I think we will look back at today as the day when the Republicans most certainly lost the Presidency. In choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska for Vice President, the Republicans have made a cynical but clever choice. At least they think it is clever. She is a woman, young (44 years old), a Governor (only two years), a mother (five children), pro-life, and pro-gun. But what is she not? She is NOT pro-choice. She has NO national experience. She has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign. She is under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal. She has no international experience. Her experience governing is in a very small state, famous for its "Bridge to Nowhere" kind of political graft. Her Republican colleague in that state, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted for corruption.
When Republicans and independents go into the voting booth, will they have the confidence to vote for a McCain-Palin ticket, knowing that John McCain has had several recurrences of his skin cancer, and will be the oldest President ever? Can they imagine Sarah Palin stepping into the Oval Office and dealing with all the problems we face right now? The Russians and the terrorists must be quaking in their boots.
It's a slap in the face of other Republican women like Kay Bailey Hutchison, bless her heart, who was forced to stumble through an interview on TV trying to make the case for Palin whom she has never met. There are certainly women in the Republican party who were "in line" for this before Palin. Did the Rovian type advisors to McCain just cynically think that throwing a young attractive inexperienced woman into the mix would satisfy women who long to see a woman president? Women, and Republican women, are not so stupid as to fall for that! It is reminiscent of the Republicans putting up Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate just because he was black. Voters saw through that pretty quickly.
It's also a slap in the face of Democratic women voters. They don't get Hillary but they get Sarah as the first potential woman President? In fact, I can just hear Biden saying, "Sarah Palin, you are NO Hillary Clinton!" I would imagine that the few remaining Clinton supporters who are wondering if they should support John McCain are even more leery now. There is absolutely no overlap between the positions Hillary Clinton has fought her entire life for and Sarah Palin. The two women are not remotely substitutable. They are as different as they can be.
How will this cynicism play with American voters? It is insulting to women to suggest that just "any" woman will do!
I don't like any of the candidates so I'm not pushing one over the other but I have witnessed such hypocrisy from the right and the left. The double standard is shocking. This country is doomed. We have created an election based on the most hollow of issues. Politics is now intellectually equal to American Idol. We have turned the meaningful into superficial spectacle. It will only get worse.
Time reveals all truths, and time is revealing this article to be a lie as McCain takes the lead following Palin's choice and the RNC.
As for Governor Palin's track record she is certainly a "mover and shaker." But her time in Alaska has been plagued by immaturity, impetuousness and recurring acts of recklessness - I think putting a town of 5500 people with $0 debt and leaving it with millions of dollars in debt a few years later is not very comforting when the US is dealing with trillions of dollars in deficit. What's with trying to fire the town librarian because she wouldn't agree to banishing the books Governor Palin wanted to censor?
Obama's best chance used to be his intelligence, likability and personality. Now that Governor Palin seems to be stealing his personality thunder, he must focus on the issues. But he needs to tread carefully here. The electorate doesn't seem interested in his intellect anymore. A successful politician captures the soul and mind of the people. Somehow he needs to keep his charisma fresh.
Governor Palin is not going to cost McCain the presidency. McCain will do that all by himself with an assist from the American electorate finally waking up from their anti-intellectual stupor and voting in their self interest and not their bitterness.
That would be funny. Hillary is what she is today. But when she was elected to the Senate the only credentials she had was First Lady and having Bill Clinton as her husband.
Palin didn't get her job through her husband and she earned every stripe she has. Hillary did not.
1. Woman selected to run for the highest and acknowledged that, in part, it is because she is a woman and that it is a good thing.
2. Woman selected to run for the 2nd spot and acknowldedged that, in part, it is because she is a woman and that is a bad thing.
Women are the biggest hypocrites in this dialogue.
1. Contrasting two completely different things by only pointing out one minimal similarity and then determining that they are the same.
You are biased in your dialogue.
She has more experience at executive level governing than Obama...even with less than 2 years. Kind of scary.
She is the inexperienced #2. Obama is the inexperienced #1. Which is the biggest risk?
There is no hysterical campaign to discredit her; there is a hysterical campaign to get and disseminate facts about her - after all, this real old guy who wants to be elected the most powerful man on the planet (make no mistake about it - look at the havoc George Bush has wreaked) seeks to make her next in line of succession.
No one outside Alaska knows anything about her, so naturally there is a great deal of curiosity which the mainstream media is anxious to satisfy, thereby avoiding the nasty possibility of actually having to report on facts salient to the election.
It's a win-win situation, if you look at it in a certain way.
If you want to argue that Palin has the right experience to be VP and possibly President of the United States, you are all going to have to come up with better arguments than you have put forward. Saying she has more experience than Obama is ridiculous; saying that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia (!) is laughable. Probably the most interesting discussion that is not being held is what experience is really necessary for a President. Some of our greatest Presidents had no so-called "executive" experience. What does it really mean to be an executive? Is being President like running a business? Governing a small state? Or is it more like being a "leader" and being able to inspire and empower your constituents? Being President is about having the judgment to set the right strategy .
Er, I've been developing for almost two decades, and as a "programmer", I have to think a lot. And I've been places where those functions are typically combined into one person: me. Most *every* programmer I've ever known also does the function of analyst. Those that can't or won't do such functions, or who are not able to at least get into the mindset of project management, as well, don't last long in this field.
Anyone that hires highly-intelligent, highly-trained people such as programmers tend to be, and is either forcing them not to think much, or else assumes they are not thinking much is not doing something right...and probably setting themselves up for failure.
So, let's not generalize about "programmers not having to think much". Those that are like that usually end up as PM or other management, or QA - those that end up in mgmt are usually failed programmers. :)
While General McCain decorates Lieutenant Palin to prove he can defend his camp, General Obama is marching with tanks to liberate a country occupied by the Republican establishment for eight long years.
True. The democrats didn't even try. They picked two washington insiders.
1. Barack with less experience governing than Palin.
2. Biden who has never been successful at the national primary level.
3. McCain who is too old.
4. Palin who has little experience in foreign affairs. But, has the same experience Bill Clinton had when he took the job.
about such important issues such as Troopergate Mayorgate
Bridgegate. and a pregnant daughter. How did she think she could
hide all of these incidents.? Wheres the RED PHONE?