Am I "Off Message" on Sarah Palin?

Warning! This pundit isn't feeling the same way as most of my colleagues about Sarah Palin. She is being attacked for her lack of experience for the job and for whether she should be putting her family first instead of her career. This just isn't that unusual in my book. And the more it goes on, the more uncomfortable I feel with that message.

I am a woman who someone took a chance on several years ago and gave me a job that had only previously been done by old white guys. Experience? How do you get any if no one takes a chance on you? And the decision to take a chance can be instinctive, as John McCain said. Sure it was a gimmick. But would we feel better if it was Tim Pawlenty? What someone does on a small scale can be a good indicator of what they do on a large scale. So suggesting that she would do any worse than the host of guys who have auditioned for the job isn't that compelling an argument to me. And what about the argument that she is a negligent mother who will be distracted from her important role. I am a mother who constantly feels the pressure from others about whether I am fit to be a parent, whether I put my kids first often enough and whether my son with learning disabilities gets enough of my attention. Who has the right to to judge my family?

My grandmother always said "You can't tell time on someone else's clock". Judgments about people's personal lives are better left unsaid and unrealized.

So why then do I think that Sarah Palin would be a terrible vice president? Because I also think that John McCain would be a terrible president.

I don't care about how Sarah Palin or John McCain take care of their families. I care about how their policy choices affect my family and millions of other Americans.

-McCain and Palin get their health insurance paid for by the government (hers in Alaska and his in Washington). Yet they oppose giving the 42 million other Americans the same access to affordable healthcare.

-John McCain's kids don't have to worry about paying for college. Yet, he has opposed every single education support program to help others.

-McCain and Palin say they will stand up to oil companies. Yet the only energy policy they support gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies to do more drilling and he has opposed every piece of federal legislation to explore alternative fuel sources.

-McCain and Palin say they will revamp how Washington does business. Yet his campaign is filled with lobbyists and she has been in bed with Senator Ted Stevens funneling federal money for useless projects in Alaska for years.

-McCain and Palin have refused to answer very real questions about her potential abuse of power in Alaska when it came to her firing a State Trooper because she was on a revenge kick for her sister costing an officer his job. And McCain and Palin have no solutions for Americans worrying about their jobs in a fragile economy.

-McCain and Palin want us to leave their families alone. Yet they want make rules for our families by eliminating our right to make our own choices over abortion; eliminate our access to family planning education or domestic partner benefits; and our freedom from discrimination. They want to control what our kids learn in school about sex and about science. In short, through the policies they promote and the judges they support, they want the government to be more in control over our private lives than at any time in history.

-McCain and Palin now say their campaign is about change, too. Yet, the only real change they have proposed is a change from a suit to a skirt in the VP's office and one man fighting a misplaced war for another in the Oval Office. That seems to me to be the right reason to oppose them in November. It's not the process or the people, it's what they represent. This unconventional choice of VP by John McCain won't stand up to the hype and result in a win in November because they are the wrong choice for the country.

Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hilaryr

Comments

[FaceYourFears]

Thank you Ms. Rosen, no you're not off message you're right ON POINT!

[westofthebeltway]

Admittedly, I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I'm a single mom (three kids), a Protestant church goer, whose faith is very important to her. I've also worked outside the home my entire adult life. On policies, I disagree with Sarah Palin just about everywhere. She is so far to the right, it frightens me to imagine her in the #2 seat in our nation.
I will absolutely defend her right to work outside the home, her right to run for and to hold political office. But personally, my bleeding heart is in quite a state for poor Bristol Palin. If my daughter found herself in such a situation, intensely painful, intensely personal, utterly life-changing, I cannot imagine making her a national poster child. I would never do anything so intentionally harmful and hurtful to my child. As a parent, I make choices everyday about my life (do I go out and party? do I move from this town where my children have grown up? do I keep this job with flexible hours and a lower salary?) based on what is best for my children. A special needs infant, a pregnant high schooler -- I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I would have to put my priorities on my children here and not seek a national office. I'm just not understanding the 'sacrifice my children's emotional health for my personal ambition' that I'm seeing in Sarah Palin.

[parisblues]

Superbly ON message, I'd say. Policy IS character.

[MoeB]

Hilary, you are correct.

This is nothing more than a distraction created by the right wing to keep the american public from debating and wanting to know where she stands on the issues important to americans. If republicans make this personal, they have a shot to win. If it is only about the issues (manager Rick DAvis has already stated that this campaign is NOT about the issues), then they lose. BIG.

We need to NOT let this become about Palin's children, how she juggles her family/job, what type of lipstick she wears, what her favorite beer is, etc. THAT is where republicans thrive...o­n the non-issue issues.

Not this time.

Obama/Biden '08

[KareninSac]

Finally, someone gets it! This gimmick of McCain's of picky Palin has been the biggest smoke-and-mirrors trick ever. Get everyone discussing everything about Palin, except for the real issues facing us. McCain and Palin's views (or what little we know of her's) on how to govern are just simply wrong. Women, stop letting them lead us down that old road of bickering about if we should stay home or not to take care of our babies. Don't fall for this trap.

