It’s Palin!
Written by Sam on August 29th, 2008
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a self-styled “hockey mom” who has only been governor for a little over a year, is GOP Presidential candidate John McCain’s choice for Vice President, CNBC has learned.
According to a Republican strategist, Palin is the nominee, though McCain’s campaign has not comfirmed this.
CNBC
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Wow. That is a bold, impressive pick.
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So awesome!!!! I’ve been pulling for her all along, even as I was a Romney primary supporter. McCain/Palin 2008! AWESOME!
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There was talk of her, but she came out of nowhere compared to the rest.
She definitely will please many in and out of the party.
Smart and out of the box choice.
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Right on!!! This is so cool! A Lifetime NRA Member, Catholic, mother of 5, 44 years old. Masterful.
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I love it.
Nice job QuixoticNeophyte. Do you have a Super Bowl pick for me too?
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Good pick, but we are losing some ground in the “experience” category. Not much really, but some.
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McCain–What the heck are you thinking?????? I am dumb-founded that you would pick this inexperienced female whose nomination COMPLETELY cancels out the argument that Obama’s inexperience is a weakness! You will be losing more conservative female votes with this choice than you will ever pick up from the Hillary camp! I am one of them. I WILL NOT BE VOTING IN THIS ELECTION! There’s no one worth voting for! Your only hope was to pick a fiscal conservative with a whole lot of economic and business experience and you have blown it!
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This is a very bad decision. McCain has now lost the right to say that people should vote for him because Obama is too inexperienced.
And Palin is a horrible speaker, too cutesy to be taken seriously by the national security soccer moms or to be feared by America’s enemies. Biden, for all his long-windedness, is going to clobber Palin in their debate.
And what the hell is Palin doing running for the vice presidency when she’s not even halfway done with her first term as governor? This is just wrong.
On the other hand, if this makes McCain more likely to lose, thereby creating the opportunity for the GOP to rediscover its conservative soul during four years in the wilderness, then I’m all for it.
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Hopefully she will be able to get the investigation of her office over with before 11-04-2008. What do you think??? Didn’t she get a state trooper fired over some strange divorce allegation of her sister?? Are all Alaskan politicians crooks and liars?? Hopefully Ted Stevens and Don Young will campaign for her..
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Here’s something that all conservatives should think about, and fear: Palin will have to drift to the left as McCain’s vice president. She’ll have to give public support to McCain’s policies like amnesty for illegal aliens, cap-and-trade, and more campaign-finance reform. A vice president can’t just sit out all the major debates her president is sparking; the veep has to support the president, at least on major issues, and McCain is wrong on many of the major issues. So after four to eight years of John McCain as president, the once supposedly conservative Sarah Palin is going to wind up looking like a clone of John McCain. So we’ll have ANOTHER John McCain Republicrat running for the GOP nomination for president when McCain steps down. Is this what conservatives want? Is this what conservatives were hoping for when they said they’d like to see her run for president some day? Because it’s what we’re going to get.
McCain has found a way to put his stamp on the GOP for long after he’s left the presidency. This is very, VERY bad for the conservative cause.
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I don’t see how the experience argument against Obama is canceled out over Palin considering she isn’t the one running for President, but I am certain the DNC smear team will paint it that way anyhow.
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Because McCain is mortal. That’s why. He’s not likely to die in office, but he could. That’s most of the reason why we care about who becomes VP.
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Oh, Jeez, Palin just praised Ferraro and Clinton! What the…? And she’s talking about the glass ceiling…
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I don’t think there is a single Hillary Clinton supporter that would rather vote for a female conservative than a male liberal. If there is, I would lose even more respect for them.
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Shiffman - You must not know any women!
I think Palin will attract a lot of people. She is a regular person, with a regular life. Its not like being the governor of Alaska requires selling your soul to the devil like so many other states.
Check out the picture on drudge of her with her daughter. Stuff like that goes far with our electorate.
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Best part of this pick - the media hates it. Thats a great sign!
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Thank you sag; thank you Alan, thank you Shiffman. I’m glad some guys get it and aren’t afraid to say it.
I’m offended. Truly.
