For the record, I’m highly impressed with McCain’s VP choice. (Some of you will remember that I had Governor Palin listed as the “Candidate He Should Pick” when I engaged in idle speculation about the potential VP candidates a few months ago.
Sarah Palin on the ticket is a triple whammy: she’s young, female, and not a Washington insider. She also has a very strong record on ethics, and the Evangelicals will like her unassailable anti-abortion stance.
Of all the picks he could have made, that was the best possible one, in my opinion. Hell, she almost spruced up the Republican ticket enough for me to consider holding my nose and voting McCain.
The newsdrones are already busy harping on her lack of experience. They point out that she’s a first-term governor of a low-population state, and that her only executive experience before the governorship was Mayor of a town of 5,000. She’s a first-term governor, sure enough, but Obama is only a first-term U.S. Senator, so she technically has more executive experience than the Democrats’ Golden Boy.
The debates will be interesting…if Biden tears into her too much, she’ll get sympathy votes for sure. Any charge of inexperience against her will undermine Obama as well, and the rabid Hillary-or-bust contingent of the Democrat voter base now has another reason to vote for the Republican ticket.
McCain/Palin…a gutsy move, one that’ll either prove disastrous, or pay off big time.
26 Comments
August 29, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I see a difference between Urkel and McCommie. They’re both pond scum, but at least Johnny has a VP that might have some morals and ethics which puts the repubs out in front of the donks.
I would eat one of your disgusting sandwiches before voting for Obama and that’s a fact!
August 29, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I like the choice and I found it funny that CNN is already saying she is not qualified to be POTUS so is a bad choice. . . . and Obama is qualified??? this should be good
I think she is a great choice, now if he can only pull this off. . . .
August 29, 2008 at 1:29 pm
She’s pro-gun and pro-life. She hunts and fishes. Her husband is known as “the First Dude,” and he’s a frikkin’ Eskimo.
I have a bit of a ladycrush.
August 29, 2008 at 1:30 pm
While I believe it to be unwise to assume that McCain can’t screw this up, I’m highly encouraged. I’m very eager to see how she does in a debate.
Odds on Biden being caught calling her “stupid broad” under his breath when he THOUGHT the microphone was off?
August 29, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I must say that was quite the pick.
She is conservative, interesting, attractive, young – everything McCain is not.
Talk about a coup. If she even does moderately well in the debates, she’ll pull in female and male voters.
Color me thoroughly impressed.
August 29, 2008 at 2:19 pm
“I like the choice and I found it funny that CNN is already saying she is not qualified to be POTUS so is a bad choice. . . . and Obama is qualified??? this should be good”
I think that ’s one of the reasons Palin was picked. It’s a nice way to handle the experience issue. After all, she’s the VP candidate. Not the Presidential one. How can they justly criticize her experience with a straight face? Well…They are politicians. So they will (probably talk days and months, not years to make the numbers look bigger). But they will also expose themselves to swift counterattacks.
August 29, 2008 at 2:27 pm
P.S.
BTW, credit where credit is due. You were the first to put Palin on my radar screen. I’m impressed with your prognostication skillz.
August 29, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I’m considering holding my nose for the sole reason that I reallyreallyreallyreally want to vote for Palin in ‘12.
I mean, she vetoed legislation she probably personally agreed with because it was unconstitutional. When’s the last time that happened?
August 29, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Michael Bane beat you by two days:
http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2008/06/sarah-palin.html
August 29, 2008 at 3:35 pm
*peers over his specs at an upheld bit of paper*
Tam, you know I hold you in the highest regard – but where on this ‘ere constitution does it say anything about abortion? I mean, my position is that as a bloke I’m not allowed to have a position on something I’d never have to face. But do I have a point? Or am I pissing in the breeze?
August 29, 2008 at 4:06 pm
This is an exceptionally favorable choice by McCain for two reasons.
Sara Palin is everything McCain is not: conservative, youthful, attractive, and an outside-the-beltway politician. She mitigates McCain’s image of an old Washington insider, just as Obama’s Bidden pick casts a shadow of doubt on his message of change.
