6 things the Palin pick says about McCain
Seancito
Seancito
"Ray" <R...@yaooo.net> wrote in message
news:inajb4h44bqmhg1h4...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:33:12 GMT, "Seancito" <na...@nadapornada.net>
> wrote:
>
>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/12997
>>
> Governor Sarah Palin has the democrats crapping in their pants. LOL
> --
> Ray
> Mind over matter, if you don't mind, it don't matter.
> (Confucius)
Ditty
>On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:33:12 GMT, "Seancito" <na...@nadapornada.net>
>wrote:
>
>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/12997
>>
>Governor Sarah Palin has the democrats crapping in their pants. LOL
Hardly. Although there might be a bit of urinary seepage from
laughing so hard.
--
Ditty
"It's not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you."
(Frank Zappa)
http://www.dearauntnettie.com
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Bets
wrote:
>I don't think so.
>
>"Ray" <R...@yaooo.net> wrote in message
>news:inajb4h44bqmhg1h4...@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:33:12 GMT, "Seancito" <na...@nadapornada.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/12997
>>>
>> Governor Sarah Palin has the democrats crapping in their pants. LOL
>> --
PIMPL is more accurate.
Allan Smith
I sorta respect his Texas Holdem all-in just before the flop.
It now depends on the Turn card (the polls), and the River card (the
Election).
Allan
--
One asks, many answer, all learn -- Plato, on the 'Forum
---
True civility is when every one gives to every other one every right
that they claim for themselves.
"Seancito" <na...@nadapornada.net> wrote in message
news:Yfhuk.79$Wd.66@trnddc01...
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/12997
>
chatnoir
wrote:
> Seancito,
>
> I sorta respect his Texas Holdem all-in just before the flop.
>
> It now depends on the Turn card (the polls), and the River card (the
> Election).
>
> Allan
>
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
excerpt:
August 31, 2008
By: Hilzoy
Executive Experience
On the McCain Report, Michael Goldfarb writes that Sarah Palin "has
more executive experience than Barack Obama and Joe Biden put
together", a point that, by some strange coincidence, has popped up
all over the conservative blogs. I think that the idea that Palin has
an advantage over Obama in this area is completely wrong.
When this campaign started, one of my biggest questions about Barack
Obama was whether he would be any good at managing things. The
President is, after all, the head of a very large organization, and he
had better either have good management skills or hire a chief of staff
who does. The fact that I didn't know whether Obama had them didn't
prevent me from voting for him -- none of the other candidates I might
have supported had a track record in management either -- but I would
have been happier had I known whether Obama was any good at running
things.
I don't have that problem any more. Obama has spent the past year and
a half running a large organization -- as of last December, it had
"about 500 employees and a budget of $100 million" -- and running it
very well. It's not just that he and his team beat the Clinton
campaign, which started out with enormous advantages. It's not even
that he often did so by building effective political machines from
scratch in states in which Clinton had locked down the political
establishment. It's that every account of the Obama campaign that I've
read makes it clear that he has done an outstanding job of
constructing and running a political organization. For instance, this
account of Obama's campaign is very much worth reading, if you want to
get a sense of how he runs things:
"The story of how Obama assembled his top advisers — and how he got
them to work together as a team — offers a glimpse into his approach
as a chief executive who manages an organization of nearly 1,000
employees. Obama has built "an amazingly strong machine," says Jeffrey
Sonnenfeld, president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at
the Yale School of Management. "People expected a more ad hoc,
impromptu, entrepreneurial feel to it. It has been more of a well-
orchestrated symphony than the jazz combo we expected."
Indeed, in merging the talents of powerful Washington insiders and
outside-the-Beltway insurgents, Obama has succeeded at a task that has
traditionally eluded Democratic candidates: forging an experienced
inner circle who set aside their differences and put the candidate
first. "The whole point is that it's not about any of these guys,"
says longtime GOP strategist Frank Luntz. "They feel blessed. They see
it as how lucky they are to be working for this man, at this time, in
this election. This is the dream team for the dream candidate. I
waited all my life for a Republican Barack Obama. Now he shows up, and
he's a Democrat.""
You can find more good descriptions of the Obama campaign here and
here.
Executive ability is not the most important thing in the world. (For
one thing, hiring a good chief of staff goes a long way towards making
up any deficiencies you have as a manager.) But it does matter. At the
beginning of this campaign, I don't think anyone knew whether Barack
Obama would be any good at running things. Now, however, we do.