To overlook more qualified candidates (both male and female) to add a girl to the ticket just so you can say there’s a girl on your ticket is not progressive. It’s patronizing.
Further, this is a poor choice for McCain strategically. She’s too young, cute, evangelical, and pro-life to sway the disaffected Hillary supporters. She may actually hurt the ticket. And her electoral strength is with evangelical states that are already very red.
On top of that, there’s still some fuss over whether her office pressured a state commissioner to fire a state employee.
I can’t believe McCain’s advisers let him go with this pick.
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Alan, I love you like my brotha from anotha mutha, but you’re wrong on Palin’s pick taking away the experience argument. Here’s why:
Palin isn’t just a VP choice- she’s bait. As any good fencer, martial artist, or chess player knows, the best way to anticipate your opponents’ attacks is to entice them with an opening (an exposed flank, a dangling pawn, etc.) It’s irresistible for them- they have to attack it, and when they do- BAM! Because you know what their attack will be, you’re ready with a pre-arranged counter-move.
Obama has a serious experience problem. McCain dangles Palin. Obama is going to attack Palin’s experience. BAM! Obama CAN’T win that argument. I want, I so desperately want, a man who has been Senator slightly longer than I have, to attack John McCain’s ticket on experience. He will get his ass handed to him. Obama can’t even win that argument with his own running-mate, and he’s going to attack John McCain’s?
Let’s have the experience debate and lets have it now. McCain will win going away.
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OMG, I turned on MSNBC out of morbid curiosity… it looks like funeral. I think Andrea Mitchell looks like she just spend the last 2 hours crying. Olbermann had to stab an adrenaline needle into Chris Matthews’ heart!!!
ChemistryDave is right: if the the media-libs can’t stand her, she’s a great pick!!!
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Barbara - remember that Bush won 2004 by TURNING OUT the red votes better than the blue; considering that conservatives were lukewarm about McCain still, this is a solid pick to consolidate that base.
Second, I think you horribly underestimate this woman. Simply saying that her attractive looks - and there’s no doubt about it - is mutually exclusive from her qualifications as a state executive is ridiculous. Think about the entrenched Republicans she decimated on her way to becoming Governor - if the Democrats were smart, they’d pay attention to that and realize they have a real challenge on their hands.
I think there’s a good number of Hillary supporters that will appreciate her strong ability to govern, and not simply because she’s a woman…
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I think we can all agree that Palin is a great pick, and would be much better than McCain to have at the top of the ticket.
We can also agree that Dave nailed it - she’s bait to Obama, who has already taken it. Obama will only expose his own inexperience more in this debate, and McCain/Palin will win it anyway.
Do not be surprised to see the media try to portray Palin as they tried to portray Jeri Thompson - as a very good looking woman without much to offer intellectually, a bimbo for lack of a better word.
Once Americans get to see Gov. Palin speak in public more though, the media will be the ones with egg on their faces.
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great! job mccain.
let the race begin.
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I simply think McCain made a mistake.
If McCain loses the electoral vote due to popular losses in Nevada, Colorado, and Michigan, I’ll smirk.
Further, he passed up the chance to make the economy an issue. Neither Obama nor McCain has much credibility on the economy. And Obama went with a foreign policy VP to cover his weakness in that arena. McCain had the chance to be the only one with perceived economic credentials on his ticket, but he passed. That may come back to haunt him with Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
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Press, my brother of the half-blood, you raise a valid point, but when she and Biden go head to head at the vice presidential debate and have to talk about themselves, Palin is going to look like a student next to Professor Biden. It’ll be Cheney-Edwards in reverse. Palin has no experience in national security or foreign policy, and if McCain is saying that he should be elected because he’ll keep us safe, the Palin pick is going to look inexplicable, especially given McCain’s age and the fact that he’s fatter than a cello, which reminds people of his mortality.
“saying that her attractive looks - and there’s no doubt about it - is mutually exclusive from her qualifications as a state executive is ridiculous.”
Vice President Palin. Right. I’ll bet Ahmadinejad is soiling himself thinking about it. PLEASE.
