Republican Veep choice

[Jon Brakel]

A clever surprise? McCain chose Palin, Governor of Alaska, to be his VP running mate. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/08/mccain_picks_palin.html?hpid=topnews

So, McCain chooses a woman who two years ago was the mayor of a small town in Alaska to be his running mate. That really impressed me. She's not going to out shine him and no one knows anything about her other than she's a Republican woman governor. Genius. McCain can now pick up the votes from Hillary backers who are too mad at Obama to ever vote for him. The Democrats probably won't be able to dig up any dirt on her. She probably doesn't have any speeches recorded or on video...do they even have video cameras in Alaska?

I thought it was a mistake that Obama didn't pick Hillary to be his running mate. Or if she said FU to his offer that he didn't pick another woman for his running mate.

My only question is who are conservatives going to vote for this year?

[El Mexicano]

There was something about her trying to use her clout to oust a state trooper who was married to her sis. The negatives begin to come out.

[stpitner]

a woman married to her sister?  not going to touch that one.

I think it's a smart move by McCain.  I have no probably backing him for President.  I just have to make sure I register to vote again since I moved!  I doubt McCain would win Illinois anyway since Obama is out of Illinois, but I still want to vote.

[Fiddler]

Republican Disc Golfers???

[Dan Michler]

i saw her daughter on TV at buffalo wild wings and she's pretty hot.  do you want to see pics of her hot daughter for the next 4 years, or pics of obama's wife?  thats the choice you need to make on election day.

[Jon Brakel]

Republican Disc Golfers???

There are a lot of Republican disc golfers. There are more Republican disc golfers in Texas than there are people in most countries.

[El Mexicano]

The Alaska Legislature voted last month to investigate allegations that Palin dismissed the state's public safety commissioner after the commissioner resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a contentious divorce from Palin's sister.

[jsun3thousand]

Republican Disc Golfers???

Disc golfers vote?

[El Mexicano]

Of course (no pun) with putter in hand (no pun).

[can't putt]

So the aged McCain becomes incapacitated his second year in office:

"President Palin, I have Vladimir Putin on the line."

This choice will end up hurting McCain.  She's about as qualified to be first in line for succession as Harriet Miers was to be Supreme Court Justice.

[damonshort]

"President Palin, I have Vladimir Putin on the line."

There was a clip tonight from some talking head on Fixed News saying, with a straight face, that she had foreign policy experience because Alaska is right next to Russia.....

[Bruce Brakel]

So the aged McCain becomes incapacitated his second year in office:

"President Palin, I have Vladimir Putin on the line."

This choice will end up hurting McCain.  She's about as qualified to be first in line for succession as Harriet Miers was to be Supreme Court Justice.

Not only do disc golfers vote, but some must subscribe to the DNC talking points! 

McCain is going to need some Republican votes if he is going to win.  If you go read the conservative political websites, he didn't have them last week, but he just got them.  All over the country conservatives are e-mailing their favorite NRO contributors saying stuff like, "I was going to sit this one out.  Now I'm getting my check book out."  For the Republicans this is just like the moment in Rocky 2 when Talia Shire wakes up from her coma and says, "Win, Rocky, win."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUa2Ro3L5Ow&NR=1

Palin ran the family commercial fishing business for several years while her husband worked in the Alaska oil fields.  She was a small-town suburban councilman for one term, and mayor for two four-year terms.  She got elected mayor running against a corrupt Republican incumbent, and running against the Alaska Republican machine.  She was on the Alaska Public Ethics Commission for a year until she realized that it was thoroughly corrupt and then she resigned and worked with the FBI in indicting politicians, mostly Republicans.   Alaska is owned by Big Oil, and they mainly buy Republicans.  She ran for governor against an incumbent from her party and against Big Oil.  She ran on a reform theme and has done reform.  She killed the bridge to nowhere.  She has lobbied against Alaska being the state that receives more per capita from the Federal government than any other state, and instead has lobbied for Alaska being allowed to develop its own natural resources.  She has also revived the litigation against Exxon to force it to comply with its obligations to clean up the Valdese oil spill.  She has maintained a balanced budget.  Oh, and she granted honary citizenship to Craig on the Late, Late Show.  I watched that show tonight.  Boy is that guy hit and miss! 

