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Originally Posted by Envoy Costagravas  My god.
Pers, this isn't about parties, it's about the future of this country! You can't honestly say you care about what is best for every single person in this nation if you are hung up on what the Republican Party needs.
We need to save this nation. And if you are going to harp on the fact that they need women in positions of power, I offer:
" It's always said that the most important decision a presidential candidate makes is their pick for vice president. It shows their thinking and judgment. John McCain, in his first decision, has just told the world that he believes Sarah Palin is the most qualified person to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Forgetting all the available men for a moment, if John McCain felt it critical to select a woman in an effort to somehow grab the Hillary Clinton supporters, look at his choice of women he had available: Christine Todd Whitman, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Elizabeth Dole, Susan Collins, even - for goodness sake - Condoleezza Rice. Or Carly Fiorina. Each of these have marks against them, and perhaps some might not have wanted to run, but it's near-impossible to look at the list and suggest to the American public that Sarah Palin is the best choice of Republican women to be vice president. And again, this is ignoring the men he who could have been chosen.
It's not that Sarah Palin is inexperienced. It's that this is gross political misconduct. "
The complete article is here. Recommended, as even if it is from a leftist site, it is well-written. |
Every time someone quotes the Huffington Post, an angel farts in bed. "Gross political misconduct"? Jesus, what is that moron smoking?
Appointing Palin has some logic to it - and if you think either candidate right now is worried about "saving the country" instead of winning the election, allow me to introduce you to my friend Io Zeno. That's naivette at its finest. You can't save the country if you don't first win the election.
The spin on about every rightwing talk show I've had the displeasure to expose myself to for the past year has been laced with doubt about McCain - none of them, and I mean NONE of them were happy with his nomination and yet all of them in unison were saying "Obama cannot be allowed to win. An Obama White House is unacceptable." So their support for McCain was begrudgingly given.
And that's just the tip of the ice berg. If the talk shows are saying it, think what the Evangelicals and the rural hardliners are thinking. McCain was in real danger of not even getting some of the core conservative support that Bush got - support that was only enough to force a court decision in 2000 to declare a winner.
McCain is an old political warhorse. He can put his ear to the ground and gauge his own constituency. He knew what was going on. He could have named Romney and made the safe pick, but by naming Palin he got a staunch conservative who has a good record, like he would with Romney, but he also got the bonus of having a "family values" woman in case there were any disgruntled Hillary supporters looking for a lever to pull.
The other possibilities, as the writer noted, had strikes against them. My own governor, Kathleen Sebilius, is nowhere near as energetic and engaging as Palin. The single thing Palin really does have going for her is that she's fresh, she's unknown, and people are interested in her. McCain can honestly say she has no ties whatsoever to the Washington political machine (or didn't until now). That's going to be appealling to some voters.
I think it was a brilliant political move on his part, but the notion that this was "political misconduct" is just looniness, which is about what I expect from Huffington.
I'm still not voting for McCain, but I think this nomination has a lot of value to the GOP ticket, especially among the Evangelicals. And those are the folks who got Bush into office at the end of the day.