—Hilzoy 1:19 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (32)
August 30, 2008
By: Hilzoy
Now that I'm back from the convention, and have transferred all my
backed up stuff onto my new computer (sigh), I've finally had a chance
to sit down and consider McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running
mate. I was in an airplane during her speech yesterday, but I saw her
speak with McCain today, and I think it would be a mistake to
underestimate her potential appeal. Besides making a significant chunk
of the Republican base swoon with delight, she seems like a genuinely
engaging person, and one who will give the McCain campaign some badly
needed energy. These are not negligible things.
On the other hand, I completely agree with Steve:
"What matters most right now is John McCain's comically dangerous
sense of judgment. He picked a running mate he met once for 15
minutes, who's been the governor of a small state for a year and a
half, and who is in the midst of an abuse-of-power investigation in
which she appears to have lied rather blatantly. She has no obvious
expertise in any area, and no record of any kind of federal issues.
McCain doesn't care.
Sensible people of sound mind and character simply don't things like
this. Leaders don't do things like this. It's the height of arrogance.
It's manifestly unserious. It's reckless and irresponsible. It mocks
the political process. Faced with a major presidential test, McCain
thought it wise to tell an imprudent joke of lasting consequence."
I have a terrible track record predicting how voters will respond to
things, but I think that this choice will damage McCain in the long
run, particularly since he made it so shortly after Obama's speech.
This might have seemed like a good way to stomp on the Democratic
convention, but it also ensures that a lot of voters will have this
juxtaposition in their minds: Obama's speech, which, whether you agree
with it or not, manifestly took the election and the choice before us
with the seriousness they deserve, and McCain's transparently cynical
choice of a charming but plainly unqualified person to be his running
mate, which did not.
I was also struck by McCain's willingness to gamble not just with our
country, but with his own campaign. He has chosen as his running mate
someone he has barely met; who has no experience dealing with the kind
of scrutiny she is about to face; who has, by all accounts, not been
fully vetted; and who is in the midst of a scandal. That is a
shockingly reckless thing to do. Obviously, I think it's worse to
gamble with the country, but taking this kind of crazy flyer on
someone you don't know nearly enough about is recklessness of a
different kind, and worth noting in its own right.
—Hilzoy 9:36 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (83)
MANIFESTLY UNSERIOUS.... At this point, I realize I'm belaboring the
point. "Sarah Palin is an awful choice for a running mate," I can hear
you saying, "We get it."
But I can't help but think the magnitude of this mistake has not yet
sunk in among political observers. I was talking to a friend last
night who is a political professional in DC, and the discussion, not
surprisingly turned to Palin. He has extensive campaign experience,
and every time I argued that this is completely insane, he explained
to me a variety of reasons why this John McCain's campaign will
benefit, significantly, as a result of this move. I suspect he's
probably right.
We were, however, talking about different things. The Palin
announcement probably stepped all over Barack Obama's post-convention
bounce. Hell, for all I know, this one decision might actually help
McCain win the presidency.
But that doesn't change the fact that this is the single most
ridiculous development in presidential politics in a generation.
A top "loyal Bushie" told the Politico's Mike Allen that McCain's
decision is "disrespectful to the office of the presidency." That's
actually a pretty good way of characterizing it.
Campaigns have their ads, their polls, and their tactics, but at the
end of the day, credible people who care about the country know that
this is more than just a theatrical game -- the future of the nation
counts more than the future of a candidate. Those who take affairs of
state seriously may take cheap shots, shade the truth now and then,
and run the kind of conventional campaigns we've all grown accustomed
to, but honorable Americans of character don't gamble with the
nation's well-being. They know there are lines that can't be crossed
for expediency's sake, no matter how strong the temptation.
McCain was asked a while back about what he'd look for in a running
mate. He said the "key" is to find the person "most prepared to take
my place" in the event of a crisis. McCain spent the ensuing months
with a motto: "Country first."
I don't doubt for a moment that Sarah Palin is a nice person and
probably a competent Alaskan governor. But she also has the thinnest
background of any candidate for national office since 1908. Is McCain
willing, with a straight face, to argue that Palin is the single "most
prepared" person in the entire United States to assume the presidency
should tragedy strike? Is anyone, anywhere, prepared to argue that
McCain has put "country first"? Of course not; these ideas are
literally laughable.
