Ok, here is my official open thread for Sarah Palin. Personally, I was quite pleased to hear that she was picked… However, I am seeing some dissent amongst the ranks, so I am looking for input here.
So the door is open. Let’s talk about Sarah.
01
Sep
08
I’m unimpressed by Palin as pick there are so many more acomplished and vetted Republican women. Palin is a pretty face and may have tenacity but she is not who I would want as a heartattack away from the presidency. We no all too well what happens when a cowboy gets to play grown up games. The american people lose and the rich get richer.
McCain is old. He could kick at anytime and THAT would be the new President? Don’t think so. Vote Obama!
My favorite aspect of Sarah Palin that she’s a realist who’s not afraid to break away from the typical feminist mold–that’s Authentic change for you. Did anyone see her interview on CNBC (YouTube: “Palin on energy, Biden and national security”)? She makes more sense than any politician I’ve heard yet! It seems to me that she’s got her hands right in the middle of three issues that are driving this election–abortion, the war and the energy crisis–and is putting her money where her mouth is on all of them while still adhering to conservative values. She not only has a son in Iraq, but is governor of the state that is at the center of the energy crisis debate and has chosen life when faced with two difficult pregnancies in her personal life (a son with Downs Syndrome and her pregnant 17-year-old). Can anyone on the Obama/Biden ticket claim to have such direct personal involvement with the issues?
I wasn’t excited about this election until now, and actually considered sitting it out–now I plan on being one of McCain’s most vocal supporters!
Lulu, there is a sharp error in your logic – namely that Obama has a slimmer resume than Sarah Palin. It’s asinine to compare the two since, as inexperienced Palion might be, Obama is still far behind in both experience and tangible accomplishments.
Fantastic! Finally, a woman who is tough but remains a lady, who is self-made not riding on her husband’s name. A woman we can be proud of!
In what way does Obama have a slimmer resume that Palin? If you are going by years of elected experience, yes, she has an edge by about a year. However, what should be noted is that most of that experience was as a town council member and mayor of a city of around 9000 people. Whereas, most of Obama’s experience is as a state representative of a state with a city that has more people in it than all of Alaska. Obama’s experience is more relevant to running the country than Palin’s experience.
If you are going with years of executive experience, that is not a good argument either because it can be turned around since she has more year of executive experience than McCain.
McCain has basically given up the ready to lead argument with this pick since he clearly does not hold his running mate to the same standard that he is holding Obama.
I think Palin is a bad choice for vice president. She has no experience with foreign issues and that is going to be a critical area for the government as they deal with terrorism. McCain says that Obama does not have enough experience to be president, so why does he choose Palin who has been governor for only 2 years and was formerly a mayor of a city with less than 10,000 people? Most colleges have more than 10,000 students and faculty, does that make presidents of colleges good candidates for executive office?
Also, with the news that Bristol Palin is pregnant, I have to wonder how it affects her abstinence only sex ed plan. If she feels so strongly about abstinence only, how come her daughter got pregnant at 17 and out of wedlock? Why isn’t the media jumping on this? When Jamie Lynn Spears got pregnant, it sparked debates about teenage pregnancy and the media jumped all over it. They claimed the family was “trash” and that this showed it. So why doesn’t this view hold for Palin? Does she get a free pass because she’s a Republican and white?
And does McCain think that women are just going to vote for him because he chose Palin as VP? If he thinks that, it is an insult that he would think that women would not look into the issues and only vote based on which ticket has a female.
Where oh where to begin……
Ok, for starters, I am going to explain why she is a good choice politically. The rabid left already hates her and the rabid right thinks she is a goddess. She has had the luxury of the highest rating of any governor in the nation of over 80% since taking office. She is the only candidate on either ticket with executive office experience and she has a lot of spunk and has the potential to revitalize the McCain campaign. Her overall experience isn’t really an issue as she is vying for the second spot and Obama has about the same experience and he is vying for the first spot. She is a lifetime member of the NRA and she doesn’t buy into the crap about global warming being our fault. Finally, she does have some experience on the illegal alien problem with our fishing industry. We have a very large illegal presence with the fishing industry and a ton of empty wilderness that folks love to hide in. Oh yeah, and she has that woman thing going for her that nobody seems to think will matter but we all know it will. It doesnt really mean that people will vote for her because of it, it just takes away the first time in history thing that Obama has going for him.
