Palin was a genius play : Dems should not gloat!
Palin -- an acronym for plain, one of the qualities heartlanders believe in, was a genius choice on the part of the McCain campaign, and it worries me to see all the blogosphere gloating about her lack of experience, and her beauty pageant past.
This is just the kind of crypto-sexism that gets the female vote enraged.
When W. chose Cheney, the Gore campaign thought they had the 2000 election in the bag. Hubris will be punished, especially in this situation.
Palin represents the "strong conservative woman" who stands by her hunter/worker husband and is the very image of competence and hard work. I don't think we should try to insult her real qualities and her potential appeal.
She gave a pitch perfect acceptance speech that her audience lapped up -- son deploying to Iraq on September 11, her children are "blessings," her husband works on an oil rig. She will go for after the average Joe voter, and cast the Dem tickets as out of touch elitists and insiders. Just watch...intelligence and eloquence will be denigrated in the name of fishing and drilling, militarism as patriotism.
This is just the kind of crypto-sexism that gets the female vote enraged.
When W. chose Cheney, the Gore campaign thought they had the 2000 election in the bag. Hubris will be punished, especially in this situation.
Palin represents the "strong conservative woman" who stands by her hunter/worker husband and is the very image of competence and hard work. I don't think we should try to insult her real qualities and her potential appeal.
She gave a pitch perfect acceptance speech that her audience lapped up -- son deploying to Iraq on September 11, her children are "blessings," her husband works on an oil rig. She will go for after the average Joe voter, and cast the Dem tickets as out of touch elitists and insiders. Just watch...intelligence and eloquence will be denigrated in the name of fishing and drilling, militarism as patriotism.
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She destroys the entire reason for his candidacy: experience. This is a disaster for McSame.
August 29, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense. McCain won some points on experience - he just WAS more experienced than Obama. But every sign from this morning - hell, during the Convention even - says that Rove et al have done their homework, and realized they can't win a Change vs Experience election. So they're gonna run as the We Can Clean It Up bunch. Mavericks X 2. Look at how she took on the bureaucrats, the oilco's & even her OWN PARTY. Look at how mavericky McCain was to choose a WOMAN - after all, Obama wouldn't. She may be an unready, junk candidate - objectively. And they may be desperate. But underestimating their moves - and worse, showing the hubris that is pouring out of people on some blogs - is a hell of a foolish course. And the overwhelming majority here who said that he couldn't possibly pick a woman? Well, how'd that analysis of how McCain/Rove function work out for ya?
August 29, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Running as "the team of mavericks" fails miserably when McCain's voting record comes into the picture. Whether it's 95% with Bush since 2007, or 90% since 2004, or whatever, the Democrats have rather successfully tied that Dubya albatross around McCain's crepey neck. Throw in Palin's hard-right ideology, and there's even less mavericky maverickness to savor.
This is going to stay on the issues - a debate in which it will effectively be two-on-one, as Palin can't seriously contribute to any of the discussion.
I can't get why THIS pick worries people. Don't get bogged down in the minutiae. Take a page from the Bill Clinton playbook, and reduce big, complex issues to absurdly simple choices.
In this case, all I think the Dems have to ask is, "Is Governor Palin ready to be President? Is Senator Biden ready to be President?"
August 29, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree on hitting the 90% button, hard, Eastside. But the talking heads are now starting to catch up and say, as Chuck Todd just did, "The McCain campaign clearly figured that the Experience argument had hit a plateau, and wasn't going to win." I'm not saying be afraid of that, I'm just saying, let's think about where they're going with this choice. She'll motivate a lot of their evangelical, Pro-Life, gun-owning base - and a few beyond. I don't think she'll get many Hillary-backers. So I'm not sweating it, just think we need to smell the change that McCain is now making.
August 29, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right about getting into the GOP thought process, quinn. Prophylaxis and all that.
But where were those voters going anyway? McCain already had the "evangelical, Pro-Life, gun-owning base" on lock.
The fight is always over independents. McCain needs more of them than Obama, with the increase in Dem voter registration. Specifically, I think the Palin pick is trying to target white female independents and PUMA-types.
But I think it's a remarkably callous and shallow pick that actually insults that very demographic - especially when you look at women like Kay Bailey Hutchison and Olympia Snowe.
August 29, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was the best he had. It's still pathetic.
August 29, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin was the choice I feared the most and hoped McCain wouldn't have the guts to make. Caliu is right about the dangers of attacking her qualities and appeal. Go for the inexperience attack. It has been one of the most effective against Obama and should work in reverse, too.
August 29, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Dem team is smart enough to keep this firmly on the issues. If we keep this on the issues they will have a hard time distancing themselves from Bush.
August 29, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think many deep-red conservatives will see Palin as you do.
Independent women, however, won't simply go for the ticket with a vagina. All the women I know are chorusing some version of "cynical token stunt."
Not to be pedantic, but in your first sentence, you mean "anagram", not "acronym."
August 29, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
She has abandoned her very needy and tender newborn. After giving birth on April 18, she decided there were more pressing matters on her calendar, so two days later she ditched her pre-mature, underweight, Down Syndrome Baby and sought refuge at the office. Now, four months later, she's left the state altogether and is embarking on a ridiculous run for national office. Baby doesn't need mommy. Mommy's gotten the call.
August 29, 2008 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike Huckabee brings double or triple everything Palin brings except a vagina. That is clearly THE reason for her being selected.
In addition, Huckabee is already highly vetted and debate tested from the GOP primaries. As for Palin, if any skeletons jump out of her closet there would be practically no time for McCain to recover.
August 29, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup. See:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/she-appears-to-be-one-a-those.php#comment-3059677
August 29, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the dems should ever underestimate a ticket choice. However, that being said, Hillary dems are, for the most part, progressives and not idiots. We will not be tempted into supporting McCain just because his VP wears a skirt. She is no more appealing to me than Margaret Thatcher would have been; and SHE had serious chops.
Palin will reinforce McCain's conservative base, but I can't see her having any cross-over appeal to thinking Hillary supporters (which, I like to think were the vast majority.)
August 29, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fergus2, you are right...anagram not acronym...I welcome pedantry and I stand corrected....but the stuff about her being a bad mom, a bimbo beauty queen, that is the creeping sexism that is going to get no one traction on this issue.
I think the Dems should hit her for lack of substance, for hard right social conservatism and inexperience, but going below the belt so to speak is not going to be a game winner.
I saw some comments where people were sure that Biden was going to wipe the floor with her in the debates. She is being described as a populist -- she can play the ordinary folks card hard if Biden starts in on policy wonkery. He is going to have to focus on building a case for Democratic commitment to economic justice and denounce the chicanery of the cultural populism of the Right. This fake populism has done ordinary Americans so wrong in the past eight years.
She shamelessly broadcast her son's Iraq deployment on 9-11. She said I-Rack instead of EEE Rock. She knows how to play to her crowd. Now I think this should be contrasted with Beau Biden's and Joe Biden's discretion about Beau's deployment and the democratic convention. The Republicans are using their children to show how patriotic they are...this can and should be said...
August 30, 2008 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink