever you may think of him, he is no light weight. Another trait about McCain that makes me very uncomfortable is his quick shoot from the hip decision making process. His selection of Palin seems to be a perfect example of this. This seems very similar to George W. Bush's decision making methodology which landed us in $3 Trillion and counting war without end. And I'm not a democrat. I voted for Bush the first go around. But McCain just doesn't seem to have the necessary personality traits to be an effective executive. He lost my potential vote for good with his selection of Palin.
We have not spent $3trillion on the war. I guess if fiction gets passed around enough enough people start accepting it as true.
Here she is in a give and take interview in Feb 2008 which shows her grasp of Alaska's issues and her ability to communicate that grasp:
http://vodpod.com/watch/992089-sarah-palin-february-2008-live-c-span-interview-1-of-1
She's a bright star, not just a beautiful one.
Where are the real issues in this campaign?
hockey moms?
Creationism?
Pigs with lipstick?
Has everybody gone nuts???
Since when was it a crime to be religious? What have we become when someone is not qualified because they have strong beliefs????? I think we are losing focus on what the real issues are and can we trust our lives with a man who may or may not hate us. I think religion should be off the table with this folks.