Palin's qualifications are, to a very real degree, secondary to the
issue at hand. What matters most right now is John McCain's comically
dangerous sense of judgment. He picked a running mate he met once for
15 minutes, who's been the governor of a small state for a year and a
half, and who is in the midst of an abuse-of-power investigation in
which she appears to have lied rather blatantly. She has no obvious
expertise in any area, and no record of any kind of federal issues.
McCain doesn't care.
Sensible people of sound mind and character simply don't do things
like this. Leaders don't do things like this. It's the height of
arrogance. It's manifestly unserious. It's reckless and irresponsible.
It mocks the political process. Faced with a major presidential test,
McCain thought it wise to tell an imprudent joke of lasting
consequence.
Kevin noted:
This is all part of what I was talking about the other day when I
noted that McCain is running such a palpably unserious campaign. Steve
Schmidt seems solely interested in winning the daily news cycle; his
staff spends its time gleefully churning out juvenile attack videos;
McCain himself has retreated into robotic incantations of simpleminded
talking points; and now he's chosen a manifestly unqualified VP that
he knows nothing about. I've honestly never seen anything like it.
No one has; it's without precedent in modern American politics. The
novelty and gimmickry might hold sway with those who base their votes
on who they'd like to have a beer with, but that doesn't make it any
less of a joke.
Sullivan added, "Palin isn't the issue here. McCain's judgment is.
It's completely off the wall. Is there something wrong with him?"
That may sound like a flippant question, but it deserves a serious
answer. Is there something wrong with him? Might this be evidence of
some kind of impulse problem, as reflected in his shoot-first, think-
second approach to foreign policy?
When I think about the respect that John McCain had worked so hard to
develop, the stature he'd taken years to cultivate, and the reputation
he'd built his career on, it's breathtaking to see him throw it all
away. If there's a more complete collapse in modern political times,
from hero to clown, I can't think of it.
We're poised to learn a great deal about Sarah Palin, but we've just
learned even more about John McCain. He's fundamentally unsuited for
the presidency.
—Steve Benen 5:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (128)
THE OTHER RUNNING MATE.... The Obama campaign released a new ad this
morning that offers an interesting take on the McCain campaign's
running mate announcement: Sarah Palin isn't especially important,
because McCain is still just more of the same.
In effect, the message is: "Bush is McCain's real running mate."
"Well, he's made his choice," the voice-over says, "but for the rest
of us there's still no change. McCain doesn't get it, calling this
broken economy 'strong.' Wants to keep spending ten-billion-a-month in
Iraq. And votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. So, while
this may be his running-mate, America knows this is John McCain's
agenda. And we can't afford four more years of the same."
It's a compelling strategy: McCain offered four more years of failed
policies before his announcement, and he offers four more years of
failed policies now. So what difference does a running mate make?
What do you think of the new ad?
—Steve Benen 3:03 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (70)
THE RIGHT OFFERS SOME REVIEWS.... It's probably fair to say most
sensible people would find it tough to defend John McCain's choice of
running mates, but I've been genuinely curious to see how Republicans
respond to yesterday's Sarah Palin announcement. I don't mean campaign
surrogates or Fox News personalities, who don't have a choice; I mean
more traditional Republican voices who actually have to consider this
decision on the merits (or lack thereof).
* Charles Krauthammer: "The Palin selection completely undercuts the
argument about Obama's inexperience and readiness to lead.... To
gratuitously undercut the remarkably successful 'Is he ready to lead'
line of attack seems near suicidal."
* Noah Millman, presenting a defense for Palin: "I realize, of course,
that she's totally unqualified to be President at this point in time.
If McCain were to die in February 2009, I hope Palin would have the
good sense to appoint someone who is more ready to be President to be
her Vice President, on the understanding that she would then resign
and be appointed Vice President by her successor."
* Ramesh Ponnuru called it "tokenism," adding, "Can anyone say with a
straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?"
* David Frum: "The longer I think about it, the less well this
selection sits with me. And I increasingly doubt that it will prove
good politics. The Palin choice looks cynical.... It's a wild gamble,
undertaken by our oldest ever first-time candidate for president in
hopes of changing the board of this election campaign. Maybe it will
work. But maybe (and at least as likely) it will reinforce a theme
that I'd be pounding home if I were the Obama campaign: that it's John
McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while
it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable
governance.... If it were your decision, and you were putting your
country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat
away from the presidency?"
