Sarah Palin was a surprise to me. Completely out of left field. I thought for sure McCain was going with Romney, a strong economic choice. I thought anyone else would be a sure loss in November. I was wrong.
Like everyone else in America, once I got my "telegraph" from McCain about his VP pick, I went straight to Google. After about an hour of reading various old reports and other media, I began to get a feeling of "wow, this chik is too good to be true". So I did what any pessimistic, jaded person would do...I googled more, I clicked on page 6,7,8, not just the first page. :) I didn't really find anything "bad" about her.
With his pick, Obama chose a candidate that filled in the areas he lacked, "experience", "foreign policy", and "blue collar America". McCain seemed to do the same thing with his pick. It's like he took a list of all the things Keith Olberman has said about him and created this perfect robot VP to counter them. Here are some highlights and excerpts from the web on Sarah Palin:
*She's been a Mayor and a Governor. Both executive experience. She held the highest approval rating in the country as Governor of Alaska.
*She is not standard GOP material. She took down Ted Stevens and the "Bridge to nowhere". A young first term Governor took down a senior GOP senator.
*She has taken on big oil. She forced the oil and gas companies in her state to pay a windfall tax, essentially giving every resident of Alaska a 1200 dollar a year check.
*She began the workings on a gas pipeline to bring natural gas to main America.
*As Mayor, Palin followed through on campaign promises to reduce the salary of the mayor, and to reduce property taxes by 40 percent.
*Palin served as the Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She resigned in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistle blowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.
*She's pro-life and can back it up. She knew ahead of time her youngest had down syndrome and decide not to abort.
*She connects with middle America. She has 5 kids, one in every age group, from awkward teenager to infant. She has no choice but to understand middle America.
*She comes from humble upbringings in small town America (Mom was a secretary and dad a teacher).
*She's not surrounded by "yes" men. Neither her husband nor her oldest son are registered as Republicans.
*Her son is in the military, not an Ivy league school.
*Her husband is a union fisherman. She knows the life of a union family first hand.
The list goes on and on..... You have to read her Wikipedia page to see the highlights.
It's like Obama is campaigning for Palin. Obama's main campaign promise is to take down the unethical people in DC, change the way DC works.. Not only can Palin promise the same thing, she has done it, on more than one occasion. It's like she has the ethical concerns of Obama without the liberal social views. I mean she is as fair as they come the way I see it. Conservative on moral issues, but not typical GOP when it comes to the Good Ole Boy system.
Some will say her age is her biggest obstacle...I disagree, look at what she has done in her career. There are 30 year Senators and congressman who have done less. I mean clearly, she needs to come up to speed very quickly on matters of the world and of course foreign policy. But so does Obama. It's funny to me when I watch MSNBC and CNN and the analyst say McCain is just throwing out a Hail Mary in a last ditch effort to catch Obama. They laugh at her foreign policy experience saying "she's just one heartbeat away from the Presidency", but I don't see how they can say that with a straight face, knowing that Obama who has less executive experience IS the heartbeat of the Presidency. Obama said he wanted a VP that had the experience and foreign policy knowledge. McCain has this in spaids over Biden and he is the PRESIDENTIAL candidate, not VP. I mean if Obama is depending on Biden so much why don't they swap spots, let Obama run as VP. I can't wrap my brain around their argument.
ONE BIG item I disagree with was them even mentioning Hillary Clinton and women voters in her speech. That was a huge faux pas as far as I'm concerned. It made it look very much like a token move to get just women voters. I would have completely avoided saying anything about women and the glass ceiling. People will notice regardless, mentioning that came across terribly.
1 comment:
Like you, I had never heard of Sarah Palin until the day that McCain announced his pick for VP and I was left wondering if this was just a very thinly veiled attempt to pick up disenfranchised Hillary voters. It seemed the more I listened to the politicos the more impressed that I became. She auctioned off the private jet that the previous administration bought; lobbyists are not allowed inside the Governor's office (although she admitted maybe 5 lobbyists did manage to sneak in with other groups, but were immediately removed). It seems that the biggest "scandal" that she has ever been involved in during her political career was supposedly firing someone who refused to have her sister's ex-husband fired as a state troopers. As scandals go, that seems kinda minor.
The lack of experience seems to be the biggest issue with her and I wondered if McCain had taken away his biggest stick against Obama. The more talk I heard from the Democrats, the more this pick for VP seemed like a genius move. As you pointed out, the more the Democrats mention the lack of experience by Ms. Palin, the more everyone has to look at their own candidate. Its as if the Democrats are now doing McCain's campaigning for him.
As a Governor, she has executive experience, she is in charge of a military force, she has a cabinet, and she hasn't had to "cross the aisle". All of these, plus what you pointed out seem to make her a little more qualified for the position of President than Obama and she is only the VP nominee.
Whoever wins, this is now going to be a history making election.
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