A few people are wondering how Michael Palin can run given he’s British.
Mostly I’m struck by this being a Rauschernberger-Syverson special with the GOP panicing and finding the first non white male candidate they could and shaking their head and going–see, we are inclusive too…really!
In terms of abortion, she’s a horrible choice. McCain has been playing on the misperceptions that he is pro-choice. She will underscore his strong pro-life record hurting him with that group of women who supported Clinton that he has deluded himself into thinking he has a shot with.
More than that–she’s involved in a fairly serious ethics investigation taking away any traction on issues of reform.
McCain will get beaten up by the media for two reasons. First, she isn’t part of the club and so the media is already referencing Dan Quayle who was young and came out of nowhere. Second, serious journalists will point out the basic problem with the choice as Steve Chapman does:
The first and last question to be asked about a potential vice president is: Is he or she prepared to take over immediately as president? Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden gave that matter the priority it deserves.
The question is even more important for McCain because he’s 72 years old and has had serious health problems. The chances are considerably higher than usual that his vice president would have to step into the Oval Office without notice.
Sarah Palin may be a politically brilliant choice. She may also be a fine governor. But it’s going to be pretty hard for McCain to disparage Obama’s experience on national security and foreign relations while running with someone who has much less.
But worse, this decision mocks McCain’s seriousness on the issues that are supposed to be his strength. It tells us that he puts his own political fortunes above the safety of the nation.
McCain has done a lot things for his country. He should have done one more and picked a running mate who makes a plausible commander-in-chief.
And that leads into the last problem. His entire argument is experience and while he’s 72 and a cancer survivor, he chose a woman who was Mayor of a town of 8,000 two years ago. Oh, and that little corruption trial in Alaska will keep being brought up.
You have to admit that Sarah Palin is pretty hot (remember she was in the Ms. Alaska Pageant) and MUCH BETTER on the eyes than Joe Biden. Oh and wait until you see the bikini pics!!! NOT BAD for a mother of 5.
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=5055328
Which Republican will be assigned the task of standing in front of the convention hall and telling millions of Americans “In his first decision as commander-in-chief John McCain hit it out of the ballpark when he picked Sarah Palin.”
Probably fall to Dan Quayle.
BTW, Michael Palin would have been a much better pick.
Almost as though it’s 4 years ago when the Illinois GOP made their pick. I guess Alan Keyes was unavailable this year.
Do they really think women are this stupid? Asked and answered: yes they do.
— She has more executive experience than anyone else on either of the tickets. (Don’t forget it’s been over 40 years since a senator went from the senate to the White House)
— She really energizes the social/religious conservatives, can win without them.
— Has enough blue collar in her to help some, her husband is a champion snow mobile racer and has a blue collar job. A better blue collar argument that Biden’s ‘blue collar roots’
— Yes in fact women will vote for the ticket because she is a woman. Let’s not forget there are some truly pissed Hillary voters still out there.
Either McCain is going to get blown out like Carter did or he is going to win this close, I think she helps him if it is close (more than Romney would have)
Sorry point 2 is ‘can’t win without them’
No one is going to argue she has strong executive experience unless they want to be laughed at. Both Obama and McCain have run larger organizations than she has in running their campaigns.
Regarding relgious conservatives, there is no field organization this time so it’s hard to see how this has any impact on turnout. The reason it worked for Bush was a large GOTV operation–something McCain doesn’t have and doesn’t seem interested in.
She’s a beauty queen. Kind of a wash in that case.
And a woman who is strongly pro-life only points out that John McCain is strongly pro-life thus undercutting anything she might get.
She undercuts the entire message McCain has been trying to sell.
Quick, what’s the message of the McCain campaign now? He as a 72 year old man who has survived cancer has appointed a complete neophyte to be his VP nominee and yet he has judgment and experience….doh!
Hey, Wasilla has 8,471 people. (It has no bridge to nowhere, but don’t make it smaller than it already is… although the town website still lists only 6,715 people.)
Clearly, McCain does not speak for his own campaign.
If he had really wanted to make a splash and have it actually positively impact his candidacy he would’ve chosen Lieberman. Some (many?) of the anti-privacy, anti-abortionists would’ve been hopping mad for a bit but would likely have come back home and Lieberman has proven useful to neo-cons on many other issues as it is. Plus, Joementum would’ve played much better than Palin (who?) with indies by maintaining his fast deteriorating “mav’rick” image and bolstering his “experience” meme.
Palin bolsters neither and is, at best, a neutral decision with a lot of downside.
In addition to her own corruption scandal for trying to have the State Police fire her ex-brother-in-law for no reason, the town of Wasilla is also home to former state legislator Vic Kohring who was found guilty of several corruption charges related to the VECO scandal.
h/t Wikipedia
POW — isn’t that the answer to everything? Every POW deserves a beauty queen and to be elected president.
Cynthia, are you saying that the McCain camp will defend this poor choice by saying John McCain didn’t have inexperienced beauty queens at his side for 5 1/2 years because he was in prison?
Their use of his honorable service and noble sacrifice as a non sequitor crutch does a disservice to all veterans and POWs.
Three maybe not-so-quick points.
First, this choice shows just how much McCain’s campaign is driven by Obama envy. Obama’s campaign did a masterful job in building up to the Biden announcement, and then hit it out of the ballpark because the choice was so good. All through this campaign, it’s been pretty obvious that McCain has been pissed that Obama, not McCain, is the media darling. That’s a big reason for the ads calling Obama “the biggest celebrity in the world” and “The One.” Choosing Sarah Palin — a woman! — is his attempt at grabbing some of the spotlight.
