Surprise Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin says "Drill, drill, drill" on conservative pundit Larry Kudlow's cable TV show.
Sarah who?
John McCain, after a lengthy tease of multiple candidates, including word early this morning on Fox and other cable news nets that Mitt Romney was the pick, selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his pick for vice president of the United States. McCain is a gambler, literally, and this is a big roll of the dice.
This is a bold gambit, intended in large measure to take the focus off Barack Obama's spectacular speech last night. Is Sarah Palin, who would be a heartbeat away from the presidency as vice president to John McCain, qualified to serve as replacement POTUS for the oldest president in American history, tortured for five-and-a-half years as POW?
Palin has served for a year-and-a-half as governor of Alaska, a state of less than 700,000. For perspective, that is a smaller population than contained in any of the 40 state senate districts in California.
Prior to that, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, which Karl Rove early this morning on Fox News erroneously stated is the second largest city in Alaska.
Actually, it's not anywhere near that -- perhaps the Wizard of Oz should stay behind the curtain -- and is in fact a town of only about 8000 people. Palin, 44, is a favorite of the anti-abortion right-wing base, Rush Limbaugh's favorite, an alum of the University of Idaho who earned the Miss Congeniality title while competing for Miss Alaska. She is an advocate of drilling for oil everywhere, including in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
Today is the Vietnam War hero's -- that would be McCain, Palin has no national security background -- 72nd birthday. So Sarah Palin would be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Here are 13 reasons why McCain picked Palin.
** A set of unimpressive choices. All the other potential Republican veeps were problematic.
** Distract the media. The McCain campaign is all about changing the narrative, as we have seen all week. Especially when Barack Obama is on a roll. As he obviously is after Obama's sensational acceptance speech last night at Denver's football stadium.
** The Change theme. John McCain doesn't like that he's lost the change mantle to Barack Obama. In a change election, which this is, change usually trumps experience. So we shouldn't expect to see too much more from Team McCain about how inexperienced Senator Obama is.
** A woman to appeal to Hillaryites. Palin is a gambit to appeal to disaffected women voters. A working mom with five kids, and so forth.
** The right-wing Republican base. Rush Limbaugh has been touting Sarah Palin for weeks. This means that McCain, who LImbaugh and others in the Talk Radio Wing of the party tried to destroy in the primaries, doesn't have to go on to his show to do the kow-tow. Bill Kristol is a big fan of Palin, too.
** Drill, Drill, Drill. Offshore oil drilling is a pie-in-the-sky panacea. But it's superficially popular. Palin is from the Big Drill State, and advocates drilling everywhere, including in the ANWR.
** The Shake It Up factor. Tellingly, the intro and extro music at this morning's rally in Dayton, Ohio unveiling the Palin selection was Van Halen's "Right Now," with the repeated refrain of "Turn this thing around."
** Hold Alaska. With Republican corruption scandals in Alaska and Obama's Western appeal, Obama is very close in the polls there. McCain was going to have to take the time-consuming and energy-draining step of campaigning there to hold on to the state's electoral votes.
** Mitt Romney. I think Romney, despite the deep enmity between he and McCain in the primaries, had emerged as the principal choice. He has his problems, but he's smart, accomplished, a pretty good debater and attack dog. But the how-many-houses-do-the-McCains-have gaffe hurt the super-rich Romney's chances badly.
** Tim Pawlenty. The Minnesota governor looked like the safe pick. Youthful, appealing, very conservative but not a flamer, a governor of a decent-sized state. But his entire experience is in local and state politics, and he matched up badly with geopolitical expert and political knife-fighter Joe Biden.
** Joe Lieberman. The 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, a true McCain pal, may have been McCain's real pick. But aside from his neoconservative foreign policy views, he is a corporate liberal Democrat. Getting the pro-choice/anti-global warming Lieberman through next week's Republican convention might have started a nuclear war in St. Paul. Lieberman would have presented a major problem for the Obama-Biden ticket.
