Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Sarah Palin for VP!

Before someone else brings it up to fingerpoint I'll do it, because it's only fair.

Seems like the Obama campaign is going to step into the muck as well.

Let me be very clear, I don't like stuff like this from any side. I'm not surprised, but I don't welcome it. I'll echo the person that said that there's a very thin line between judgement questions and character assassination (smear) or something like that. Thin enough, so I sleep better as long as each camp keeps away from it with an occassional slip up now and then.

One thing is to attack taxes and health care plans, another is to consistently paint someone as morally suspect based on admited mistakes and circumstancial evidence. That goes for both candidates, because it's not my style to pretend there's moral superiority in either. This is politics.

I was naive enougn to wish this election could be completed without descending into a character assassination war. Who knows...maybe it will, but I'm not holding my breath.

alcyone

I've been thinking about this a bit, Carol, and I think you mean that Sarah Palin has been slammed and spoofed mercilessly, far, far more so than either Obama, McCain or Biden. And I think you definitely have a point. I think it can be illustrated with this link to a Newsweek commentary, which features no less than five Palin closeups in a row, where she is seen making faces. There is something painful and degrading about it, in my opinion. I think it has something to do with the fact that Palin is a woman, and that women running for the very highest offices are so extremely uncommon. When a man is running for President or VP, there have probably been hundreds much like him before. We all recognize his general appearance, the neat suit, the impeccable shirt, the tie, and the well-groomed hairstyle. When a male candidate is shown in the same way as Palin is in that Newsweek commentary, most people see Candidate X pulling faces. Candidate X does not symbolize male candidates in general. There are so many other male candidates who look and sound much like him, but who don't make faces.

But because female candidates in this position are so extremely unusual, Sarah Palin becomes more than Candidate Palin. She becomes that woman candidate, with that hairstyle, those glasses, those dresses, that lipstick. And when she comes through as confused, her floundering can easily be seen as symbolic and typical of her gender. She is already different from the men because she is a woman, so maybe she is bungling it because she is a woman?

I have not seen any of the interviews with Palin, although I did see parts of her debate with Biden. But I have read transcripts of her interview with Kate Couric, and I agree that Palin made a really bad impression there. My impression is that Sarah Palin is not ready to become VP, let alone the President of the United States. And in view of the fact that McCain is a 72-year-old cancer survivor, the chances of Palin beoming President if McCain is elected are not that slim.

My impression of Palin is, as I said, that she is unqualified for the job of being VP or President. But then we must remember that those jobs must be among the most demanding jobs on this Earth. To be qualified to hold such a position, I think you must at least have made up your mind that that is what you want to do, and then you must set out, methodically, to get yourself the qualifications you are going to need. You must dedicate yourself to getting yourself as much knowledge and experience as possible, and you must do so with the goal of running for President in mind. But Sarah Palin, as far as I can understand, has never done that. She has been Governor of Alaska, which is demanding enough, but it is not comparable to being VP or President of the United States of America.

So why did John McCain pick her as his running mate? I'm afraid I believe that his reasons had comparatively little to do with his respect for Palin's Presidential qualifications. I suspect that he saw her as someone who could revive his own flagging candidacy. Remember that just before McCain named his VP, he was lagging behind in the polls. Right after Palin was introduced to America, and everybody could see her charm and charisma, McCain forged ahead in the polls, leaving Obama well behind him.

But that could mean that McCain picked Palin because of her charm, not because of her qualifications. I find that depressingly sexist. I find it hard to believe that a male VP candidate would be picked because he was charming, if there were reasons to believe he was fundamentally unqualified. Just imagine that Hillary Clinton had been chosen to run for President instead of Obama, and imagine that she had picked a little-known, fresh-faced young man as her VP. And imagine that this young man had a charming smile, but floundered when you asked him questions. Wouldn't Clinton's tactics have backfired? Wouldn't people have thought that her VP candidate was some sort of vapid 'boy toy', and that her choice actually showed her contempt for young men in particular and voters in general? I'm not saying that this unfortunate young man wouldn't have been the target of spoofs. Of course he would. But I think, above all, that Clinton's candidacy would have sunk like a stone if she had chosen such a running mate.