* Kathryn Jean Lopez: "As much as I loathe Obama-Biden, I can't in
good conscience vote for a McCain-Palin ticket. Palin has absolutely
no experience in foreign affairs. Considering both McCain's advanced
age and the state of the world today, it is essential that the veep be
exceedingly qualified to assume the office of president. I simply
don't have any confidence in Palin's ability to deal effectively with
Iran, Russia, China, etc." [Update: Lopez was quoting an email, not
expressing her actual views. My apologies.]
* Mark Halperin: "On the face of it, McCain has failed the ultimate
test that any presidential candidate must face in picking a running
mate: selecting someone who is unambiguously qualified to be
president."
The phrase "jump the shark" keeps coming to mind.
—Steve Benen 1:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (102)
THOSE WHO KNOW HER BEST.... There's never been a politician from
Alaska on the national stage before, so I kind of expected Alaskans
and the Alaskan media to have a decidedly positive attitude about
Sarah Palin joining the Republican ticket. It's not exactly turning
out that way.
* The Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks: " She has never publicly
demonstrated the kind of interest, much less expertise, in federal
issues and foreign affairs that should mark a candidate for the second-
highest office in the land.... Most people would acknowledge that,
regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for
the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of
the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it."
* State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican from Palin's
hometown of Wasilla: "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she
be prepared to be vice president or president?"
* Dermot Cole, a longtime columnist for Alaska's second largest
newspaper, The Daily News-Miner, called McCain's choice of Palin
"reckless" and questioned her credentials.
* Mike Doogan, a former columnist now serving as a Democrat in the
state legislature: "John McCain looked all over the United States to
find the single Republican who is qualified to be, as the saying goes,
a heartbeat away from the presidency, and he came up with Sarah Palin.
Really? ... [L]et's be honest here. Her resume is as thin as the meat
in a vending machine sandwich.... The long and short of it is this:
We're not sure she's a competent governor of Alaska. And yet McCain,
who is no spring chicken, has decided she's the best choice to replace
him as president if he should win and then fall afoul of the Grim
Reaper. Sarah Palin? Really?"
* The Anchorage Daily News' Gregg Erickson: "[Palin] tends to
oversimplify complex issues, has had difficulty delegating authority,
and clearly has some difficulty distinguishing the line between her
public responsibilities and private wishes.... It is clear that she
has not paid much attention to the nitty-gritty unglamorous work of
government, of gaining consensus, and making difficult compromises.
She seems to be of the view that politics should be all rather simple.
That often appeals to the wider public, but frustrates those who see
themselves as laboring in the less glamorous parts of the vineyard."
Erickson's description kind of makes Palin sound like George W. Bush,
doesn't it?
—Steve Benen 12:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (43)
THE CRIME AND THE COVER-UP.... At her kickoff event in Ohio yesterday,
Sarah Palin boasted about having rejected congressional funds for the
infamous "bridge to nowhere." Soon after, we realized that Palin
wasn't telling the truth about one of her signature issues, on her
very first day as a candidate for national office.
Now, some might say this is excusable, because Palin's remarks were
written by McCain campaign aides, and the McCain campaign barely knows
who Palin is. That's probably true.
But lying about an alleged abuse of power is far more serious.
Remember the expression, the cover-up is worse than the crime? It's
plainly true in the case of Palin firing Alaska Public Safety
Commissioner Walter Monegan. Take a look at this video, from the ABC
affiliate in Alaska, and notice that Palin seems to have been caught,
rather blatantly, misusing her power and then lying about it.
While we're at it, read this rather extraordinary report from the
Washington Post about just how embarrassing this scandal is for Palin.
For that matter, let's not forget that Palin fired the Alaska Public
Safety Commissioner for the most dubious of reasons, and then replaced
him with a guy facing a credible sexual harassment accusation, and who
was out of the job two weeks later. What a great example of sound
judgment.
As part of the investigation, Palin will have to leave the campaign
trail to be deposed soon, the results of an investigation from the
legislature into the controversy is due shortly before the election,
and the word "impeachment" has been thrown around more the once.