Barbara also raises an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of–not only is Palin thoroughly unqualified for the job, she’s manifestly unqualified, and that might offend many women, just as the selection of Geraldine Ferraro should’ve offended women who wanted a QUALIFIED woman to be the first female veep, not some affirmative-action pick. Only it might be worse with Palin, because, to put the point bluntly, she’s hot. A lot of women will look at Palin and see a gorgeous woman who’s not at all qualified for the job, and they’ll be insulted. And it’ll be even worse with respect to those women who aren’t perfectly secure about their own looks (and I take it that’s a large number of people); they might well be exceptionally offended seeing an unqualified but gorgeous woman getting the job; they might have been the victims of that kind of discrimination in their own lives, and reminding them of it is not a good way to get them on your side.
Yes, she’s been successful so far in politics, but she’s never run for national office, with national issues front and center. She’s been a big fish in a little pond. People may have underestimated her in the past, but that doesn’t mean that, for the rest of her life, any time someone says “She’s not qualified to go THAT far in public life” then the person must be wrong. Just because it would’ve been wrong to say that Palin wasn’t prepared to be governor of a small (population-wise) state doesn’t mean it’s wrong to say that she’s not prepared to be a heartbeat away from the biggest job in the world.
Though I say that Palin is manifestly unqualified, apparently this isn’t manifest enough for Republicans to see. But Republicans love her for reasons having nothing to do with foreign policy or national security anyway–and the moderates won’t see her in such a favorable light, because her conservatism can’t be the selling point with moderates that it is with conservatives.
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One thing I forgot to say, Press: Obama might be quite content not to talk about experience. The Palin pick makes it very difficult for McCain to talk about experience anymore. You know that, throughout this campaign, McQueeg kept emphasizing his experience–”I am prepared,” “need no on-the-job training,” etc. Can’t do that anymore if he’s picking a running mate whose sole virtue in respect of foreign policy and national security is the presumed improbability of McCain dying in office.
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Alan says: “It’ll be Cheney-Edwards in reverse.”
Yea, that debate really put the election away for Bush.
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You know it helped, Dave. Especially after Bush’s dismal performance in the first debate, a performance so bad it wiped out the bounce he got from the convention.
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No, I dont know that actually. I am willing to bet that viewership was low, and that the polls didnt move more than one point over the next three days. Additionally, during that debate, cheney’s shirt or tie kept covering his mic, and you couldnt understand a damn thing he said.
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Well, everyone will hear Biden and Palin loud and clear. Palin will have very little to say, and it’ll hurt the ticket.
By the way, when I said it’ll be Cheney-Edwards in reverse, I meant in terms of substance, not in terms of poll effects. But I should’ve specified that.
Willing to bet, but not willing to check out whether you’re right? Well, I’m not willing to do any research either, so let’s call it a draw. But I did understand everything Cheney said. (Which is rare for me. If it weren’t for album sleeves, I wouldn’t know half the words to my favorite songs.)
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Alan,
Obama should follow your advice and be content not to talk experience, but he’s not as smart as you are.
It didn’t take more than 20 minutes for his dumbass campaign to attack Palin’s experience. And his lackeys have been piling on all day. I just heard Barbara Boxer join the fray (honestly, I have a geranium on my porch smarter than Boxer).
Also, ask yourself how many undecided women are going to appreciate the attacking (whether you think it’s legit or not) of the second woman to ever run on a national ticket. Ohhhhhh… you’re gonna see some angry women in this country.
As for the VP debate… I’m not too worried. Biden’s a blowhard; Palin is common sense fiscal conservative that most Americans can relate too.
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Admittedly, Obama has been making stunningly many mistakes. I think he’ll learn sooner rather than later. Whether or not that’s true, I think that by picking Palin, McCain has made the experience issue a landmine for both sides. He’s picked a veep who has very little capacity to give him advice, in light of her limited experience (and, in some crucial areas, nonexistent experience); with Obama, we’ve got a veep who has advice to give. Additionally, you have to wonder why McCain, for all his experience, keeps saying ridiculously false things about current events and the war on terrorism (documented by others and often referred to by yours truly), and I’m sure that people are going to start asking what all McCain’s experience is worth if he has so little knowledge. Finally, it looks hypocritical and/or stupid to make experience the center of your campaign (as McCain clearly has) and then pick Sarah Palin as your running mate.
