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I have to say, I'm really enjoying the internecine warfare that has taken over the McCain-Palin camp. McCain staffers have called Sarah Palin a "diva" and a "whackjob," who is going increasingly off-message on the campaign trail and, according to these staffers, is dragging down the ticket. For their part, Palin and her supporters blame the McCain campaign for "a botched rollout and a tarnished public image," and seem to be setting Palin up to be the 2012 Republican nominee should John McCain lose next Tuesday. The public, meanwhile, is increasingly turning on Palin, with 59% of Americans in a recent poll saying she is unqualified to be Vice President, and that her selection reflects badly on McCain's judgment when it comes to selecting competent people to serve in his administration.
It's amazing to think that only a few months ago conservatives like Brian Griffiths were telling us that Palin would be a game-changer:
Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party. She's both conservative's conservative, and a reformer. She took on the corrupt Stevens/Young/Murkowski wing of the Alaska State GOP and has succeeded in changing her state and her party for the better. THIS is the type of change that Barack Obama wishes he could bring; Sarah Palin has been there, and she's done that already
What's best is the fact that it seems like the Palin Pick left Team HopeChangeHope in complete disarray...
The left blogosphere is reacting poorly too. America's biggest hatesite, DailyKos, is laying into Governor Palin, with posters there calling her selection unserious, a distraction, the worst VP pick ever, and asserting that her husband is the "Shadow Governor." So much for supporting the equality of the sexes fellas.
Obviously, Senator McCain did something right in order to get the Obama folks in a panic and the leftroots in a lather.
I'd say McCain did the right thing too, just not for the purpose of gaining traction against Barack Obama. One thing that's noteworthy about the endorsements that Obama has gotten lately, especially from Republicans, is that they have frequently cited McCain's selection of Palin as a blight on the case for his candidacy. Even people still in the McCain camp, like former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, don't think Palin could step in as President at a moment's notice -- at best, she would be "adequate," in his words. Turns out selecting a scandal-plagued governor who can't answer even basic questions of policy without notes or a teleprompter doesn't give people much reassurance about your ability to lead the country through troubled times.
There used to be a lot of Republicans I respected. Seriously. This may shock some of my friends in Democratic politics, but the first campaign I ever volunteered for wasn't for a Democrat. It was for Connie Morella, the moderate Republican who represented Montgomery County until her defeat by Chris Van Hollen in 2002. I was in high school, and the only issue I cared about was the environment, and at the time there were still some Republicans in congress, like Connie Morella and Wayne Gilchrest, who demonstrated a level of sanity on environmental issues that has long since been buried under chants of 'drill, baby, drill'. It took a few years, and a better understanding of the fact that the most important vote a congressman makes is for the congressional leadership, but I eventually came around.
There used to be a lot of Republicans I respected, but I find it hard now to think of any at all. The Democratic successes of the last couple years seem to have brought out the worst in the Republican Party. Chants of 'terrorist' and 'kill him' at political rallies, effigies of Barack Obama hung on college campuses, rampant political corruption among elected Republicans, manipulation of the fundamental processes of democracy and undermining of the electoral system, and the use of smears and name-calling have become the modus operandi of the party. The Republican Party now seems to be the province of a radical fringe, a fringe that, thankfully, is dropping deeper and deeper into a spiral of self-destruction. And, as John McCain has demonstrated in his campaign's abandonment of most of the principles he used to claim to hold dear, the ideas of honor or of public service or of the greater good seem long since to have been abandoned in an insatiable desire to win.
I really can't tell you what's worse, the childish insults and gross distortions of their most partisan base, especially those active online, or the fact that Republican elected leaders have started to copy them. There isn't much difference, after all, between Elizabeth Dole lying about her opponent being an atheist or Saxby Chambliss calling a war hero a traitor, and the incessant vitriol of some of the right wing bloggers and commenters, such as one on this site, too cowardly to comment under a real name, whose idea of political discourse is to tell Isaac he's got his 'pink panties in a bunch' when he takes issue with what the other side says. Whatever that means.
I guess in some ways it's a good thing this has happened to the GOP. Much of the American public, at least, seems to see it for what it is. The polls certainly suggest that there will be a drubbing on Election Day, partially as a result of that. But I can't help wishing that there were people on the other side who were willing to engage in an honest debate of the issues, a real discussion of what we face as a nation. But instead, instead of real debate, there are claims of socialism, and of a lack of patriotism, and all sorts of ad hominem attacks.
The editors make a good case. They note, first of all, Obama's extraordinary campaign organization:
Senator Obama's campaign has been extraordinarily open - inclusive across generational, ethnic and class lines. His top advisers include Democrats and Republicans, giving substance to his promise of bipartisan leadership. He created a disciplined organization that raised record sums yet stayed within budget. Senator Obama's campaign testifies to his managerial skill and talent for surrounding himself with smart, hard-working people.
Like many others who have endorsed Obama, including Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley, the editors regard John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate as a severe laspe in judgment:
In his first term in Congress, Senator Obama cannot claim decades of Washington experience. But his steadiness and thoughtful approach to issues show he has the judgment and depth of knowledge to lead the country. His first major decision after winning the nomination was to name Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a proven foreign policy hand, as his running mate. By contrast, Senator McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska called his judgment into question and has proved to be an unsettling distraction as she is woefully unprepared for the presidency.