Now for the other side. She scares the crap out of me. She is the most left leaning “republican” I have ever seen. She is no friend of the oil companies. She has raised taxes on the producers here in Alaska to higher than anywhere else in the WORLD (effectively at around 87%). She is a firm believer in nationalized health care and loves the idea of wealth redistribution. She has raised state spending 23% in the last year alone. She is personally pro life, but isn’t willing to stand on that on a governmental level. Yes, she did decide to keep her Down syndrome baby, but when the chips were down, she fell short. In Alaska right now (a relatively new law) a 13 year old can get an abortion without parental notification. They can’t get an aspirin at school, but they can get a life threatening operation….go figure. When asked many times to try and overturn this, she just said it wasn’t on the agenda and brushed it under the rug. Furthermore, as I am sure everyone has heard she is under investigation for misuse of power in applying leverage to get her ex brother in law fired from the police force.
These are just some of the things, the list goes on. What it really comes down to now is that we have a choice for president and vice president in November. We can vote for the Socialist and the Liberal, or we can vote for the Liberal and the Socialist.
Doesn’t seem like much of a choice does it?
oh, one more thing. Just re-reading the post above mine and what I dont get is that everything in there is standard talking points for leftist talk shows and is totally empty of substance. The real reasons for not wanting her on the ticket are the reasons that the socialists usually love. If they would bring up the socialist positions she has, the conservative base would balk, but then the lefties might decide to like her. quite the conundrum
Well, I do agree with you that politically she’s questionable. You’re right, she’s no friend of conservatism. Then again, neither is McCain which is one reason why I think he took her on board. I would’ve liked to have seen Romney, who is far from perfect, but at least made it a point to hammer on McCain for being too limp where conservative values are concerned. However, let’s be real here… McCain wasn’t going to pick a VP who he didn’t get along with politically.
However, this is a huge boost because it was a choice that was made with victory in mind. McCain has cut off a number of the dems advantages in this race by picking Palin. They lost the “change” aspect, the “minority” aspect, the “experience” argument.. Plus she will make Biden look like a complete jackass in any VP debate. Then there’s the female vote, which I suspect they had their eye on the disgruntled Hillary supporters who are bitter about Obama’s media coronation before the primary race was even over.
To that end, I’m torn between her politics and the fact that no matter how left-leaning her and McCain might be, they’re still leaps and bounds ahead of Obama/Biden who are respectively rated the #1 and #3 liberals in the Senate. So is the addition of Palin to the ticket and the increased possibility of victory worth it? I dunno yet.
Alaskan camel,
Can you provide some support for your claims on national healthcare, abortion and tax increases? Was there a vote to raise the age for abortion where Palin veto’d a bill? Did she sign into law that the age was reduced? Did she give a speech where she stated having national healthcare? Forgive me since I am not from Alaska and not aware of your local politics. I just think I would have read this somewhere else.
My B.S. meter was going crazy when I read your post. But maybe its just from all the smelly liberal hippies in my town for the convention.
Excellent questions….first and foremost, I should let you know I am not one of those smelly liberal hippies. I am a capitalist tried and true. I am just tired of all of the alleged conservatives who are really liberals in conservative clothes getting a pass. If you have seen any of my previous posts, I am a Ron Paul Kool-Aid drinker
)
Anyway, one point I will concede, I may have over stepped my bounds on the socialized health care. She is in favor of wealth redistribution and I blanketed that statement. Recently, she increased the taxes on oil companies to an unhealthy level.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008103325_alaskatax07.html
This takes away all incentive for oil companies to do exploration and find new sources of petroleum. This will cripple the state in the long run. Now that the state has a “windfall” profit on oil companies, she gave a small portion of that windfall “back to the citizens”. We each (every man woman and child) are getting an energy rebate of $1200 on September 12th. Sounds like redistribution to me.
As for the abortion issue, there has been an ongoing fight between her and Lyda Green for the last year on a new bill that Lyda is trying to get passed. Sarah has not stood against is, but she has not pushed for it to be heard. Doing nothing to me is as bad as doing the wrong thing.
http://www.adn.com/legislature/story/385315.html
As for other tax increases, she “cut” our budget to a mere 23% increase. See the following blog for more information.
http://www.andrewhalcro.com/operating_budget_a_23_increase_in_operating_spending
I hope this sheds some light on the subject. As I said before, I think this was a brilliant political move by the McCain team and Ryan is probably right, this may be the lesser of two evils. I however, have to think about “Atlas Shrugged” and think that maybe now is the time to accelerate the impending doom of this great nation so it can be rebuilt. No matter who wins, someone will be blamed for the next four years. I am thinking I would rather blame the liberal hippies, Marxists, and socialists than conservatives. I am still pondering that one.
stepping backwards a second…
As for resume strength, no matter how anybody looks at it, Palin still outweighs Obama – and yet he’s at the top of his party’s ticket.
