Nathan Tyree: Palin? I mean, really?
I am ill. I am running without a lot of sleep and on a lot of medication, so if my thoughts below start to ramble a bit, please stick with me.
John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. I tried to lay out the pros and cons of this choice, but honestly could not think of any pros. She cannot deliver any real estate. Sure, she is very popular in Alaska, but the probability of McCain failing to win that state was very near zero anyway. She also doesn't appeal to any new demographic (the argument that she takes Hillary Democrats is bullshit; Hillary's supporters are not going to jump ship to support a fundamentalist who favors outlawing abortion and opposes equal pay for equal work). .
The cons, however, are abundant. First, the obvious: the sum total of her experience is eighteen months as governor of one of the most sparsely populated states. As governor she has had not a single accomplishment of note. Prior to that she was Mayor of a small town. She has tried to invent achievements for herself. She now claims to have stopped the “bridge to nowhere†(Google it). That claim is, at best, disingenuous and at worst a lie. In fact she told an Anchorage newspaper that she supported the project. Once the federal government had cut off funding for the boondoggle, she chose not to throw state money after it. This is hardly the action of a maverick reformer. Of course, one might also consider the Matanuska Dairy affair. The state Creamery Board wanted to close it (it was a massive boondoggle siphoning state funds). Palin fired the board members and replaced them with tame cronies..
There is also the fact that she is currently under investigation for abuse of power. The details are not yet clear, but merely the cloud is politically problematic. Then there is the problem of her husband, Todd. Todd works fro British Petroleum (BP), meaning that she has an intimate tie with big oil, which may explain her strange desire to drill in ANWR. She also has a small connection with Jack Abramof, which isn’t good .
Need more? How about the fact that last month she told CNBC that she didn’t know what the job of the Vice President entailed. That's no joke. She really said that she doesn't know what the job of VP is. She recently called Hillary Clinton a “whinerâ€Â. That should go over well with Hillary Democrats. .
Of course, maybe McCain chose her for her views on the issues. Lets list some of them: She has said that she does not have an opinion on Iraq (that she had been too busy to “pay attentionâ€Â). She opposes Universal Healthcare. She opposes stem cell research. She favors outlawing abortion in all instances. She is against equal pay for equal work. She opposes gay rights. She is opposed to minimum wage increases. She thinks that Polar Bears should be taken off the endangered species list. She is a global warming denier. She opposes the teaching of sex education. She has opposed mine safety. She has opposed pollution control. She is in favor of a lot of drilling. In short, she is an extremist, far outside the mainstream of America..
Maybe McCain wanted someone who could counter the great oratory of Obama and Biden. If that is the case, then this is a failure. Palin is a dull speaker. She lacks passion or even the ability to keep an audience awake. In this she rivals Pawlenty. Her speech Friday came across as a series of talking points strung together without much thought. There was no narrative and no real structure. Of course, they can hire speech writers to improve on the content of what she says, but they can't do much about her delivery.
.
I’ll tell ya the truth, Palin is such a minor figure that I did not know a lot about her when the choice was made. I did know that she was governor of AK, young and under investigation. It took about an hour on The Google to learn all of this.
The choice of Sarah Palin as John Sydney McCain’s VP candidate is a bad idea. You can tell because it is such an obviously bad idea. I don’t get it. It’s almost like McCain doesn’t take any of this seriously. It almost seems insulting
.
I am ill. I am running without a lot of sleep and on a lot of medication, so if my thoughts below start to ramble a bit, please stick with me.
John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. I tried to lay out the pros and cons of this choice, but honestly could not think of any pros. She cannot deliver any real estate. Sure, she is very popular in Alaska, but the probability of McCain failing to win that state was very near zero anyway. She also doesn't appeal to any new demographic (the argument that she takes Hillary Democrats is bullshit; Hillary's supporters are not going to jump ship to support a fundamentalist who favors outlawing abortion and opposes equal pay for equal work). .
The cons, however, are abundant. First, the obvious: the sum total of her experience is eighteen months as governor of one of the most sparsely populated states. As governor she has had not a single accomplishment of note. Prior to that she was Mayor of a small town. She has tried to invent achievements for herself. She now claims to have stopped the “bridge to nowhere†(Google it). That claim is, at best, disingenuous and at worst a lie. In fact she told an Anchorage newspaper that she supported the project. Once the federal government had cut off funding for the boondoggle, she chose not to throw state money after it. This is hardly the action of a maverick reformer. Of course, one might also consider the Matanuska Dairy affair. The state Creamery Board wanted to close it (it was a massive boondoggle siphoning state funds). Palin fired the board members and replaced them with tame cronies..
There is also the fact that she is currently under investigation for abuse of power. The details are not yet clear, but merely the cloud is politically problematic. Then there is the problem of her husband, Todd. Todd works fro British Petroleum (BP), meaning that she has an intimate tie with big oil, which may explain her strange desire to drill in ANWR. She also has a small connection with Jack Abramof, which isn’t good .
Need more? How about the fact that last month she told CNBC that she didn’t know what the job of the Vice President entailed. That's no joke. She really said that she doesn't know what the job of VP is. She recently called Hillary Clinton a “whinerâ€Â. That should go over well with Hillary Democrats. .
Of course, maybe McCain chose her for her views on the issues. Lets list some of them: She has said that she does not have an opinion on Iraq (that she had been too busy to “pay attentionâ€Â). She opposes Universal Healthcare. She opposes stem cell research. She favors outlawing abortion in all instances. She is against equal pay for equal work. She opposes gay rights. She is opposed to minimum wage increases. She thinks that Polar Bears should be taken off the endangered species list. She is a global warming denier. She opposes the teaching of sex education. She has opposed mine safety. She has opposed pollution control. She is in favor of a lot of drilling. In short, she is an extremist, far outside the mainstream of America..
Maybe McCain wanted someone who could counter the great oratory of Obama and Biden. If that is the case, then this is a failure. Palin is a dull speaker. She lacks passion or even the ability to keep an audience awake. In this she rivals Pawlenty. Her speech Friday came across as a series of talking points strung together without much thought. There was no narrative and no real structure. Of course, they can hire speech writers to improve on the content of what she says, but they can't do much about her delivery.
.
I’ll tell ya the truth, Palin is such a minor figure that I did not know a lot about her when the choice was made. I did know that she was governor of AK, young and under investigation. It took about an hour on The Google to learn all of this.
The choice of Sarah Palin as John Sydney McCain’s VP candidate is a bad idea. You can tell because it is such an obviously bad idea. I don’t get it. It’s almost like McCain doesn’t take any of this seriously. It almost seems insulting
.
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