Second, McCain and the Republicans are seriously overestimating the number of Hillary Clinton voters that will vote for McCain. Naming Palin as the VP candidate looks like a blatant attempt to get the Clinton vote, but it is all too transparent. Moreover, if you look at the activists in the Clinton Supporters for McCain “movement,” you find that they are either a) conservatives, who would not have voted for Hillary in the general; or b) feminists, who support the whole panoply of feminist issues, including reproductive rights. The choice of a “Feminist for Life” is not going to cut it. Pro-choice female activists tend to be very very critical of women who oppose the right to choose. [/understatement]
Third — at the risk of sounding politically incorrect — the choice underscores one of McCain’s biggest weaknesses, that he is an out-of-touch old guy. Have you seen the photographs of McCain and Palin together? At best, she looks like his granddaughter. At worst, she looks like his much younger mistress. Compare those photos to the Obama-Biden photos.
So, I heartily endorse McCain’s decision as yet another example of Obama benefitting from his opponents’ missteps.
If Obama’s inexperience was a effective issue it would have worked for Hillary in the Primary, it didn’t.
So ignoring all of the POW snark, let me get this right: State Senator and 3 years in the US Senate= Plenty of experience, time as a mayor, a energy commissioner and 2 years as a governor = not enough experience?
Just checking, because we all know how effective that Illinois State Senate is. If that is an effective training ground for the presidency I look forward to seeing all of you support
A Chris Lauzen CPA when he runs for president
And yes Arch, I would find that really entertaining as well..
OneMan,
It’s very curious to see the conservative partisans squirming as they attempt to spin something positive out of this pick.
Recall that a week ago, after the Biden choice was leaked and then formally announced, McCain’s defenders went to town with talking points like “Biden has too much Washington experience;” “Biden’s time in office only serves to highlight Obama’s lack of same;” “Obama is trying to compensate for his lack of ____”….
Now that folks are pointing out that Palin has less “major” experience than Obama and zero experience on the national stage, let alone international, conservatives are doubly apoplectic. (By “major” experience I’m referencing the fact that there has never been a president who was not first a vice-president, a cabinet officer, a US senator or representative, a governor or a general… or some combination thereof.)
If McCain thinks it’s ok to put someone who has had only 18 mos. of a rocky governorship in a small-population state one heartbeat away from the presidency then why is it not ok to put someone who’s had 4 years experience in Senate in the Oval Office?
Alaska ranks 47th in population and has no major agricultural or manufacturing footprint. The petrochemical industry is 80% of their relatively small economy with seafood (fishing, crabbing, etc) being a distant second. (And the state’s oil reserves peaked in 1978 and have been steadily dwindling since. Source: Wikipedia.)
Palin has not been involved in major issues on a national front — she’s not a major player in national governors’ associations (either bipartisan or GOP) or other national organizations. And Howard Dean, as governor of “border state” Vermont, seems to have had more international experience when he ran in 2004 than she does now. Alaska does border Canada and Russia, but what international work has she done with those two neighbors?
And a big thing that I heard time and again, both during the announcement speeches and from McCain spokespeople afterward, is that she is the “commander” of Alaska’s National Guard… What crises has she led the National Guard through? How’d it work out? Is it just a title with no “there” there or has she actually commanded those troops in her state?
This is the equivalent of Mac “taking the air” out of the tire pressure meme by agreeing with Obama… except on steroids.
You can’t have it both ways and with this pick McCain is very clearly saying to john and jane doe out in middle class America that experience really actually does not matter to him. There are plenty of other women in the Republican party with much more experience than Gov. Palin — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Sen. Liddy Dole (NC), Gov. Jodi Rell (MA), Gov. Linda Lingle (HI), etc.
As conservative concern trolls tried telling Obama who to pick for veep we heard a lot of spin about taking care not to overlook or “diss” Hillary Clinton. Why did McCain “overlook” these more experienced Republican women in favor of literally one of the newest freshman governors in the country?
PS – Re the “Energy Commission” spin… Being the fry guy at McDonald’s does not make one an expert on potato agriculture. Her seat on that board was for only 1 year as she resigned in protest while trying to out her fellow Republicans on the commission for their ethical violations. Those two others apparently resigned and at least one was fined for his corruption. From what I’ve been able to read so far, her time on that board seemed to do less with actual oil policy than with discovering her state’s own Republican party was rife with corruption. Regarding her own ethics, she herself has fired subordinates for purely political reasons — shades of outing undercover CIA agents for purely political reasons. (Source: Wikipedia)
PPS – All those conservative partisans saying Gov. Palin “has more executive experience” than Sen. Obama after only 18 months of a tumultuous governorship ought to realize she also has more “executive experience” than Sen. McCain….
PPPS – As State Senators both Barack Obama and Chris Lauzen CPA represent more people than Sarah Palin did as mayor of her small town. In fact, Sen. Lauzen’s hometown of Aurora has only 1/4th the population of the entire state of Alaska. Four Auroras = one Alaska…
So yeah, by McCain’s apparent reasoning, Sen. Lauzen may just be read to at least be veep, if not president (since being ready to become prez is the most important inherent responsibility of a vice-president). And, given that Sen. Obama at this point has a few more years of national and international experience under his belt than State Sen. Lauzen, he clearly is ready to be commander-in-chief.
I guess Phyllis Schlafly wasn’t available this year.