After noting Obama's advantages in both economic and foreign policy, they also highlight the importance of making judicial appointments in the next four years:
We believe that unlike Senator McCain, who has said he would name justices sympathetic to the views of the court's most conservative members, Senator Obama would avoid ideologically driven appointments that further polarize the country on contentious social issues.
In conclusion:
Senator Obama is a relative newcomer on the national stage. But he has proved to be that rarest of public servants, an inspirational leader who would transcend any enduring racial barriers and call upon the best in the American character, a public servant who also possesses the finely honed political skills necessary to turn the nation's highest ideals into practical policies that benefit citizens.
Add this to the overwhelming number of newspaper endorsements for Obama over McCain, which at last count stands at 112-39. Compare this to 2004, when John Kerry barely edged out George W. Bush 208-189.
First Sarah Palin got booed at a hockey game in Philadelphia. But she's not the sort to avoie similar situations. So she dropped the puck at a game in St. Louis. No booing, but the carpet laid out for her managed to injure one of the players. Don't worry, Governor Palin, the third time's the charm.
Another reason to love Philadelphia. The only time I've ever seen something similar in person was at one of the olympic soccer games in DC back in '96, when the entire stadium booed Marion Barry. Not good company to be in:
In case you missed it, John McCain got booed by his own supporters repeatedly trying to defend Obama against some of the racist and violent language his own campaign helped stir up. The guy can't catch a break. Not that I feel sorry for him at all:
And some of the new offerings from Brave New Films...
John McCain, economic disaster...
McCain on cutting taxes for the rich:
And Eddie Vedder mocking Bush before doing a little song to get your Sunday going, from Michael Moore's movie Slacker Uprising...
Brian Morton reviews the first presidential debate last Friday:
Obama never made the case that it isn't just McCain or George W. Bush--it is the entire Republican theory of governance that has driven the country off the cliff.
Fourteen years ago the GOP surged to power on a campaign of hypocrisy and lies: term limits, the line-item veto, lower taxes, and less government. Once the Republicans took hold of all of the reins of power--a grip on virtually all three branches of government--they behaved as if they were the ruling panjandrums of a Third World military dictatorship.
Vincent Williams looks at what is considered "normal" in this campaign:
Although a bunch of people have spent the better part of a year coming up with new ways to call Barack Obama "exotic," someone who "grew up eating moose burgers" is a quintessential American story and is accepted as such right out the box. And that just struck me, because that's it right there, y'know? Everyone talks about "fill in the blank" is the new black, but all black ever strives to be is the new normal.
And James Browning writes about his experience running for the House of Delegates in District 18 in 2006:
I would be a weak candidate. I had only lived in the district for four years and barely knew my neighbors. I’m not a people person, and would rather read a book than pocket business cards... I’ve lived for months at a time without a phone and did not get email until the twenty-first century. I have crooked teeth and a right eye which wanders when I look to the left. I do not go to church, do not believe in God, and will mumble something about a “oneness of all people and things” if forced to state my religion. My wife and I had a two-year-old, and I planned to take a crucial hour from campaigning each day to take him to a swimming pool... Worst of all, I’d need to raise about $80,000 to run a competitive campaign, but couldn’t accept corporate or PAC contributions, even from liberal PACs, because of my background as the director of a government watchdog group, and I wasn’t going to spend our savings trying to win a job that paid $43,500 a year.
I was weak, but the voters and the press and interest groups and my potential donors wouldn’t have to know how weak. I was in the newspaper almost every week and had been on TV dozens of times, which, if you don’t see the clips of the slouched man with one eye rolling up into his head, at least sounds impressive. My step-grandmother owns part of the New York Times, and during my interviews with the Sierra Club and other interest groups, I could dump this information onto the table the way they do the grand prize at the end of the World Series of Poker, suggesting that I had money, connections, and a powerful ally once I used my seat in the House of Delegates as a stepping-stone to Congress. I am six and a half feet tall and handsome under the right conditions, and the best thing about running and knocking on more than six thousand doors was that, by standing a step or two below many of the roughly three thousand people who were home, I was able for the first time in my life to look people in the eyes without slouching, stooping, or craning my neck awkwardly.
Incidentally, FSP founder OnBackground endorsed Browning in 2006.
Politicker is pointing out that in a ranking of the relative constitutional power of the nation's governors, Martin O'Malley ties with Sarah Palin. It ain't O'Malley's fault, blame the people who wrote the Maryland constitution. But, still not such good company.
By now we all know a bit about V.P. candidate Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, filled with small-town-values goodness and ready to rule the world - which may happen, in the not-totally-implausible event that Presidential candidate John McMaverick wins that office, then proceeds to expire while there.
In the unfortunate event that happens, will Gov. Palin be up to the job? Well, I've expressed skepticism in a previous post here, but I'm somewhat reassured by the analysis of renowned Intertubes intellectual Giblets:
Well there's a brand new political superstar on the scene and she's tough as nails and the media won't leave her alone and she's a rough-and-tumble Alaskan hockey mom and why are they asking all these questions and she is the pure reincarnation of the invincible Anglo-Saxon frontier earth mother and stop picking on her!