Good choice for Clinton\'s running mate?

But now imagine that this young male VP candidate had been black. And imagine that he knew had to deliver a number of catch phrases with great panache, but he didn't know how to answer questions. Wouldn't he have become a favorite laughingstock and target of spoofs? And wouldn't the color of his skin have added to the pleasure people took in laughing at him, no matter how much everybody tried to prove that their mockery had nothing to do with racism? And wouldn't this young man's ineptness reflect badly on the entire black community?

Good VP candidate?

So I think that Sarah Palin has been treated unfairly. And the rather respectless treatment of her reflects badly on women in general. Yes, Palin herself should have realized when she accepted her VP candidacy that she was really, really jumping into the pool without checking the water level first, but I still think she has been treated unfairly, and respectlessly. And when she suffers spoofs and ridicule, it somehow spills over on other women too, reinforcing the idea that women can't do the most demanding jobs.

I recommend this editorial from New York Times by Judith Warner.

Ann

Keep in mind Sarah Palin was brought to McCain's attention by Newt Gingrich, a good friend of hers, so it's not like McCain picked her out of thin air. If the press had been paying attention, she'd been on the short list for quite a while.

She was picked for four reasons. One was to shake up the campaign because he was behind by doing something unexpected. If you want to say she was picked because she's a woman, you certainly could but it's not the only reason for it.

The second reason is that she's a solid conservative. McCain's first choice was Joe Lieberman. But he was told by many that picking Lieberman would have fractured the party and would have sunk any chance he would have had to unify the party. As a solid conservative and a dynamic one, Palin certainly did that.

The third reason was that they're political soul mates. McCain has always called himself a maverick, so that's nothing new. She is a true reformer and one who's willing to tackle the hard jobs, even going against his own party. In that way, she's just like him. There's a lot to be said for compatibility.

The fourth reason is that Palin is an expert on energy policy, being steeped in it as governor of our largest energy-producing state. She was also chairwoman of the state's Oil and Gas Commission. She knows about oil backwards and forwards. With high gas prices as THE top issue in the campaign until this financial crisis came to the foreground in only the last couple of weeks, she was the logical pick to reinforce his ticket, giving it instant credibility on energy policy.

Now let's look at the other possible candidates and see if he chose the right person.

Number one was Mitt Romney. Romney excited nobody. He would have been the safe, unexciting pick, except that he has a lot of baggage. Lots of conservatives remember his Senate run against Ted Kennedy. Romney had a real chance to beat Kennedy while campaigning as a conservative. Then he blew it by morphing in the last debate into Ted Kennedy, Jr. and espousing basically whatever Kennedy was saying. Many conservatives never forgave him for that, including me. I will never vote for Mitt Romney. I dislike him that much.

Number two was Mike Huckabee. He's earned the ire of a number of southern conservatives and is highly distrusted by some. So he's out.

Number three was Tim Pawlenty. He's got reformers credentials as well but is not nearly the maverick Sarah Palin is. He's also only been in office for five years, less than George W. Bush had when he ran for president. And Bush was hit for lacking "gravitas." With all else being equal, Pawlenty is an unexciting candidate and isn't one that would excite the base.

With no chance of winning without unifying the Republican base, he really didn't have a whole lot of choices this year. Sarah Palin was probably his best choice. As a governor, she has executive experience, something none of the other three have. She has a remarkable record of achievement for someone who's been governor for such a short time. While some may think she's not qualified to be president, you still have to say she has more experience than Barack Obama, who's at the top of his ticket.