I don’t know how women think. Actually, I don’t know how people, male or female, generally think. My thoughts are probably unique. If I were a member of a group that considers itself left out, I can’t imagine I’d want someone with such a slim resume to represent me. For example, I’m Jewish (perhaps this is a bad example because Jews aren’t left out of politics, but whatever), and if Sarah Palin were a Jew, I’d be furious that potentially the first Jewish vice president would be somebody so undistinguished. (I’d also be furious if the first Jewish veep were that abortion enthusiast Joe Lieberman, but that’s an issue of ideology rather than qualification.) But despite the uniqueness of my own views, maybe women would find the criticism of Palin justified because Palin is such a bad person for women to look up to, given that she’s not much of a merit pick. And if any women are jealous of Palin’s looks (e.g., if she reminds them of the young women their ex-husbands ran off with), attacks on her will be appreciated, just as I’m sure lots of men loved it when Hillary Clinton (who reminded many men of their ex-wives) took poundings.
Boxer is indeed a moron. But having women attack Palin’s qualifications is a very smart tactic. It sounds a lot better than having men say the same thing. You know how irrational people are–the same message will be more or less palatable depending on whose mouth the words come from.
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Alan’s right on all counts.
He says he doesn’t know how women think but he’s the first guy I’ve seen on any board today who sounds like he actually gets it.
Hillary supporters do not want a cute woman. They do not want a former beauty pageant contestant. They do not want a woman against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. They do not want a woman who supports the teaching of creationism in the schools. They don’t want a woman selected by virtue of the fact that she has two X chromosomes; and they certainly don’t want a woman leapfrogging her more qualified peers on account of (?). That’s no victory for feminism. That’s actually taking a couple of big steps backward.
On the other hand, what ALL women want is national security, economic security, better education and better health care. There are more effective ways to appeal to women than by simply putting a chick on the ticket.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
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Barbara,
You said in an earlier post that placing Palin on the ticket would not significantly change the race. Based on today’s developments, you’re quite clearly wrong.
Perhaps, then, you should reconsider your opinions. And for the record, Palin deserves far more credit for her accomplishments than your sexist “chick” comment.
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I am thrilled with John McCain’s choic of a running mate. As an evangelical, I wanted someone who was pro-life. The fact that Sarah Palin is a pro-life Maverick like McCain is perfect! The Obama campaign’s hope that evangelical would stay at home has been evaporated in one fell swoop!
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Obama has lost this election by constant blunders and the McCain camp has exploited them again and again. McCain has wiped Obama’s speech Thursday off the discussion plate and now we all focusing on this vice president choice.
I must wonder where Hillary Clinton is now. I am not going to use the terms she is using because this is a civil forum.
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Obama has lost this election by constant blunders and the McCain camp has exploited them again and again. McCain has wiped Obama’s speech Thursday off the discussion plate and now we all focusing on this vice president choice.
I must wonder where Hillary Clinton is now. I am not going to use the terms she is using because this is a civil forum.
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“You said in an earlier post that placing Palin on the ticket would not significantly change the race. Based on today’s developments, you’re quite clearly wrong.”
It may well have fired up much of the conservative base (the overwhelming majority of which would’ve voted for McCain anyway but might not have donated money absent a decently conservative VP pick), but its effect on the general population, particularly moderates, is yet to be seen, and may well be countervailing. Time will tell. No one’s clearly wrong yet about anything, except that it’s clearly wrong to call Palin qualified for the vice presidency.
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So Barbara, why did women flock to Hillary for her senate race in new york? She had never held elective office before, yet handily won a senate seat in one of our countrys largest states. Were the women there analyzing her qualifications? Her experience as a leader? No. Nancy pelosi’s first elected positon was a House seat in a major city. Were the women there concerned about her experience? You are completely wrong about how women vote. Completely.
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“You said in an earlier post that placing Palin on the ticket would not significantly change the race. Based on today’s developments, you’re quite clearly wrong.”