Like McCain she's an odd Republican.  She is not well liked by the Alaska Republican establishment for all the right reasons: she's a staunch environmentalist, and solid on some of the traditional conservative values that the Bush administration has abandonned, like governmental restraint, and curbing wasteful spending.  She's also solid on the Big Five red meat Republican issues. 

If the Democrats try to play the experience card against her, oh boy, look out.  The Republicans' talking points are "It certainly would be nice if we had more experience at the bottom of the ticket, just as it would be nice if the Democrats had experience at the top of the ticket."  "A two-week summer vacation in Europe is not exactly what we're looking for in foreign policy experience."  "Spending the last two years in Iowa and New Hampshire running for President does not make you a Washington outsider."  "She's run a business, a small town and state.  What has Biden run besides his mouth for 36 years in the Senate." 

As a politician, she has not lost an election since the 1984 Miss Alaska competition, which she now says she regrets having done, but second place paid for college.  Like Obama she's always run for election in a one-party system.  Unlike Obama, she was always running against the system, in contested primaries.  Obama has never had a serious challenge in a general election and has run unopposed in some of his primaries.  She's a Ron Reagan Republican, witty, articulate, homespun.  Or maybe a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.  Not at all an east coast country club Bushite.  The mainstream media will try to spin her as Dan Quayle, but that's their job. 

You pick vice-presidents mainly for inner-party political reasons.  Reagan was hated by east coast country club Republicans and foreign policy wonks so he picked an east coast country club foreign policy wonk running mate.  Bush Sr. was viewed suspiciously by fly-over country Republicans so he picked a staunch conservative from Indiana fly-over country.  Bush Sr. didn't know if he'd be able to personally run the show from Kennebunkport so he put his man Cheney in there to keep an eye on Junior. 

McCain has made the pick he had to make.  He has been reassuring the Republican wing of the Republican party that he'd pick an ideologically conservative running mate and he has.  Now they trust him on his assurances regarding the Supreme Court, taxes and spending.  I don't know if he'll get an public opinion poll bump, but he killed Obama's post-convention weekend media cycle by totally changing the topic, and he is certainly getting a bank account bump. 
------------------------------------

Oh, and that talking point is kind of embarassing for those who repeat it, in an ironic way.  The implication is that Palin is not up to speed on foreign policy issues.  But whoever wrote that is not up to speed on the foreign policy issues either.  That, or they are assuming that their audience isn't.  Medvedev has Putin's job now.  Putin is behind the curtain working the levers, but they are doing everything to maintain the appearance that it is Medvedev's show.  He goes to the G8.  He speaks for the government.  Medvedev would be making that phone call.  Putin would be holding the cue cards. 

It's funnier if you say Putin -- he has a funny name and your average idiot will get the joke -- but it makes the speaker sound just as uninformed to the informed as they are implying Palin would be. 

[Bruce Brakel]

Newsweek just published a group of Palin video interview excerpts from a forum they did with feminist Governors long before anyone suspected Palin was a veep list candidate.  Some of her comments are pretty sharp.  She had a lot of praise for Hillary's courage and tenacity, but thinks Hillary should have been a little tougher and less weepy.  She admires Hillary but would never vote for her.  She had a good feminist retort for those who would say a mother of four shouldn't be a governor of a state.  I'm pretty sure she used a word that is banned on PDGA.com! 

