News Will Palin's VP Debate Performance Impact McCain's Campaign?

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The discussion centers around John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate in the 2008 election. Participants express mixed reactions to her nomination, noting her limited experience as the governor of Alaska and questioning whether her gender will attract disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters. There is speculation about Palin's appeal to female voters and potential strategies to counter Barack Obama’s campaign. Concerns are raised about her qualifications and the implications of having a less experienced candidate on the ticket, especially given McCain's age and health issues. The conversation also touches on the broader themes of gender in politics, the effectiveness of her candidacy in swaying voters, and the potential for her to energize conservative bases. Overall, the selection is viewed as a strategic move, but opinions vary on its effectiveness and implications for the election.
  • #481
McCain and Palin - a strange couple indeed. His state receives a pittance in earmarks (per capita) and hers is on top of the hog-pile. For someone who likes to call himself a maverick and a reformer, he sure knows how to pick 'em. He has had his own run-in with ethics problems (Keating and telecommunications lobbyists), yet he picks a running mate with an ongoing ethics investigation that she is trying to quash. Obama got a pretty decent poll bounce out of the DNC. Aside from Evangelicals, McCain's will likely be a "dead cat" bounce. Even GOP talking-heads are dissing her when they think the cameras are off.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/27884104.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUjc8LDyiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
 
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  • #482
LowlyPion said:
Unfortunately your comparison is deeply flawed. The question is not whether the campaigns will use pictures of the children to sell their candidates, because they all will.
That is exactly what is at question. Did you even read the article?

The real question is the hypocrisy of forbidding discussion of this pregnancy issue as if it were somehow out of bounds, at the very moment that they would talk up their family values and wave the pregnant unwed mother under everyone's nose. As it stands the "boy" is not a child. He is 18 and as an adult talking to him is surely fair dinkum.

If you don't want a fact used at trial, don't bring it up.
You appear to have a different view of what is 'fair dinkum' than Obama.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=UA3m-g_SBY4
 
  • #483
It is asserted that Palin has executive experience, and Obama allegedly has none. Therefore, Palin is more qualified than Obama.

If this is a legitimate issue, then why are the Republicans running a person who has no executive experience at the top of the ticket - McCain?
 
  • #484
Ivan Seeking said:
It is asserted that Palin has executive experience, and Obama allegedly has none. Therefore, Palin is more qualified than Obama.

If this is a legitimate issue, then why are the Republicans running a person who has no executive experience at the top of the ticket - McCain?
Because McCain has experience - as a Washington insider. Oh - but wait - McCain and Palin are campaiging against Washington insiders. So then why are the handlers of McCain and Palin Washington insiders?

And if Palin is against pork from Washington, why did she accept million of dollars from Washington? Why are the lower 48 subsidizing Alaska, when Alaska is awash in tax revenue from oil?
 
  • #485
Astronuc said:
And if Palin is against pork from Washington, why did she accept million of dollars from Washington? Why are the lower 48 subsidizing Alaska, when Alaska is awash in tax revenue from oil?
It's interesting just how much of our tax money that Alaska "needs". The taxes from oil production produce huge surpluses for the state. Alaska has no sales tax nor income tax, and can afford to hand out yearly payments amounting to a couple of thousand dollars per resident (the last time I checked) yet they are the highest per-capita recipient of our Federal tax dollars. If McCain wanted a tax-cutting reformer on his ticket, he should have looked elsewhere. Palin chaired a 527 for Ted Stevens for a couple of years, raising cash for him that would not be subject to FEC regulations. What a "reformer"!
 
  • #486
Ivan Seeking said:
It is asserted that Palin has executive experience, and Obama allegedly has none. Therefore, Palin is more qualified than Obama.

If this is a legitimate issue, then why are the Republicans running a person who has no executive experience at the top of the ticket - McCain?

Technically, he would have obtained some executive experience as commander of a Navy squadron.

On the other hand, poor physicals as a result of his abuse as a POW was going to prevent him from ever obtaining a major sea command, which is why he chose to retire and go into politics instead of trying to become the third straight generation of his family to obtain the rank of Admiral.

In other words, he had limited executive experience before he ever left the Navy.

In any event, the executive experience card is overplayed in this election. McCain and Palin have more than Obama and Biden, but none are exceptionally strong in that area (Palin's would probably have more credibility if Republicans quit trying to count being Mayor of Wasilla - it just gives the impression that they consider being Governor of Alaska to be a pretty weak achievement).
 
  • #487
BobG said:
Technically, he would have obtained some executive experience as commander of a Navy squadron.

I would call that command experience, not executive experience. We elect civilians, not soldiers.

it just gives the impression that they consider being Governor of Alaska to be a pretty weak achievement).

Governer of a state of 660,000... That is considered a small city where I come from.
 