Josh Marshall added, "Using the power of the government to settle
scores with estranged relatives or associates is far from
unprecedented.... But I doubt very much that they were prepared for
the heat of full bore national media scrutiny on this one. And in this
case you not only the underlying act, which is sleazy, but the high
probability that Palin is lying about her role."
Did John McCain even ask about any of this? Does he have any idea what
it looks like? Why would he pick a running mate in the middle of an
ethics scandal in which there's strong evidence that the governor told
obvious untruths?
I'm not making any predictions here, but I can't help but wonder if
Palin will still be on the Republican ticket by the time Election Day
comes in November.
—Steve Benen 11:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (55)
'FAUX-FEMINISM'.... It may seem foolish -- in large part, because it
is -- but John McCain believes he can win over women voters by picking
a running mate whose opposition to reproductive rights is so extreme,
she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Now that's a
good plan to woo supporters of Hillary Clinton.
We talked a little about this yesterday, but there are two great
pieces on McCain's cynical and insulting outreach to women voters that
I wanted to mention. The first is from the New York Times' Gail
Collins.
....I do feel kind of ticked off at the assumptions that the
Republicans seem to be making about female voters. It's a tad
reminiscent of the Dan Quayle selection, when the first George Bush's
advisers decided they could close the gender gap with a cute running
mate.
The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate
with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically
wrong.
And The American Prospect's Ann Friedman fleshes this out in more
detail.
Palin's addition to the ticket takes Republican faux-feminism to a
whole new level. As Adam Serwer pointed out on TAPPED, this is in fact
a condescending move by the GOP. It plays to the assumption that
disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters did not care about her politics
-- only her gender. In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence
to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to
investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for
someone who looks like them. As Serwer noted, it's akin to choosing
Alan Keyes in an attempt to compete with Obama for votes from black
Americans. [...]
McCain has turned the idea of the first woman in the White House from
a true moment of change to an empty pander. Why is this a pander?
Because Palin is not a woman who has a record of representing women's
interests. She is beloved by extremely right-wing conservatives for
her anti-choice record (fittingly, she's a member of the faux-feminist
anti-choice group Feminists for Life). Palin supports federal anti-gay
marriage legislation. She believes schools should teach creationism.
Alaska is currently considering spending more on abstinence-only sex
education. And when it comes to a slew of other issues of importance
to women, such as equal pay, she's not on the record.... [M[ost of us
understand that a woman candidate is not the same thing as a woman's
candidate.
I'd just add how striking it is that McCain had more capable women to
choose from, but picked one who wasn't even a governor when he started
his presidential campaign. Senators such as Hutchison, Dole, Snowe,
Collins, and Murkowski were skipped over, as were more experienced
governors like Lingle and Rell, as were "mavericks" like Todd-Whitman,
as were cabinet secretaries like Rice, Spellings, and Chao, as were
business leaders like Fiorina and Whitman.
McCain skipped over more capable women for a younger, less experienced
woman he barely knows. This is supposed to impress women voters?
Seriously?
—Steve Benen 11:08 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (52)
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... I'm not sure if the McCain campaign has thought
this line through.
"[Sarah Palin is] going to learn national security at the foot of the
master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be
around at least that long," said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain's
top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain's health,
which Mr. McCain's doctors reported as excellent in May.
First, it's not an especially good idea for top McCain aides to joke
about whether McCain is going to survive four years in office.
Second, it's not an especially good idea to describe McCain as "the
master" on national security, given that he's embarrassingly confused
about national security and foreign policy for quite some time.
Third, it's not an especially good idea to concede, on the record,
that the Vice President during two wars will need on the job training.
And fourth, John McCain's top strategist has effectively told the New
York Times that the Republican nominee for V.P. won't be ready on Day
One, but that's fine, because McCain will probably live until 2013.
Seriously. That's his argument.
I'd love to hear some enterprising political reporter who travels with
the McCain campaign to ask the senator, "In the event of a tragedy or
national calamity, and a President McCain were unable to carry out his
duties, who does John McCain believe is the single best, most
trustworthy, most capable, most reliable person in the entire United
States to lead the free world?"
Joe Lieberman? Tom Ridge? Lindsey Graham? Dick Lugar? John Warner? No,
it's Sarah Palin.
I just want to see McCain or one of his top aides say this with a
straight face. Just once.
—Steve Benen 10:07 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (78) ...
(cont)