If you watch them, occasionally they include comments from a democratic feminist governor, so you have to pay attention who is speaking. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/156190

[Chainmeister]

I think Palin is an interesting choice that should help McCain. Obama scored in his speech this week painting McCain as another term for the present administration. Palin deflects this argument as she does not represent an extension of the present administration except with her socially conservative views.  For example Romney, like Clinton, would have been a poor choice that would have fed the opposition. It will be interesting to see how the Obama camp replies. I do not foresee a heavy attack on her experience. One refreshing thing is this portends an election about world view and not low level mud slinging. My personal view is much much more in line with Obama but I like both veep choices for different reasons. Both tickets have a younger and older face mixed together. Both can represent themselves as presenting an historic step whether on a racial or gender basis.

[Sr.]

With the price of energy, gas, food, insurance, medicine, education, and the lies, Katrina, cronies, job losses to other countries, failure with allies, mission accomplished, the deaths of all those innocent people in the uncalled for war in Iraq , U.S. taxpayers paying for Iraq, the economy, failure in Pakistan in getting Bin Laden, failure to start alternative energy, turning a surplus into the worst deficit this country ever faced, the trampling of our constitution etc.....   

HOW IN THE WORLD COULD ANYONE VOTE A REPUBLICAN IN OFFICE AFTER ALL OF THAT 

[Jim Bassett]

Amen

[Jon Brakel]

In a David Letterman voice:

"Palin, Putin. Putin, Palin."

[Bruce Brakel]

With the price of energy, gas, food, insurance, medicine, education, and the lies, Katrina, cronies, job losses to other countries, failure with allies, mission accomplished, the deaths of all those innocent people in the uncalled for war in Iraq , U.S. taxpayers paying for Iraq, the economy, failure in Pakistan in getting Bin Laden, failure to start alternative energy, turning a surplus into the worst deficit this country ever faced, the trampling of our constitution etc.....   

HOW IN THE WORLD COULD ANYONE VOTE A REPUBLICAN IN OFFICE AFTER ALL OF THAT 

The price of energy and gas has gone up so much because we aren't building refineries and aren't exploiting our own natural resources.  That is as much a Democratic failure as it is a Republican failure.  The dollar has declined so fast because Washington is spending money it does not have.  Neither side has done a thing to try to rein in wasteful spending.  Why do we even need a Federal Department of Education?  Does anyone send their kid to a federal public school?  Do we need a bloated federal bureaucracy to tell us that ketchup counts as a vegatable?     On Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, both parties were for Iraq before the Democrats decided to be against Iraq, purely for partisan political reasons.  That whole mess is a bipartisan mess going back to the end of WWI in US history, and back to Cain and Abel in Biblical history. 

The idea that McCain would be the third Bush term is just sloganeering for the know-nothings.  Bush-Cheney are Big Oil Republicans.  McCain comes from oil free Arizona that is hoping to cash in on the new thing going on with low-tech solar, and Palin has a 12-year political career of fighting Big Oil corruption in Alaska. 

I agree with Barish that this election will present a brighter contrast in issues and ideologies than some of our recent past presidential elections.  Other than the environment, where both sides are pretty progressive, and border security and illegal immigration where both sides have been pretty laissez faire [Democrats want illegal immigrant votes, Republicans want illegal immigrrant labor, and both sides know that Americans overwhelmingly favor border security and cheap lawn care...] I'm pretty sure they're on opposite sides of abortion, gun control, taxes, spending, Iraq, free trade, expansion of the federal government, private or public solutions to expanding medical care, pretty much any hot button issue you might name.  I don't know if either of them have a coherent foreign policy.  I think they are both pragmatists, in the style of Nixon, Bush Sr., and Clinton, who will try to accomodate and pursuade rather than confront.  In spite of Obama's lofty rhetoric, I don't think he is really for the aggressive expansion of democracy like Kennedy or Reagan.  But then again, I thought that was just rhetoric from Bush and here we are trying to aggressively expand democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia and even South Carolina.    

[Sr.]

