McCain Names Vice Presidential Running Mate

[keysersoze]

Don’t Call Her ‘Harriet’
There’s more to Palin than her plumbing.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

St. Paul — Contrary to popular pundit belief, Sarah Palin is no Harriet Miers.

And it’s a funny thing: When conservatives like myself opposed Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court on the grounds that she was under-qualified and an affirmative-action pick, we were slammed as being sexist and elitist. Does that mean the Left and others railing against Palin are sexist and anti-Eskimo (her husband is part Eskimo)?

Of course not. That would be silly — as it was in the case of the Miers debate. Instead, lefty columnists and pundits should admit they don’t like her because she’s a conservative, not because they’re concerned about a rot in the conservative movement.

The choice of Sarah Palin is not like Harriet Miers in a number of debatable ways — including that Palin has executive experience, something Barack Obama lacks — in one big and clear way: There were no real alternatives.

That’s not entirely true, of course. If the McCain campaign had been adult about it, they would have made Mitt Romney the vice-presidential nominee. He made a lot of sense as McCain’s Number Two. He wins the experience debate, having much more than Joe Biden — he’s been an executive in the corporate world and in the political world, and he cleaned, fixed, and ran the Olympics in Salt Lake. He would have helped electorally, particularly in Michigan. And he would have handled some blind spots for the McCain administration, most especially on the economy. Despite some campaigns against him, he’d have reassured many on the Right who saw him as a full-spectrum conservative, as National Review did.

But John McCain wasn’t going to pick Mitt Romney. All you have to do to understand that is rewind to the Florida primary. If John McCain’s motto is “country first,” he’d have a hard time standing with Mitt Romney, who McCain (rather insultingly) described as having led for profit, not patriotism.

And so once you take the most qualified and obvious choice out of the equation — realizing that former Florida governor Jeb Bush was not an option because of his name, and that Joe Lieberman would have been a disaster for the party (pace Bill Kristol and others) — Sarah Palin is not an outlandish choice.

Was she picked because she’s a woman? Of course it played a role. Does that annoy me? Yes, especially if she doesn’t drop the glass-ceiling talk. Was it smart politics though? Maybe. Was it, most importantly, an acknowledgement that the Republican ticket needed to show itself to be future-oriented? In choosing a young conservative like Palin, John McCain acknowledges that there is a whole movement, a key component in the Republican party’s base, that he does not well represent on his own — and that there is a whole segment of the population that listens to Five for Fighting and gets their news online and is married to their high-school sweetheart and are struggling to balance it all, while enjoying every minute of it. If my conversations this past weekend in the Twin Cities are any indication, the choice of Sarah Palin isn’t insulting identity politics, but clever reality politics. Like the widely understood reasoning behind Barack Obama choosing Joe Biden — Obama needed some foreign-policy thinking on his ticket — Sarah Palin fills gaps for the 73-year-old “maverick.”

And save for one vice-presidential candidate who (shamefully) wasn’t going to happen, unlike in the case of George W. Bush’s second Supreme Court choice, there really isn’t a list of could-have-beens. Far from being another Harriet Miers, Sarah Palin has no Sam Alito waiting in the wings. John McCain has made his choice, and it’s one conservatives can run with.

— Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.

[QueEx]

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that . . . that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede . . .[/U]

Incredible! I did a quick google of the Alaskan Independence Party which states its goals, as follows:

The Alaskan Independence Party's goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

1) Remain a Territory.
2) Become a separate and Independent Nation.
3) Accept Commonwealth status.
4) Become a State.

The website also states: "The Alaskan Independence Party can be summed up in just two words: ALASKA FIRST!"

There was a statement that struck me as odd in the clip I posted in the Palin is ready "Day 1" thread. Responding to her impression of the Vice President slot, Sarah Palin said:

"What is it exactly that the VP does, every day?

I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration.

We wont to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S. before I can even start addressing that question."

I kept thinking, thats a rather odd statement -- that is, why would someone speak of "Local Interest" (i.e., "fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans") when speaking in terms of the vice president slot -- which is more nationally and even internationally focused, than local? Having read the statements on the Alaskan Independent Party's website - "Alaska First" - I now understand, perhaps, what prompted Sarah Palin's words on that clip. I just wonder, does John McCain understand or, more important, does the Obama Campaign, understand.

QueEx

[keysersoze]

Good catch. It's quite clear that she is speaking in code to her Alaskans that she will prioritize them.

I didn't pay much attention to her 'Alaska First' viewpoints but was more troubled by her involvement in the legislative ethics investigation.

If Cheney has show/proven any thing, it's that the VP position is the most easy position to abuse (see his involvement in the energy "task force" http://www.slate.com/id/2099569/).

Having a VP who has a history of legal ethical problems/investigations is not a postive sign, and in fact, more of temptation for her to abuse her discretion/power in that position.

