And the Republicans Win It
August 29th, 2008 — -A hollow and unconvincing Democratic convention (but not for lack of production); A more than occasionally hollow and unconvincing Presidential candidate … An incredibly hollow and totally unconvincing Vice Presidential pick…
And McCain wins it:
Sen. John McCain has picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a senior McCain campaign official told CNN on Friday.
Palin, 44, who’s in her first term as governor, is a pioneering figure in Alaska, the first woman and the youngest person to hold the state’s top political job.
And… Mother of… Five?
A whistleblower, a Governor – with little experience – but a lot of goodwill. And a former beauty queen? And you think this is gonna stand a chance?
The Repubs beat the Dems at their own game: “You want new? We got new. ( We got OLD too, really, really old ).”
Popeye the sailor – and a former beauty queen Governor of Northern Exposure ; plus, she’s the wife of nobody we know; nobody we’re more than a little tired of; nobody who greases palms better than Palmolive; of a cheatin’ nobody who bought a New York Senatorship for his “abused” spouse.
Nope. She’s new. And that counts when the competition is so very, very rotten.
John McCain – a political workhorse, and a political compromiser (that’s why so many Republicans hate him ).
He’s a survivor of brutal torture during the second least popular war in American history.
Will we trust him to get us out of the first?
August 29th, 2008 at 9:18 am
And timing. What timing…
“What Obama Speech??”
August 29th, 2008 at 10:17 am
OBAMA/BIDEN’08 has already won as far as im concerned… mccain’s hypocrisy is sick and his pandering to hillary clinton supporters is cheap. mccain’s camp thinks that women will flock to him because he picked a woman as VP… he is underestimating the women’s intelligence. our country needs change not a war monger and a woman from an oil family…
August 29th, 2008 at 11:14 am
My response to the above:
Hillary Clinton voted?
And supported?
And stands for?
And that’s the Dems. No one who runs on the Democrat ticket will be free of the Masters of that Universe.
They are nearly as bad as the Neo-Cons (the Neo-Cons lead, the Neo-Libs follow).
McCain has the virtue of being none of the above - he’s barely on speaking terms with many in his own party who tilt in the direction of Rove and Bush.
And then, McCain is no war monger, as far as I can tell; he seems to be a realist, with a sense of the nature of war and human civilization. He’s also painfully independent - that is, the Neo-Cons hate him - and you’ve got to count that as a good thing.
The Neo-Conservative movement through the election of Bush 2 till the present is, in my opinion, one of the great tragedies of the modern era. Maneuvering out of the hole we have dug and built is going to be painful, painstaking, hard work.
Do you have any faith in O’Barry’s ability to do that work? Give the man a few months, and he’ll be a beleaguered, stuttering wreck. McCain seems to have chosen a partner who he can work and communicate with - and they do have an agenda:
Hasta la foreign oil,
Development of better, less war-fomenting energy reserves
and, I’ll bet,
a more conservative (less Clintonista) approach to industry and production; that is, why we’re sitting on our fattening arses while farming our factories and manufacturing out wholesale is not a mystery - it is the Clinton legacy.
And it’s a disturbing trend that ought to be carefully considered and shifted to better address our economic and security needs… not to mention a particular shallow soulessness that seems to pervade much of the country at present.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:29 am
(And on a totally appropriate note, we can absolutely and safely deduce that Mrs. Palin has had sex with her husband at least Four more times than Hillary Clinton has with hers. This apparently trite, low-down and mean-spirited comment is nothing of the sort, and goes only to an examination of character, humanity, etc. Of course.)
August 29th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I wouldn’t bet that the Clinton’s have had sex even once.
Turkey basters come in handy for all sorts of occasions.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Well….this has degenerated quickly. (I blame the Clintons).
August 30th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Back to Politics:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/08/29/palin-drone-mccains-vp-pick-even-more-bullish-on-drilling/
Palin Drone: McCain’s VP Pick Even More Bullish on Drilling
Posted by Keith Johnson
What does Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin bring to the Republican ticket? A penchant even bigger than John McCain’s for more oil and gas exploration.
Gov. Palin, one of the GOP’s rising stars, has long been a vocal proponent of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for more drilling.
That horrifies many environmentalists. And, to a certain extent, Sen. McCain, who reversed his long-held opposition to offshore drilling this summer but still hesitates at opening up ANWR, though he’s recently said he would consider it. Gov. Palin says Alaskans are conservation-minded and would love to open up the area—and she’s ready to sell John McCain on the idea. From a recent interview with Weekly Standard:
She says McCain’s willingness to take another look at ANWR is “very encouraging.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
It was asked, what did I mean by:
“Will we trust him to get us out of the first? I’m placing my bet. I think so.”?
