For those not poli shy, or poli weary, I posted this to BlogHer earlier in the weekend after spending a day or two mulling this all around in my head.
This Round to McCain? < ----Link
Just got in from a gorgeous day of hiking. Apparently around here a lot of people didn’t travel because the first state park we passed on our way west was closed because it was full. I’m going to spend an hour or so letting the post exercise adrenalin settle on down and check in with all my blogger friends.
Check it out if you will, my opinion at this point in time.
peace
I wouldn’t be so quick to give this round to McCain. In a contest between McCain and the far-right wing of his party, I’d give this round to the far right. Palin is compelling at first glance, but then the idea that someone from my home town of Wasilla, a dusty, grimy highway town in Alaska, is the basis of the majority of her executive experience….that just scares the shit outta me…sorry.
And just to give a perspective from Wasilla, my mother, a diehard Republican, is just not voting, as she can’t vote for her. My dad is the same way. They won’t vote for Obama, but they won’t vote for her.
I would have posted this feedback over on blogher.com but I felt a little out of my element.
This round definitely goes to McCain if you believe Zogby. I think the way the democrats handle this is going to be important. They could easily fuck it up big time. They did last time.
I do think this whole process has gone on for so long that everyone is weary. Democrats maybe more so than Republicans because it seemed that fight was intense and so prolonged.
McCain’s choice is so cynical that it’s almost too far beyond laughable. What the heck is he thinking.
Dunno is anyone from Wasilla, AK, visits this blog but the guy at http://mudflats.wordpress.com is from there (along with the spacemonkey) and has some excellent background, observations and links to primary sources of information on Sarah Palin.
I simply do not understand this choice. The only thing which makes any sense is that he’s trying to create a situation whereby the convention delegates select some other person (as happened back with Roosevelt and Wallace; the delegates selected Truman) such as Romney. Romney is unacceptable to the GOP establishment in large part because he rejects party control and in part because he’s a Mormon. But Gustov is going to throw a monkey wrench into that.
Like has been said the less attention focused on this women the better. The more pissy people become the more fence sitter are lost. She is not going ot be our president if the Repubs lose he is it is him that the democrats need to start concentrating on. The differences in policy between the two and so forth.
Occam’s Razor. Look for the simplest answer.
She appeals to the GOP base in ways McCain never quite could. She shores up his bona fides.
I’ve seen liberal bloggers twist themselves in knots trying to peel this away until they have more turns than a bad novel. They seem so eager to pin this on Rovian manipulation, as if this were a grab at the PUMAs or a way to neutralize Biden.
It’s a VP pick. And an interesting one. But VPs don’t win elections.
Coop, you had it right. Democrats have suffered for arrogance. They assume that the only way they lose the White House is through manipulation, deceit, or fraud. Instead, they are so busy playing the game of politics and trying to be “smart.”
My advice to the DNC? You’ve been dealt an excellent hand of cards. Play them. Don’t get cute, don’t get cocky, and don’t underestimate your opponents. And for God’s sake, don’t run against Bush/Cheney again. That didn’t work last time, and they aren’t on the ballot in 2008.
The part about being dealt an excellent hand of cards is sage advice
Sometimes I think Democrats want so badly to be seen as clever that they forget it’s about winning elections.
(present company excluded.)
And some get so wrapped up in winning elections, they forget why they wanted to in the first place.
(that goes for republicans too.)
Maybe this explains Obama’s reaction to this unbelievable VP pick–congratulate her and say it doesn’t change anything.
If only his followers would follow the advice an stop peeing in their pants over it.
Don’t not post political stuff here on my account. ;)
It was very long, and I think you sound almost like you are not a Democrat any longer.
I don’t mean that in a bad way you’re not a Republican.
ikster has it right
They have been dealt a good hand, they are going to sit there and play against the hand they think the other guy has while missing the cards already on the table.
You can be sure I was thinking of you when I bypassed this blog on that post.
yes he has it pretty close.
It’s not quite a Dan Quayle pick, but it’s close. The right response to this is a swift, comprehensive, and powerful rebuke of Palin, and then a refocus back on the asshole at the top of the ticket. Also important is to hit McCain with the same barbs. And you know what? there’s no reason to think that this isn’t in Obama’s wheelhouse. He and Biden have stayed away from her thus far, which is best.
But the arguments, at their core, are simple:
McCain is a hypocrite for attacking Obama’s experience and then nominating a VP with less than a term in any prominent government position.
McCain has so little respect for women that he thinks that they’ll vote against their better interests because he found some young, pretty upstart in Alaska to run with him. He thinks that (allegedly) disenfranchised Hillary voters will flock to someone who called her a whiner during the primaries.
McCain has shown through this pick that he’s more interested in catering to the right wing than uniting the country.
And so on. What makes her not a Quayle type is that she can’t be ignored or simply damned with faint praise, because of, well, history.
The sooner they refocus the better, Obama moved on immediately the rest should as well.
In the end if not made into a big drama she could end up being a choice he made in a really bad senior moment. Maybe not but the possibility is better if no one gets so angry they don’t eventually see that.
As always, thoughtful, well-written and troublesome.
I’m troublesome I know.
I couldn’t find it. Probably my advanced age :) Could you link directly to it–as I want to read it and also want to respond to G’s comment. You never have sounded like a traditional Democrat. Most thinking people don’t sound as if they’re of one party or the other.