Palin is the governor of Alaska – a very large and relatively complicated state. She is basically the CEO of the state. She manages everything from infrastructure to the national guard. She has a cabinet and she deals with a state congress. Not to mention that of our last few presidents… W, Clinton and Reagan were all governors.
Obama was a community organizer, which qualifies him to motivate people to anger by telling them how they are getting the short end of the stick. He was part of the Illinois peanut gallery which qualifies him for political infighting and partisan buffoonery. And he is a US Senator, during which time he has spent nearly all of his time in the Senate campaigning and the rest of the time simply walking the democrat line.
So when we think about this, which should concern us more? A governor of a US state running as VP or somebody who’s ego far outweighs his experience running for president?
To Camel:
To an extent, I agree with you. However, as we already know through experience, once you enact policy and anoint supreme court judges, you’re stuck. Sure, the next 4 years are going to be hard… There is no doubt about that. But Supreme Court judges are lifetime appointments and policy – even bad policy – seems to linger on despite the fact that they are often doing more harm than good (i.e. the civil rights act). We may want Obama to take the fall for the headache that the next 4 will bring, but we will be the ones to suffer through his policy and appointments for years to come.
So we have to decide whether it’s worth it to suffer through his legacy in order to save face as conservatives in the short term? I guess it sounds easy until you stop and consider that allowing Republicans to take the fall could spell an end to the party if things go really bad.
I don’t have an answer yet.
For a great conservative opinion on this subject, check out the Denis Miller Show on Thursday. A local talk show host (Dan Fagen) here in Alaska will be interviewed and will speak like a conservative giving honest answers about Sarah. I hope it is informative.
Ryan,
I agree that the supreme court justices are a concern, but if we worry about that and vote on that stance, aren’t we being the Dagneys of the world and prolonging the inevitable? Supposition: if Obama wins and he appoints liberal judges then the decline will happen quicker and in the next election we just might be able to get another Ronald Reagan.
As I said before, I am still on the fence with this one and don’t know if I have the convictions to vote for someone has horrible as Obama, all I can say is “Who is John Gault”?
OK, now that I have had time to digest McCain’s speech, I am ready to reply…
I like Sarah Palin. She has flaws, but overall she brings some good things to the table.
However, with that said I can say with all seriousness that McCain is no good. He has strayed and continues to stray and his speech scared the hell out of me. I know that Obama and Biden are worse. I mean, they rank as MORE liberal than the #4 liberal who happens to be a SOCIALIST congressman! But maybe that’s what we need. We need to have somebody who will come and kick the crap out of us until we finally revolt and get violent. I mean, McCain will set us on a path of a slow death spiral while Obama will give us an immediate nose dive into hell… Maybe that’s what we need! Maybe the general public needs to be violently shaken up to force them to pull their heads out of their asses and stop thinking that the Obama government of free government for all unless you make more than minimum wage is a good thing…
Ergh, I’m still sticking with Bob Barr.
It took Carter to get Reagan, maybe it will take Obama to get a Ron Paul.
Its pretty bad for the dems when our VP pick is more qualified than their Presidenatial candidate.
What should be happening is that people should compare Palin to Biden, not Obama.
The reason they’re putting Palin up against Obama is because they know the contest with Biden is a no brainer.
His mouth and attitude are the gift that has never failed to give.
And that last few statements make that abundantly clear.
One cant help but notice the desparation coming out of the left since Palin entered the picture.
And they’re pissed too.
Palin represents everything feminists say that a woman should be.
The only problem is…
Shes a republican !!!
Thats gotta hurt.
I have no doubts that given the opportunity she will defend us from radical camel jockeys and run a cleaner cabinet/administration than the status quo on either side.
Ok, I know I may have belabored this point, but now that some of the interviews are done, can anyone still say that Palin should even be in politics, yet alone the VP?
I dunno. She has her flaws, that’s for sure, but she’s still a far better choice than anybody else in the race right now. Obama and Biden are not only dumber than boxes of hammers, but they scare the hell out of me. McCain scares me, but nowhere near as bad as those two. I’m still a Bob Barr fan, but his support of Al Gore worries me too.
So as usual, where does this leave us? We have to be realistic here. While we know that Ron Paul would’ve been the best choice – especially given our current situation – he’s not going to get elected since he didn’t decide to run a campaign on his own once he lost the Republican nomination.
I’m open to suggestions, but our options are really starting to get narrow.