So maybe Sarah Palin doesn't have all that much "experience." Maybe she doesn't pay much attention to your fancy-pants "foreign policy" or "domestic policy" or "policy." Maybe she's "crazy" and "corrupt" and was picked by a "vetting process" that consisted of "tossing darts at a phone book in the middle of an all-night Ambien-and-Ketamine binge." But maybe that's just because Sarah Palin's just too busy being a real American to hang around with your namby-pamby liberal candidates with their arugula lattes and their east coast Ivy League universities and their "qualifications" while they tax the Jesus Fetus to pay for gay Muslim healthcare! Well Sarah Palin understands that being vice-president takes more than just book-smarts or regular-smarts or knowing what a vice president does!* It takes gumption and spunk and other made-up words that hearken back to another time - a realer time - a whiter time - back when men were men and women were men and great big hairy-chested frontiersmen of the plains wrestled oxen and caribou and the savage Injun Man in their mighty conquest of the West before succumbing to explosive amoebic dysentery! And with the help of God and millions of dollars in energy industry donations, Sarah Palin will give us that dysentery again!
VALUES.
As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five, Sarah Palin understands real American values, because she is a real American just like you, only with much more money and power and a tiny invisible fairy that lives in her brain and tells her to ban books and blow up Muslims. Sarah Palin understands that the key to America's success is personal responsibility, and the key to personal responsibility is getting lots of money from oil companies and the federal government while you enforce other people's personal responsibility! Oh, you wanted state funding to help with your out-of-wedlock Sin Child? Shoulda thoughta that before you decided to not be born to Sarah Palin!
Sarah Palin will also ban abortion, 'cause in the hardscrabble up-by-the-bootstraps wilderness of the Alaskan suburbs, they don't have abortion. They also do not have adequate access to health care, birth control, or equal pay for equal work, as it turns out.
MAVERICKNESS.
As a moose-hunting Jesus-fearing hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose, Sarah Palin isn't some petty Washington bureaucrat. She's a petty Alaskan bureaucrat, and she's gonna shake things up in Washington! For her first reform she will pose for photographs with a gun and a stuffed moose head! For her second reform she will say something bold and brassy. For her third reform she will give birth at a live press conference to six eagle scouts, three peregrine falcons and an American mastodon, rear them in the Christian faith and release them into the wild before hunting them down, shooting them and mounting their heads in the Roosevelt Room!
Now some of you are saying "oh Giblets these aren't actual reforms" because you are boring and stupid and I hate you. But if you think about it, Sarah Palin would be reforming Washington just by being elected and finally giving a voice to marginalized white Christian evangelicals everywhere. She will also re-ban abortion, in case abortion got away the first time.
ENVIRONMENTALNESS.
As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose for Jesus, Sarah Palin is kin to the wild outdoors and appreciates its bountiful splendor as she is gunning it down from her airplane. Sarah Palin understands that America is dangerously addicted to oil, and that the only cure is more oil. She also understands that nature is our natural enemy, created by a malevolent Satan to come between us and our God-given oil deposits with its hateful, clean water and its foul, pristine air. But Sarah Palin also also knows that we've got to leave this earth behind for our children, at least until we can find a way to drill for oil in our children. Sarah Palin is committed to exploring Baby Trig's vast and abundant petroleum reserves.
Sarah Palin may not know if global warming is man-made. She may not know if global warming is real. She may not know what global warming is. But if global warming is caused by abortions, Sarah Palin will fight it - by banning abortion, just in case the first couple times didn't take.
COMMANDERNESS.
As a hockey-playing moose-hunting Jesus-fearing hockey-mom mother of five who plays hockey, Sarah Palin lives in Alaska, which is just a couple thousand miles away from Russia and the Red Chinese, giving her valuable insight into their inscrutable foreign ways. Every day for forty-four years Sarah Palin has gotten up and thought to herself, "Hmmm, the weather is cold today - and I bet the weather is similarly cold in Russia at this latitude." Isn't it about time we had a vice-president who understands the climatological grievances of our most deadliest frenemies? Think about it! But not for very long!
Alaska is also close to the International Date Line, giving Sarah Palin the power to traverse the distance between Today and Yesterday at will and making her the Wizard of Speed and Time. She's sassy and white and ready to lead, people! And to ban abortion. Just look at that blastocyst! How can you say no!
*[original link pulled by source's site admin. - I replaced it with comparable (maybe even better) link/MG]
Sadly, I'm afraid this won't stop all the negativity out there. Take the following exchange, involving an impudent commenter over at the site of former Bush supporter and betrayed conservative John Cole (edited by me for suitable presentation on a family blog):
Pressed about what insights into recent Russian actions she gained by living in Alaska, Palin answered: "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."
Our very own Krista, in the comments, responds:
And when I look out my window I can see the moon. Doesn't make me a f***ing astronaut now, does it?
So sad, such negativity. Fortunately, I learned that Krista is Canadian, so her lack of faith is both understandable and forgivable.