I never said that. I never said anything of the sort. I said she wouldn’t help him strategically and I said she wouldn’t draw in Hillary supporters. In the thread you refer to I was originally simply theorizing that Jack omitted Palin from his list because at that point she was no longer considered a dark horse. If you’ll recall you seemed quite concerned at the omission, and I didn’t think too much should be inferred from the lack of inclusion of Sarah:
http://www.savethegop.com/2008/08/25/five-game-changing-mccain-vp-picks/#comments
I’ll still happily stand by all those comments, and I’ll be happy to expand on them.
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ChemDave:
Are you serious? I’m completely wrong about how women vote?
**checks own gender**
I think I have an inkling.
I know what makes Hillary different from Palin. I know why Hillary resonates with some women and Palin resonates with others. My suspicion is that the disaffected Hillary supporters are not going to flock to the GOP ticket simply because there’s a woman on it. There’s more to it than that.
I do think McCain will see an immediate bounce in numbers from this pick and the subsequent publicity, certainly among the female set. But as women become more familiar with some of Palin’s political ideology, I think those numbers will decline again.
I feel that strategically, in terms of the electoral college, Romney would have been a wiser choice. And in general I’m no Romney apologist. Trust me on that one.
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Dave,
Hillary and Pelosi are both extremely liberal in their views. One won in New York, and one in California, two of the most liberal states. Liberal women are likely more excited about having a liberal in office who supports their views than a conservative who does not but happens to share their gender.
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Thank you, Shiffman.
The assumption being made here is the same one McCain must have made, that women will be drawn to the ticket by virtue of the fact that there’s a female on the ticket. But women are much more complex than that (any of you with wives or gfs are already too aware of that).
Early data from Rasmussen shows as many women are *less* likely as are more likely to vote for McCain with the Palin addition.
From Rasmussen:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3020/2810618377_1d08f2d3f6_o.png
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The argument was that women would choose experience and testedness over gender. Both examples show that is incorrect. There are many more. Being a woman doesnt mean that you know how all women will vote. That is a ridiculous statement. I dont know how/why all men vote the way they do. Palin will change the distribution of women voting for McCain. We will wait for the polls to confirm that I am correct.
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I never said I know how all women will vote.
Why can’t you guys just let my statements stand as they are instead of twisting them before making a counterpoint?
And, ChemDave, I just posted a poll. As I suspected, women are unimpressed.
And I love the presumption in your last line, btw.
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Dave,
The argument was never about experience and tested-ness. All I said was that liberal women are more likely to support a liberal man than a conservative woman. It’s about shared values, not experience and testedness, and certainly not about gender.
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Also, Barbara, I don’t see the poll you mentioned.
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I think the spam filter sometimes swallows up posts that include links. It happened to me once when I was trying to post a link to an article revealing how McCain has been dishonest about his position on abortion. Maybe it happened here too.
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I had a post that looks like this:
-
Thank you, Shiffman.
The assumption being made here is the same one McCain must have made, that women will be drawn to the ticket by virtue of the fact that there’s a female on the ticket. But women are much more complex than that (any of you with wives or gfs are already too aware of that).
Early data from Rasmussen shows as many women are *less* likely as are more likely to vote for McCain with the Palin addition.
-
And at the end there’s a link to a poll appended.
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“Are you serious? I’m completely wrong about how women vote?
**checks own gender**
I think I have an inkling.”
then
“I never said I know how all women will vote.”
My time would be better spent pounding my head against a wall. Again, we will wait for the data to confirm that I am correct. I am done with this thread.
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You are absolutely maddening.
Negating the statement that I’m “completely wrong about how women vote” is not the same thing as asserting that “I know how ALL women vote.”
That’s logic 101, sweetheart. I may be a girl, but I’m not an idiot.
And you guys can have your little good ol’ boys club. Let’s everybody pass around the paper hats and drop waterbombs on Suzy. More power to ya.
Oh, and like I said, I posted the data already. If it’s not showing up you can look up the crosstabs yourself at Rasmussen. Hope you won’t be too disappointed at what you find.
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Wow. Children, stop bickering.