However I did read in Blogher American Princess OMG Palin!!!!!!!!!!OMG–the death of the English language (or the taking it over by people with a fourteen year old mentality) and a very biased ode to Palin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!With many comments to match, and many good ones but…
I was thinking of writing a post for blogher but I feel played out. I was reading some of my old political posts and while they’re made for people older than 14–I do sound totally earnest and immature
i also feel that the editorial staff of Blogher are full of themselves and while it’s good to be a bit enamored with oneself it makes for very boring, I’m so wonderful, I am ,
Maybe I’m just jaded. I guess I’m trying to tell you to take it over as I respect you
This is the wrong time for me to not have cable or Internet–two hurricanes–one that might affect my future home; the other…and I do believe that McCain scored a home run—Palin, no Bush or Cheney at the convention –I want to read your post
I wrote it there because I wanted somewhere to put it immediately, other than here, so I placed it there.
The Links is the title in this post. I’ve been meaning to look in the stylesheet and find the in post link color and change it but ….that stylesheet gives me a headache.
That was a great and informative article. But I doubt the Palin choice can distract for long.
I wish this whole election thing was all over. It will be a really tense time until then. After the votes are counted it will be all over, one way or the other.
Coop!!
All my $$$ is Riding on a Racehorse called OBAMA!!***********
I read an interesting article from 5 or 6 Women from all walks of Life Speaking Up finally about the Abortions they had. They couldn’t believe how they could never Talk About It.
I guess they had been Shamed by other Righteous Holier Than Thou members of Society to KEEP QUIET!!
Arts4Choice
‘Why not just talk about it?’
CATE COCHRAN
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
July 19, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT
In the summer of 1987, when I was 30, I had started a new relationship and we got a bit careless – that old story. My biological clock had been ticking, but I just wasn’t ready for this pregnancy. One morning, my hands shaking, I dialled the Morgentaler clinic in Toronto and made an appointment for an abortion. Then I climbed into my bed and cried. It seems like I stayed there for days, trying to reconcile myself to my situation. I was lucky because my partner was supportive, but I knew the decision was between me and this potential baby.
In the end, I cancelled the appointment. A couple of weeks later, I had a miscarriage. It was all very dramatic, the middle-of-the-night rush to the hospital and the emergency dilation and curettage to remove the remains of the pregnancy. And in one of those fateful moments of irony, I discovered that I had been carrying a blighted ovum; there never had been a baby. At the time, it seemed like a crass joke, but those weeks were among the most intense of my adult life.
And I rarely talk about them.
With all of the controversy surrounding the naming of Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, I began wondering why I, like so many other women, had been silent on the personal experience of abortion. Why is it acceptable to sit around a dinner table and talk about colonoscopies, hot flashes and Viagra, but not about our abortion experiences? Why don’t I know whether any of the women in my book club have had an abortion when I’m familiar with so many other intimate details of their lives?
Stigma
Enlarge Image
Jaime. (Kathryn Palmateer)
Photogallery
* Speaking out
The Globe and Mail
It has been 20 years since the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized abortion and – with a few notable exceptions in provinces such as Prince Edward Island (where it’s not available) and New Brunswick (where recommendations from two doctors are required) – most Canadians have access to legal, timely and safe abortions. Almost 100,000 Canadian women each year make the decision to end a pregnancy, yet in all but a few cases they never discuss them, even decades later.
Given the frequency with which women decide to end a pregnancy – there were 28.3 abortions for every 100 live births in Canada in 2005 – why is there still such a powerful stigma around a legal procedure?
SECRETS AND SILEN CE
Paige Thombs, now living in Western Canada, was attending a Catholic girls school when she became pregnant at the age of 18. The decision to have an abortion wasn’t easy, and it was made more difficult by a boyfriend who put a lot of pressure on her to go through with the pregnancy.
Her condition became a complicated web of secrets and half-truths. Her school principal, a former nun, knew of the pregnancy, but no one else did – until a friend broke a confidence and word leaked out among the students.
After the abortion, Ms. Thombs told the principal that she had had a miscarriage. Not long afterward, her religion teacher invited a Christian couple into the classroom to give a talk on why abortion was a sin. Ms. Thombs knew that another girl in the class had had an abortion too. “I just remember this guy standing up there and telling us you could not in all honesty consider yourself Christian any more. At the time, that was certainly shaming.”
The secrets became silences. Her mother, a quietly pro-choice Catholic, gave Ms. Thombs her support at the time, and yet they don’t talk about it. Her younger brother knew about the abortion, but they don’t discuss it either.
Even now, 20 years later, Ms. Thombs still wrestles with a guilt that she senses was imposed upon her. “Sometimes you feel relieved, and you feel ashamed that you don’t feel shame.
“Like, ‘I should feel bad about this, I killed my baby’ – all those things the anti-choice movement tends to say.”
She says she knows that she should have used birth control, “but you know what? If it was any other kind of stupid mistake, you wouldn’t spend so much time beating yourself up over it. There is so much media stuff that tells you, whispers in your ear, ‘You better not tell anybody about this.’ People who are very pro-choice, who’ve had abortions, stay silent. People who are anti-choice are very verbal.”
I was going to say something but the comment above overwhelmed. I know who I’m voting for.
Good piece you non democrat non republican person you.
Looks like it’s falling apart for them naturally.
Think it will totally unravel without any help.