I mean that Americans don’t want to think of Iraq as a zero-sum game (which it is not), or a total loss (which it is in dollars, at present - we’ll see how geo-politics looks in 30 years for the rest). They need the idea of ‘getting out’ but with ‘honor.’
While I personally view the Iraq war as a grotesque attack on Western Civilization, and the “it’s for democracy” as a wild-eyed lie covering the Realpolitik of international resource interests….
Well - clearly, I’m not your average American. And most of us will need to see this in a better light.
And I do believe that they’ll trust McPops, a flesh-and-blood survivor of the horrors of (a terribly unpopular) war, to move us out of the Middle East with a firmer hand (and a larger permanent force left as a bulwark), than the often hollow-feeling Brother Barry, and his slippery side-kick, the “Stutter from Scranton” Joey Biden.
(No, I don’t think stuttering is funny, or should be made fun of.
Yes, Mr. Biden did he announce in pure 12-step fashion, his childhood wounds (stuttering) and affiliations (Scranton!) as he accepted the nomination for 2nd most powerful man (or woman) in the Western world.
What the Dems don’t need, and sing it with me, is Love, sweet Love. They need to grow past their 60s sensibility that makes everything they say sound like Maya Angelou’s worst poetry - and that’s bad).
So, I’m thinking of Americans. While I myself may be a terrible example of a “patriotic, red white and blue” citizen - I’m a quasi-libertarian history buff, with more of a feeling for Wilsonian separateness from the world’s messes, than a Clintonian desire to sell the mechanisms of industry always and always and always to the lowest bidder internationally.
But watching my brethren, I will and do bet that they’re gonna love this combination.
Look at her, in the debates, she’ll make Biden look like a chump. She’s way out of his league, on the dating scale - and that’s what he’s going to fumble against.
If that sounds shallow, I don’t think you’ve seen enough of the histrionic Joe Biden in action. He’s going to be at a loss as to how to deal with this woman. If he attacks too broadly, he’ll have to deal with the hisses from the audience that tell him he’s not being a good female-supporting democratic pussy.
And if he manages to stick to the Dem script? All she has to do is reflect back to him what he says out loud with a question mark:
“You really believe this?”
And the audience, which in America is more conservative, classically, fiscally, emotionally, than not, will nod their collective heads in approval.
She’s their gal. And they will trust McCain, not Barry O’Bama, to deal with Iraq:
To pull nobody out of Iraq quickly - but to manage the problem of a long-term, reduced, hopefully jointly-held (multi-national) occupation, without insulting the soldiers, or demeaning the horrible international disgrace that is this war.
It’s not the way I would do it. I wouldn’t have invaded, if I’d been Pope - or King, or president, or whatever we have.
But I think it’s what Americans can tolerate.
So, “I think so.”
And I don’t worry about the pro-Life issue at this point. I don’t think that’s going away nationally. There are bigger and more dangerous bears in the woods right now than criminalizing abortion. And that’s a thousand kinds of complicated - and McCain is a compromiser on social issues. And that is not a bad thing.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
She’s certainly more attractive than Joe Lieberman.
It’s an interesting pick. At first, I thought it was silly and pandering. Now I’m starting ot think it might be a winning choice. She looks fresh and friendly. Biden looks stale and moldy. Hate to say it, but politics in teh USA are more about image than issue.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 am
Now that we’re finding out more about her, she’s looking like more of a burden politically.
McCain should dump her.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
You mean, “She should dump McCain!”
I think the GOP would put her in office in the lead position if they could. They love this woman - they’ve been waiting for someone with some personality and a human touch to emerge since they lost Reagan.
She’s better than they could have hoped for.
I’m betting we’ll have our first woman president by 2012, and she’d be cooking wild Alaskan Salmon for foreign dignitaries!
September 4th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speech writer, and weekly Wall Street Journal columnist, on Frau Pretty legs:
Murphy, Noonan Blast Palin Choice
Thursday, September 4, 2008 12:01 AM
http://newsmax.com/insidecover/Murphy_Noonan_Palin/2008/09/04/127580.html
Oops! An open microphone caught Republican political strategist Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan trashing John McCain’s choice of Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
During a live MSNBC broadcast from the Republican National Convention, host Chuck Todd thought the coverage had moved to another report as he engaged in politcal banter with guests Murphy and Noonan.
The blogosphere was abuzz with the recorded conversation late Wednesday as Palin took to the podium to accept her party’s vice-presidential nomination.
Here’s the transcript:
Peggy Noonan: Yeah.
Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And…
Noonan: It’s over.
Murphy: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
Todd: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.
Noonan: Saw Kay this morning.
Todd: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this.
Murphy: They’re all bummed out.
Todd: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
Noonan: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me — political bullshit about narratives…
Todd: Yeah, they went to a narrative.
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.
Murphy: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.
Todd: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.