Obama had been in the Senate for 143 days when he began running for president. That's less than five months. If you counted his time actually spent in the Senate, it's probably been less than a year, counting the nearly two straight years he's been doing nothing but campaigning. Remember that Senators spend more than half the year at home doing nothing (or raising money or campaigning) while governors are on the job every day of the year with no time off. As junior Senator from Illinois, Obama's not had to make any decisions or make any hard choices while Senator, so he's completely untested. So who really is the less experienced one? The woman who's had executive experience for two years and is at the bottom of her ticket versus the man who's only effectively been a Senator for six to eight months and has no executive experience and not one bill to his name outside of naming a courthouse and is at the TOP of his ticket? Palin can tick off a number of achievements she's had while she's been governor. Obama has no significant achievements while Senator. By saying Sarah Palin has no experience and isn't ready but saying Barack Obama has experience shows that ideology trumps all. For those Obama supporters out there, doesn't it worry you that he has less experience than Sarah Palin does?

So much opinion dressed as fact...



alcyone

No, it's opinion dressed as opinion. The only fact in there was that Obama was Senator for 143 days when he started running for president. That's fact.

Good. Glad that's cleared up.

alcyone

So question to you. If you think Obama has so much experience, can you tell me what he's done in his year in the Senate?

I'll give you a head start. The only thing I know of after quite extensive searching, is a rider he and Dick Lugar placed in a bill to extend additional funding for processing ex-Soviet nuclear warheads. I could find nothing else except for the naming of a court house that has his name anywhere near it.

So what is Obama's vast experience?

Where does this come from? I mean it’s kind of a jump from:

And then:

I guess (implied) disagreement means I automatically think that Obama "has so much experience" or "vast experience?" Nevermind that I haven't even gone into what exactly I disagree with in that long response to Ann. Since it’s quite a bit of opinion, I assure you, there’s plenty to disagree with.

Still…perhaps you know something I don’t about what I think about Obama’s experience.

But if you know what I think already, I don’t see the use in me bothering with a researched response. Anything I write would be endlessly boring in comparison to that alcyone that thinks Obama has “vast experience” and goodness knows what else. It's her you seem to want to argue with.

Ultimately this sounds too much like another one of those my-candidate-is-better-than-yours carnivals to me. Predictably, I'm still not taking the bait, since I'm still not a fan.

Pass.

alcyone

Sorry, my mistake for believing you thought Obama had experience.

Mistaken again. You misread.

alcyone

/cue moderator post

This seems to be getting a little bit personal, Alcyone and Roger. Up until now, you've both been posting very courteous and informative posts, and you've managed to disagree while maintaining good manners. The last few posts aren't quite so courteous. Can I suggest you both take a deep breath, calm down and come back to this thread tomorrow?

Thank you

/end moderator post


Wendy
Board moderation team

Roger, I'm sure you are absolutely right when you says that Obama doesn't have that much experience from the Senate. And for those who were looking for experience from their Democratic candidate, clearly Hillary Clinton was the far better choice. And if you are looking for as much experience as possible from whoever gets elected, there is no doubt that John McCain is your man.

But while there can be no doubt that Obama has a lot less experience than McCain, Obama has, nevertheless, never come through looking inexperienced. He has never famously gaffed during interviews. More importantly, the American people apparently thinks that he has comported himself better than McCain during the present Wall Street crisis, since Obama is once again ahead in the polls. Unless the reason for Obama's lead is precisely that a sufficient number of people don't trust Sarah Palin, presumably because of what they perceive as her lack of experience.

Experience is not just about how many years you have spent doing what precisely, but also about what you appear to have learnt during that time.

Ann

I suspect the polls have nothing to do with Obama's comportment in the financial crisis, seeing as he's been mostly MIA through most of it, essentially staying on the campaign trail and saying, "if you need me, just call me," but playing a very small role in the negotiations.

I suspect the polls are moving in his direction solely because the public blames President Bush for the crisis. The party in power (meaning who's got the White House) historically always takes the blame for things that go wrong. That can be seen by Bush's poll numbers falling to its all-time low. The steady drumbeat that it was Republican deregulation that caused it is completely wrong, but has taken hold in the public.