With the price of energy, gas, food, insurance, medicine, education, and the lies, Katrina, cronies, job losses to other countries, failure with allies, mission accomplished, the deaths of all those innocent people in the uncalled for war in Iraq , U.S. taxpayers paying for Iraq, the economy, failure in Pakistan in getting Bin Laden, failure to start alternative energy, turning a surplus into the worst deficit this country ever faced, the trampling of our constitution etc.....   

HOW IN THE WORLD COULD ANYONE VOTE A REPUBLICAN IN OFFICE AFTER ALL OF THAT 

The price of energy and gas has gone up so much because we aren't building refineries and aren't exploiting our own natural resources.  That is as much a Democratic failure as it is a Republican failure.  The dollar has declined so fast because Washington is spending money it does not have.  Neither side has done a thing to try to rein in wasteful spending.  Why do we even need a Federal Department of Education?  Does anyone send their kid to a federal public school?  Do we need a bloated federal bureaucracy to tell us that ketchup counts as a vegatable?     On Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, both parties were for Iraq before the Democrats decided to be against Iraq, purely for partisan political reasons.  That whole mess is a bipartisan mess going back to the end of WWI in US history, and back to Cain and Abel in Biblical history. 

The idea that McCain would be the third Bush term is just sloganeering for the know-nothings.  Bush-Cheney are Big Oil Republicans.  McCain comes from oil free Arizona that is hoping to cash in on the new thing going on with low-tech solar, and Palin has a 12-year political career of fighting Big Oil corruption in Alaska. 

I agree with Barish that this election will present a brighter contrast in issues and ideologies than some of our recent past presidential elections.  Other than the environment, where both sides are pretty progressive, and border security and illegal immigration where both sides have been pretty laissez faire [Democrats want illegal immigrant votes, Republicans want illegal immigrrant labor, and both sides know that Americans overwhelmingly favor border security and cheap lawn care...] I'm pretty sure they're on opposite sides of abortion, gun control, taxes, spending, Iraq, free trade, expansion of the federal government, private or public solutions to expanding medical care, pretty much any hot button issue you might name.  I don't know if either of them have a coherent foreign policy.  I think they are both pragmatists, in the style of Nixon, Bush Sr., and Clinton, who will try to accomodate and pursuade rather than confront.  In spite of Obama's lofty rhetoric, I don't think he is really for the aggressive expansion of democracy like Kennedy or Reagan.  But then again, I thought that was just rhetoric from Bush and here we are trying to aggressively expand democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia and even South Carolina.    

The system is broken. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed this country. Congress is a joke. There's members in Congress that bleed there own party instead of realizing common sense. I laugh when i hear a Republican blame Clinton for NAFTA when Bush Junior never did a thing to change it for his whole term. It's been blah blah blah beetween both parties about every major issue. Never getting anything done except their pay raises. It's the typical blame game over and over. Congress better look out for the future. How are our children and our grandchildren going to pay off this deficit? How much of our country will we let China and India purchase before it's too late? . And as far as Democracy goes, let's mind our own business and start taking care of our people, our Schools, our roads, our hospitals, our country. Leave my tax money alone when it comes to rebuilding the mess our leaders got us into. And that's both Democrats and Republicans. Being a independent, I'll take my chances with the party that lies the least, and that will be a tough choice.

[Jim Bassett]

I thought this was about the Veep choice. I think we already know that Bush is a Nimrod who prays for misguidance in the Rose Garden. Back to the thread.
The Palin choice is a blatant attempt to "steal" Hillary suporters that felt they were left adrift with no choice. If they can see past the fact that Palin is not Pro-choice, then McCain will pick up votes. I don't see that happening. Also, the fact that a couple of years ago she was the mayor of a town of 9000 can NOT be in her favor. I feel that in the VP debates Biden (a known talker) will talk rings around her and point up her lack of experience. Most of the talking heads this morning called the choice a sort of hail Mary desperation play.
I realize that she fits into the McCain mold of maverick, but don't get me drifting about McCain who finished 894th in his Naval Academy class of 899. -Democrat talking point #333-