  • #488
BobG said:
Palin's would probably have more credibility if Republicans quit trying to count being Mayor of Wasilla - it just gives the impression that they consider being Governor of Alaska to be a pretty weak achievement.
The mayor of Wasilla has to preside over council meetings, but cannot vote IIR, and acts as the ceremonial head of town government. Previous mayors had been able to perform the mayor's duties by themselves, but Palin had to hire a town manager to take over many of her "duties". So much for being a skilled executive. I also read that she left Wasilla with over $19M in long-term debt, despite the pork that got shoveled her way.
politico.com said:
Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla — that amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12987.html
 
  • #489
chemisttree said:
You appear to have a different view of what is 'fair dinkum' than Obama.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=UA3m-g_SBY4

Likely I do. And that is the beauty of the American system. The Press is certainly not bound by Obama's wishes, just as they are not bound by Palin's. If the Republicans want to make Bristol a poster child for unwed motherhood and splash Palin about as an icon of family virtuous values, then I'd say the public has as much right to the back-story, as the campaign would use it in hagiographic terms to seek the public's vote.

The public is entitled to its own vetting of what she stands for and exactly how honest she is.

The fact that Levi is 18 means that he is legally of age and makes him fair game as far as I am concerned - Obama's wishes notwithstanding.

As to what I think is the rather sanctimonious monologue spewed by the Pfotenhofer woman in the clip you linked to, I'd say her situational hypocrisy is on ample display in the Jon Stewart piece seen earlier here.

tQzmdf74qvU[/youtube]
 
  • #491
For information only for any that didn't see the cover of the National Enquirer:

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm157/THESPREADIT/nationalenquirersarahpalinstorycove.jpg

This is what the references have been to.
 
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  • #492
Ivan Seeking said:
I would call that command experience, not executive experience. We elect civilians, not soldiers.



Governer of a state of 660,000... That is considered a small city where I come from.

Not to be nitpicky, but a city of 660,000 is huge! Only Texas (6) and California (4) have more than one city that big. In fact, there's only 19 cities in the whole US that big.

Together, the 19 cities of 660,000 or bigger comprise 10% of the US population. Hence the reasoning that comments like Giuliani's might work well for 90% of the population.

Okay, that's probably an exaggeration since the cities over 500,000 are pretty big, too. That's another 15 cities. Taking pot shots at the big city folks still goes over well with around 85% of the US population.

When it comes to perception, most people would consider being Governor of Alaska the equivalent of being Governor of Texas or Governor of Arkansas if Republicans didn't feel nervous enough to toss being mayor of a city of 9,000 in there (and I think a lot of Republicans running the campaign are definitely nervous about her - most of them are big city folks, themselves).
 
  • #493
BobG said:
Not to be nitpicky, but a city of 660,000 is huge! Only Texas (6) and California (4) have more than one city that big.

I grew up in California [Los Angeles area]. In either case, we are talking about a State that has the population of a city.

The irony for me that adminstrative experience is the least of my concerns. Obama will have peons for those duties. The job of the President is to stay focused on the big problems; not to be a bean counter. In fact, that is one trait that really worried me about Hillary: Her range of [philosophical] vision was too limited.
 
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  • #495
  • #496
BobG said:
Not to be nitpicky, but a city of 660,000 is huge! Only Texas (6) and California (4) have more than one city that big.

Not really. Those numbers are artifacts of the dated delineation of city limits, and the fact that lots of the population growth over the past decades has been in the suburbs and exurbs, which often lie outside the city limits. If you instead account by metropolitan statistical areas, which depend only on population density and economic interaction, you'll find that there are more than 80 metropolitan areas in the US with populations that exceed 600,000. Those 80+ MSA's easily account for an overwhelming majority of the US population. I.e., Alaska is a state with a population comparable to the Wichita metro area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
 
  • #497
BobG said:
When it comes to perception, most people would consider being Governor of Alaska the equivalent of being Governor of Texas or Governor of Arkansas

Arkansas, sure: like Alaska, it's an insignificant backwater that is heavily dependent on Federal largesse. But Texas? Not even close. Texas is one of the largest, fastest-growing, most influential states in the Union.
 
  • #498
  • #499
Though the bumps are both pretty small, it isn't too surprising that Obama's was bigger - he's the more energetic public speaker and Democrats respond more to that type of thing anyway.

We'll see how it settles-out over the next week or two.

[edit] In any case, I like USA Today's "Poll Tracker" because it puts them all on one graph. Interestingly, it doesn't show a convention bump for either of them (though they are a couple of days behind): http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/poll-tracker.htm
 
  • #500
LightbulbSun said:
Election polls are bogus, I hope you realize this.
Bogus? As opposed to non bogus polls? Explain why you think these polls are any different than any other opinion polls.
 
  • #501
Evo said:
Bogus? As opposed to non bogus polls? Explain why you think these polls are any different than any other opinion polls.

To the extent that there are 60 days to election I think we all expect that today's poll doesn't express the will of the electorate when votes are cast. That's the only poll that does count.

Not measured are the intangibles like whether sexism or racism will play a silent part in this year's go round. Or whether the people polled will actually vote.

I think it was Gallup that selected Dewey over Truman so ... go figure.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:aMXPENG8syEJ:www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/e1948election.htm+gallup+dewey+truman&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

But you may be sure that if McCain were leading, it would be proof for the right wing that it represented a clear mandate of acceptance of McCain/Palin.
 