Most of all, the choice demonstrates savvy judgment and real political acumen. In one fell swoop, he balances his ticket, appeases the party base, and renders a nice carrot to all the disaffected Hillary supporters who are dying to see a female in the Oval Office.
Even if you don’t agree with McCain even 50%, you have to respect his demonstrated ability to make a bold, strategically excellent choice. That’s a skill every president should have.
August 29, 2008 at 4:35 pm
MarkHB,
Five gets you ten that I agree with Sarah Palin on more topics than I do Bob “Drug Warrior” Barr (who is anti-choice himself, you may recall.)
The GOP finally has a national-level candidate whose proven track record is more libertarian than that of the Libertarian party…
August 29, 2008 at 4:35 pm
McCain/Palin…a gutsy move, one that’ll either prove disastrous, or pay off big time.
To quote another great German, Karl Clausewitz:
“Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective; but such cases are rare.”
August 29, 2008 at 6:28 pm
McCain/Palin…a gutsy move, one that’ll either prove disastrous, or pay off big time.
Dude. Are you the Oracle? I mean, you have covered the entire spectrum of outcomes with a single statement. You’re guaranteed to be right with that statement. Jeez! Make a commitment already!
Or not. I just wanted to call you on the “Oracle” business. Sorry, it’s in my nature.
Hank
August 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Hank,
it means that I think the McCain/Palin ticket will either win by a landslide, or get completely buried by Obama/Biden. There won’t be a middle ground, chad-counting debacle like in 2000.
August 29, 2008 at 6:42 pm
@MarkHB – I don’t know if she did veto anything concerning the abortion bit. She did veto the bit about banning the state from applying certain benefits to same sex partners of .gov/state workers because it would supposedly have been unconstitutional. Since Alaska defines marriage as between one man and woman in its Constitution, I would imagine that the state does not require marriage in order to confer those benefits. Which means that it would be discriminatory to deny those benefits to same-sex couples because the Alaska constitution denies the government the ability to discriminate based on sex.
August 29, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Yes, she vetoed a bill that was in line with her personal convictions, because she considered it unconstitutional.
I have no problem voting for her on that basis alone.
August 29, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I like her a lot. I really wish she wasn’t such a twit on the gay marriage issue.
I dunno. I might actually vote for these two, if NM looks close enough for it to matter.
August 29, 2008 at 9:00 pm
[...] The Munchkin Wrangler- “Sarah Palin on the ticket is a triple whammy: she’s young, female, and not a Washington insider.” [...]
August 30, 2008 at 10:01 am
This is great! The U.S. has some hope, after all. I am so happy for all you Americans.
Regards from socialist Europe. I wish I were in the U.S.
August 30, 2008 at 11:33 am
As one of the, like, two politicians currently drawing breath on the planet that I actually kind of like, I was so stunned when Stingray chirped the news from our local paper that my brain temporarily went careening off into the ditches, completely derailed. I admit to some sputtering. “No! They couldn’t have done that! It would be too smart!”
Certainly far smarter and braver than anything ELSE the McCain campaign has done so far. I’m so dizzified I’m half expecting him to go into bullet time, judo chop a few hippies, and tell Obama he’s been served and it is now truly ON. Or something.
August 30, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Tigh/Roslin ‘08!
August 30, 2008 at 10:48 pm
sasu
August 30, 2008 at 10:01 am
This is great! The U.S. has some hope, after all. I am so happy for all you Americans.
Regards from socialist Europe. I wish I were in the U.S.
‘Tis not to late to jump ship, no? It has been done before……
August 31, 2008 at 5:58 am
Many of us are jaded by the political process. Differentiating between the two parties is getting harder and harder. Then, Palin comes into picture! For the first time in years, I’m actually interested in a candidate. Good job, John!
http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/2008/08/30/sarah-palin-vs-barack-obama/
For some interesting responses by jilted Hillary supporters, may I suggest:
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=26200
August 31, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Marko,
I have frequently commented in the past few months that I’d ‘hold my nose and vote for McCain’. No longer necessary…I now plan to vote for the ticket that smells pleasantly of Hoppe’s No. 9 gun solvent.
September 1, 2008 at 12:41 pm
*ponders*
Does that make any airport she uses a Palindrome?