** Tom Ridge. Also a McCain buddy. And former governor of Pennsylvania, which McCain badly wants to win, as well as ex-homeland security secretary. But he's pro-choice, too, and that's a huge problem for the right-wing base which still mistrusts McCain.
** Meg Whitman. The former eBay CEO's name was consistently floating around. She's a big fundraiser for McCain who has an interest in running for governor of California, which is a real longshot here as she's a mostly conservative Republican who is not an action movie star. McCain uses her as a talisman on economic issues. But she's a billionaire, and the how-many-houses controversy made her very problematic, as it did Romney.
So in the end, ironically, given his status as America's most anti-Russian politician, McCain is presenting a potential vice president from the only American state with a Russian name. Alyaska was part of Russia. But America bought it from the Russian Empire for $7 million in 1867.
We'll see if America buys this new product from the farthest Northwest.
It worked out well for her family.
It'll work out well for America.
lol
A problem, Palin herself. The bloggers are doing a great job of checking her out and actually coming up with a few things. Her skeletons are rattling all the way out of the closet. She may actually make McCain wish he had stuck with Lieberman.
As to the Van Halen music, anybody read that Van Halen is quite upset because they are not McCain fans. There are plenty of disaster movie themes to choose from.
Nice job of vetting, John. Makes me think you'll be a leader like the one we have now, arrogant and reckless.
What it means is we should not take moral guidance from such sources seriously.
Everything else they've come up with has worked so well.
And if I were Cindy McCain I'd keep the home coffers full and stay in great health, or the McCain history may repeat itself.
I challenged this person to refute any of my 13 points. What he/she/it finally came up with is that McCain would never have picked Joe Lieberman. Now I can't find this misbegotten missive in the forest of comments.
We've already established that Lieberman was McCain's real first choice.
That's enough time wasted.
McCain Buddy Bill Kristol: McCain had to shake up the race, and once he was persuaded not to pick Joe Lieberman, which would have been one kind of gamble, he went all in with Sarah Palin.
ELECTIONS ARE WON WITH VOTES NOT WITH REPUBLICAN HOAX (at least most of the times)
1. All the other VP picks would have towered over itty bitty McCain in physical size and stature.
2. She is little, in that she has no D.C. connections, making McCain look big and connected.
3. She is really little in intelligence. Her credentials are a bachelor degree in journalism.
4. She is little in experience, part time mayor of small village and 18 months governor.
Small - Little - Tiny - All excellent qualifications to work for a tiny little man.
Besides, McCain's real pick was Joe Lieberman.
Absolutely. Yup, yup!
If it's LA, she's okay. :)
Here's my point. Political advisros on both sides of politiccs and lobbyists have enabled career politicians to screw the pooch. The federal government does a great job on a large number of tasks, but effective government for the middle class is made almost impossible by folks Bradley would find to be of sufficient experience to be president. Maybe what we need is a government run by normal, regular folks who actually know what is means to meet a family budget, to make a house payment and keep the kids healthy. Maybe a government not run by folks who have forgotten what it is to struggle with life would be better, but the cost of running for office is prohibitive.
It would seem the cost of a political advisor is far too high for "regular" folks.
Second, if you disagree with what I wrote, fine. But at least have the intellectual courage to state the reasons why you disagree.
I suspect you have no idea what thinking is, so your conclusion is beyond wrong.
You make some good points, but you should study the history of the founding fathers. To generalize some of their views it can be argued that they didn't trust the regular people to run the country. They had a view that anyone could be president but they would have to earn their way up the ladder so to speak.
Now I don't know if you consider this an attack, but Palin is a Oil Woman much similar to the Oil Men in the WH right now, so how is she a regular citizen. The Palins have plenty of money to live comfortably, most regular Americans in the Lower 48 states do not.
http://www.somedork.com/daily-ramblings/obamas-acceptance-speech-part-2-in-high-def-tv/
Obama's Acceptance Speech, part 2, In High Def TV
it was a brilliant play of the VP card by McCain. He has blunted the momentum of the Democratic convention. If he can keep the polls close, and get them back to even after the Republican convention, McCain's gamble with Palin will have paid off.