  • #502
I checked electoral-vote.com today and it had Obama winning by a larger lead than in the past four or five days I've looked at it:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

I then checked "this day in 2004" and saw Bush in the lead by a smaller margin than Obama's current lead:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Sep05.html

So this gives me hope, as I lean towards Obama (I'm not even voting for him, though, and in front of my home, on the grass, you will see a yard sign for nader).
 
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  • #503
LowlyPion said:
For information only for any that didn't see the cover of the National Enquirer:

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm157/THESPREADIT/nationalenquirersarahpalinstorycove.jpg

This is what the references have been to.
Now that fair dinkum is defined up thread to mean anything at all, relevant or not, I choose to include
NASA MOON WALKER ALIEN COVER UP
Former NASA astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 moon-walking vet alleges extraterrestrial contact has been covered up for sixty years!
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/nasa_moon_walker_edgar_mitchell_alien_cover_up/celebrity/65204
Hey they were right about Edwards.
 
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  • #504
OrbitalPower said:
I checked electoral-vote.com today and it had Obama winning by a larger lead than in the past four or five days I've looked at it:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

I then checked "this day in 2004" and saw Bush in the lead by a smaller margin than Obama's current lead:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Sep05.html

So this gives me hope, as I lean towards Obama (I'm not even voting for him, though, and in front of my home, on the grass, you will see a yard sign for nader).

Just curious, op (not original poster!)...why won't you vote for Obama, especially since he's earned your, um, lean :wink: ?
 
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  • #505
OrbitalPower said:
So this gives me hope, as I lean towards Obama (I'm not even voting for him, though, and in front of my home, on the grass, you will see a yard sign for nader).

I could never vote for Nader. I consider him a bit too selfish and eager for limelight, lacking in pragmatism, without any hope of ever doing anything, but being an election year gad fly. I recognize his rights of course to run as he wishes, just as he must as well recognize he will have to live without my vote.

For me it will always boil down to his tipping Florida to Bush by siphoning Gore votes. If he truly believed in his stated agendas, he did more damage to those agendas than any good his candidacy has ever accomplished. I've no question in my mind the world has NOT been a better place since that inauspicious start to the Bush term in office.
 
  • #506
lisab said:
Just curious, op (not original poster!)...why won't you vote for Obama, especially since he's earned your, um, lean :wink: ?

If it was solely out of those two I would probably vote for Obama. However, he hasn't spoken up, or has even voted the other way, on a lot of the key issues I care about. He has played to the religious right a bit and I'm not sure if he's as big of reformer as he claims to be. Biden as well voted for some of the same Bush attacks on civil liberties and democracy.

There are a few other candidates in the race, although they only poll at 3 and 4%. Still, I believe the American people should have more voices and choices when it comes to candidates and parties, especially since the two party duopoly is looking more and more like a one party figure with two talking heads.

And besides, I'm in a "safe state" anyway. :wink:
 
  • #507
LowlyPion said:
I could never vote for Nader. I consider him a bit too selfish and eager for limelight, lacking in pragmatism, without any hope of ever doing anything, but being an election year gad fly. I recognize his rights of course to run as he wishes, just as he must as well recognize he will have to live without my vote.

For me it will always boil down to his tipping Florida to Bush by siphoning Gore votes. If he truly believed in his stated agendas, he did more damage to those agendas than any good his candidacy has ever accomplished. I've no question in my mind the world has NOT been a better place since that inauspicious start to the Bush term in office.

I believe this has been analyzed dozens of times and I think a majority of Nader's voters would have stayed him on election day and another large faction were conservatives, as "Republicans for Nader" was bigger in Florida than other places.

And some people think that Gore did win in Florida, anyway, despite Nader's precense (as well as the few thousand votes the other left-wing third parties got, it wasn't just the Greens down there).

I think third parties can be good because they help raise issues many of the official candidates aren't talking about. This is true with regards to women's rights, the farmer's progressive populist movement, and so on. Taking on the entrenched corporate interests is the social movement of our times in my opinion and Barack I don't think is as good as he could be.
 
  • #508
The people who think Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 might get their justice, though, because Bob Barr and the Libertarians could tip a few states to Obama if the race is close enough.
 
  • #509
OrbitalPower said:
I think third parties can be good because they help raise issues many of the official candidates aren't talking about. This is true with regards to women's rights, the farmer's progressive populist movement, and so on. Taking on the entrenched corporate interests is the social movement of our times in my opinion and Barack I don't think is as good as he could be.

I don't disagree with what you say, it's just that I lost respect for Nader the man, given that even a little effort on his part could have actually changed the world. Should Gore have worked to get more votes there? Probably. Was the loss his responsibility? Probably. It all is what it is. Nothing to do about it now ... except I do get to vote against Nader at every election.
 
  • #510
OrbitalPower said:
The people who think Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 might get their justice, though, because Bob Barr and the Libertarians could tip a few states to Obama if the race is close enough.

I think this would be small consolation. Bush as the talking head for Cheney Rove is far the worse outcome than if McCain had been President those first 4 years. Though admittedly I think keeping McCain from office with this Palin woman next in line, would be best, since such a possibility apparently presents some outcomes more dangerous than having had Bust the last 8 years.
 

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