[MASTERBAKER]

In an interview with ThinkProgress earlier today in St. Paul, progressive radio (and soon-to-be-TV) host Rachel Maddow called the decision-making process for John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin “shocking.” “Nobody can quite believe that John McCain picked her,” she said, adding, “I think the question right now is whether or not the choice is going to be withdrawn.” The decision to More.. replace her needs to happen “very quickly,” Maddow said, “before it gets very complicated with the rules of the RNC“:

And I think that that’s actually what people are thinking about, rather than what will Sarah Palin mean for the country. I don’t get the sense that anybody is totally committed to the idea that she is going to be vice president, or even the vice presidential nominee.

This has been greeted with such shock — and with every salacious detail about stuff that wasn’t vetted coming to the floor seemingly with each hour of the news cycle — it is becoming less likely by the hour that Palin will still be John McCain’s nominee even by the end of the week
''original post in sol''

[ljinsane]

and if she does withdraw....the campaign is over

[keysersoze]

Originally Posted by ljinsane

and if she does withdraw....the campaign is over

this discussed a little about her recent 'babygate'...

Originally Posted by lilsexii

What if its all a ruse?

Think about it - in the most important decision a party would have to make...with this much at stake...they pick someone with THIS MUCH DRAMA? They can't be that stupid...but they think the people are.

She's the governor of a US state sitting on domestic oil. All she had to do was agree to be the fall guy for a sec. They got to steal Obama's thunder and divert ALL media and internet attention AWAY from him and the democratic convention. they created a buzz where there was none before. Then she'll gracefully bow out and return to Alaska. Then WHOEVER they pick will look like a better choice and they'll ride that buzz into November. In return, she gets just about anything she wants for Alaska - she'll still be the governor there and they have a new cute puppet up north...

Originally Posted by keysersoze

Good point. It could be a very clever ploy ... perhaps to clever. I don't know if the GOP is that smart but it certainly is taking much of the media's attention.

Truthfully, it could be very easy for her bow out... in fact she could do in a graceful way by saying that her family had come under attack and she decided to put her "family first" and therefore is deciding to bow out of the VP slot.

Republicans love that "family first" talk and would run with it to the bank and sell her a heroine who was attacked by the "Liberal Media machine" and try to tie it to the Obama/Biden campaign - that would rally all the family sensitive Evangelicals and pretty much all the poor whites whose children face similar teen pregnancy situations.

Slowly enters Romeny as VP. McCain/Romney ticket is sold as the new patriot-morality(family first) ticket and ... in the end the Dems are wtf just happened.

That's why I say be careful when talking about Bristol.

If there is one thing America loves, it's teenage white girls: Americans become protective and very outraged when those girls are harmed or seen as being attacked.

[conspiracy Bro]

I was reading another Forum and a dude basically explained why Palin was picked and why these white republicans got all hopeful.

I realize now that I've misinterpreted the nomination of Sarah Palin. When the story first broke, I was horrified and insulted that McCain would think so little of his honor and his country to nominate someone so vastly unqualified for the job. The idea that McCain, 72, feeble and approaching senility, would put this coarse, dim-witted monster a heartbeat away from the presidency was the final blow to my respect for him.



At the time, it seemed like Sarah Palin was McCain's attempt to gather votes from disaffected Clinton supporters, and in that regard she was an insult of the highest degree, the notion that Clinton supporters would be so stupid as to vote for any woman, regardless of her neanderthal policies. Since then, partly though the courtesy of some of my readers here, I've learned that the purpose of nominating Palin was not primarily to lure Clintonites but to energize the Republican base, the evangelicals and fundamentalists, the anti-choice, anti-science, anti-compassion hard-liners whose only argument with Bush/Cheney is that they didn't pursue their agenda strongly enough.




I now understand that, to a liberal, Sarah Palin is a crippling nightmare because she stands an excellent chance of becoming president, but to the Republican base, she's an electrifying dream -- because she stands an excellent chance of becoming president. McCain isn't "throwing the base a bone" by nominating one of them to a powerless office, he's extending hope to the base, who strongly disliked him before but will now come out and vote for him in droves in the hope that McCain will, in fact, die and office and give them the president they really want. To the majority of the country, McCain's message is "You better hope I stay alive in office," but his message to "the crazies" (Rove's term, not mine) is "Hey, you never know, I'm an old, old man."

So how do you combat these damn crazies. Ignore the bitch the sooner she is out of the headline's the quicker the Democrats can emphasize the fact McCain is bush's sidekick.

[QueEx]

So, what will you do ???

QueEx

[QueEx]

Just a reminder of the fun we had about 4 years ago . . .

[thoughtone]

Fun, fun, fun!

Originally Posted by actinanass

Its really all about how Obama's term ends that will really see the rise of Palin is really a rise or not....

Originally Posted by actinanass

I would like to see how ignorant I will be when Palin is running against Obama.

[QueEx]

Originally Posted by thoughtone

Fun, fun, fun!