[XME]

i agree that it's not helpful to question whether a mother should be running for VP, and it is sexist to ASK it, even if you disagree that her focus should be on her children, and I'm a woman and think it should be when she has a baby with special needs. But, that's not the issue that should be focused on, and it will allienate many to do so! The focus needs to be on McCain's judgement that Sarah Palin is the most qualified person to take over as POTUS if something happened to him, and on her EXTREMIST views. They've attacked Obama as an extremist.­..Palin is certainly far more extreme than he is, only in the direction that those people WANT her to be!

[kellygrrrl]

what bothers me most now is that this Election is NOT about
- The Economy
- The Iraq War
- The last 8 years.

this entire circus is a joke and an insult, at least to me

[JerryJef]

Hillary, you are exactly right! Yours is a rare voice of reason in mass of hysteria.

Palin is a self-styled fiscal conservative. When she became mayor of Wasilla it had a $3 million dollar surplus. When she left office the town had a $22 million deficit. She raised sales taxes, an act that always injures the poorer folks of a community. She cut property taxes, an act always beneficial to the upper classes of a community.

She is a common, garden variety Republican--shift the tax burden to the poor and spend, spend, spend. With her there is no change from Reagan, Daddy Bush, and Dubya: take from the working people and give to the rich.

This is the message that will defeat her and John McCain in the imperiled middle class. As you so brilliantly stated the Republicans want to live their lives unrestrained and control everybody else's.

Anything else will eventually blow up on the Democrats and only entrench the wacko wingnuts who are now in a state of ecstasy.

Keep it up, Hillary, and maybe the rest of the gone-mad bloggers will see the light.

[SShaw490]

I agree with the notion that her family issues have nothing to do with anything. But her total lack of any kind of foreign policy decision-making is an issue in my book - she is a completely blank sheet of paper on that. She's NOT a blank sheet of paper regarding management style, though, which seems to be very poor (nee Troopergate). Her odd views of the interface between her religious beliefs and her policies are very unsettling - I don't think we want a Commander in Chief that thinks the Iraq war is God's will. And the notion that her pastor thinks everyone who didn't vote for George W Bush is going to Hell is equally bizarre. Those are huge issues in my book - those tell me she is simply a Millenialist, who is a person who thinks Armageddon is a good thing, because it will (they assume) bring Jesus back to Earth.

Palin's problem is that she doesn't have 20 years of background that we can draw on to analyze her. She has about 4 days of background - so there's a huge compression of assumptions into very little data. But the data we have, looks really, really bad. REALLY bad.

[BabsfromKansas]

You are not politicizing your family.

[Skeptiqone]

Earth to Hillary!

When they took a chance on you it was not to step in a President of the United States if needed!!!

Helloooooo!!!!!

[TankTexas]

VERY WELL SAID!

[garcohsf]

I agree that the main reason to oppose the election of John McCain and Sarah Palin are their policies, which would be devastatingly bad for America and the world. But I disagree that it is reasonable to compare what you and other women went through in breaking down barriers to women in the workplace to Governor Palin's nomination to be Vice-President. Regardless of how important your jobs may have been, you weren't seeking to be next in line to being the most powerful person in the world. The stakes are simply much, much higher for Governor Palin.

Think about it--the President gets elected after an exhaustive and exhausting period of campaigning, primaries, and a general election; the voting electorate chooses the candidate it wants. The Vice-President gets appointed by just one person--and yet may become President. Given McCain's age and health history, this is likely enough to be a serious concern. Is Sarah Palin qualified to be President? Absolutely not, both because of her views and because of her lack of interest in and understanding of domestic and foreign policy issues of importance to the 300 million Americans who don't live in Alaska.

[jkatz]

In a sense I think you're right, but then again is vice president something you really want to "take a chance" on. Some might say the same thing about Obama, but I think when you take into account education and experience (J.D. from Harvard, editor of Harvard Law review, state legislator, constitutional law professor, and US senator, vs a 20 month governor who was mayor of a tiny town for 6 years) there is no question on who has more experience. The negligent mother argument is lame, but then again, I think there are some conservatives who may feel that way. . .

You're right about one thing though, John McCain would make a horrible president, but Sarah Palin would make a worse one if it came down to it.

[TheHip100]

Be careful what you wish for. The reason that no president in my short 33 years on the planet has come from Congress is because all of them vote party lines and paint themselves into a political corners. The key issue in the election will be energy. McCain has had the courage to stand up for his convictions and go against his party when deciding how to place his vote. Obama has NEVER voted against ANY democratic backed bill. In 2005, President Bush, along with many key dems formulated a bill for oil and gas exploration, along with the research for alternative energy sources. The bill include BILLIONS of subsidies for oil and gas compies. Obama voted for the bill, as it was supported by the dems. McCain voted against the bill stating that he would not vote for a bill that subsidized oil and gas companies, and if that was removed, he would support the bill. Get to know the new Republican party!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!