It's only leaking into the mainstream press now that the Democrats are knee deep in this crisis and have far more to do with it than any Republican. If that takes hold, and it only has a few weeks to do so, I suspect you'll see the polls reversing as people see that Democrats have brought the world to the brink of financial disaster.

Obama's also terrible in public speaking when he doesn't have certain phrases memorized or if he gets off-script. He quite frequently gets into periods of "umm, ah, umm, well, umm" for minutes at a time.

Interesting. I just saw a report that says that Sarah Palin is related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They are ninth cousins, once removed.

She is also related to Princess Diana, a tenth cousin.

I suppose if you dig deep enough, everybody's related to everyone. I remember a report back in 2004 that said that John Kerry was distantly related to Queen Elizabeth. Does this mean Sarah Palin is now related to John Kerry since Diana Spencer married Prince Charles?

A while ago I talked about an upcoming GOP smear campaign of Obama. I was out of line there, since I couldn't know what was coming up in the future. But it does seem that a very ugly campaign against Obama is going on. What is ugly about it is that it appears to encourage, or at least not discourage, Republican crowds to basically cry out for Obama's blood. Frank Rich, who - I know, I know - is one of the most left-wing of the Op-Editors of NYT, says this today about crowds that have appeared at McCain rallies:

Frank Rich's point is that the McCain campaign encourages, or at least not discourages, Republican crowds to work themselves into such a frenzy that they might actually, truly, want to kill Obama. And they might actually, truly, try to act on that death wish, too. Remember that some American Presidents, Presidential candidates and other important policial figures have indeed been killed because of what they stood for and fought for. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of those who have actually been assassinated have been prominantly associated with the fight for the rights of black people - I'm talking about Lincoln, JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, of course. It is hard not to think that Obama's life might in fact be in very real danger.

I don't know if this can be described as a GOP smear campaign, but I do know that it gives me the creeps, all the same.

The full Frank Rich editorial is here .

Ann

It'll come to no surprise that this makes me very uneasy as well, so I've been following various discussions on the subject. I was comforted when McCain took a stand (see vid here ).

Anyway, with regards to that, I found this exchange really interesting--

There's TNR (moderate left)'s brief post arguing that it's no big deal.

Political reporter Ben Smith seems to take a similar line here as well.

Both of those are short--then there's Glen Greenwald from Salon who takes issue with those arguments here .

His column is in some respects challenging to me because I am one of these "balance" people and what Greenwald argues sounds to me as a slippery slope (it starts getting into the bias question again) especially in reporting, but at the same time, some of his points are pretty compelling.

alcyone

I was very impressed by McCain's stance at that rally, when he forcefully told people that Obama is a decent man and no-one to be afraid of. I wasn't too surprised, as I've always thought that McCain is fundamentally a decent man himself, much though I disagree with most of his politics.

However, he needs to get that message across to his running-mate and his ad creators; I'm just a little tired of that 'pals around with terrorists' line that Palin trots out with tiresome frequency.


Wendy

I agree with Wendy regarding the "pals around with terrorist" line. People who view Obama in a favorable light find the line tiresome, especially when you consider Obama's standard come back: Ayers blew up buildings when I was 8 years old. When I met him, he was a distinguished member of the community and an educator.

In my opinion, the focus needs to be not on what Ayers did as a domestic terrorist when Obama was a child, but rather on Ayers's philosophy of education reform and his views during the 90s, when Obama was chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC).

Ayers has visited Venezuela on numerous occasions, at the invitation of his good friend, Luis Bonilla. Luis Bonilla is a member of Hugo Chavez's regime, responsible for "education reform". Bonilla is founder of Centro International Miranda (CIM) , the goal of which is to train and educate "cadres who agree completely" with the Bolivarian Revolution.

In one videotaped interview , Bonilla introduces Ayers as an "educator, social activist, and military revolutionary". The interview takes place in 2006, when Obama was in his 40s.

In the interview, Bonilla asks Ayers about the beginning of his teaching career, in the 60s. Ayers says, "I understood very early that teaching, education, is linked to social justice." Bonilla then asks Ayers what made him change his chalk and blackboard for the clandestine life of the armed struggle. Ayers replies, "You know, I've never changed my piece of chalk. I think the revolutionary struggle, I think that political organizing, always has a pedagogical connection." Bonilla asks then about the transition from the active armed struggle back to the inactive "talk-only" pedagogical struggle for social change, and Ayers replies, "You know, the transition process is still going on." He adds, "When we left the underground, we lost something valuable - we lost our treasure."

Ayers makes it exceedingly clear that bombs and chalk are both legitimate tools toward achieving the same aim. In a speech given in Venezuela in 2006 (the text of which is on Ayers's webpage), he makes his views on the goal of education reform even more clear. Education is "never neutral. It always has a view, a position, a politics." Ayers says he is complete agreement with Bonilla that "education is the motor-force of revolution."

Given that Ayers believes in education reform as the motor-force in a revolution whose goal is to eliminate capitalism; and given that Ayers created the CAC as a means of bringing education reform to Chicago, and given that Ayers specifically links the revolutionary struggle, political organizing, and pedagogy; and given that Barack Obama (a pedagogue and political organizer) was chosen to be CAC's chairman and executive leader, this raises serious questions about Obama. (Serious questions for those of us who do not want America to become a socialist country. Obviously, those who prefer socialism over capitalism will not share our concerns.)

Oh, and since this has already been mentioned before, yes, I am aware that the philanthropic Annenberg Foundation was founded by a Republican. I am sure that the irony of obtaining money from a capitalist to fund his project was not lost on Ayers. That was, as they say, icing on the cake.

Non-partisan Politifact explores the matter.

Regardless of Ayer's views however, it seems the CAC was not exactly out of the mainstream when it came to education reform, at least when you compare it to other education programs. It was rather conventional, in fact.

Also, it was not only founded by a Republican as Vicki mentions, but Ayers was one of a diverse group of people involved in the project. People like Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Journalism. I'm not sure you can count all of these people as like-minded or even sympathetic to the views elaborated above on anti-capitalist revolution.

Further, although Ayers was one of three activists that got the Annenberg grant, when it came to the day-to-day of the CAC, according to the executive director, Ayers himself "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote." He was part of an advisory group to the board. Politifact states:

There is little evidence to indicate the CAC was proposing education reform that purports anything that is not to improve public schools in Chicago, despite Ayer's participation and whatever views he might have on revolution, education and capitalism.

Also, not that this was mentioned in the post, but Obama was recruited by Deborah Leff, who had worked with Obama before in another foundation. There is no evidence to indicate that his appointment there had anything to do with Ayers.

So it seems to me like another round of the guilt by association claim where because Ayers had certain views on education, this somehow bears on Obama. But this is all based on circumstancial evidence and tenous connections. It entails disregarding a large amount of evidence to the contrary by people in a better position to know than those disseminating these insinuations (such as conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz, who suggests the nefariousness of CAC).

The NYT had a good quote:

alcyone

I did not say that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was founded by a Republican; I said the philanthropic Annenberg Foundation (which funded the CAC) was founded by a Republican. Obama's campaign describes him as: "Nixon Ambassador and Reagan friend Walter Annenberg."

I would beg to differ. Programs accepted for grants include The South Shore African Village Collaborative for their “Celebrate African-American Holiday of Juneteenth”, and Ayers's own small private school, "The Peace School". Compare these with projects which were rejected, such as The Chicago Algebra Project: goal to increase student achievement and The District 5 Math Initiative: goal to aid Hispanic students in the process of learning English, to further learn math and science. Sounds very much to me like Ayers's definition of an education which is "never neutral" but always has "a value, a position, a politics."
According to the NY Times, no. According to Stanley Kurtz, who spent days meticulously digging through the original documentation of the project, this was Ayers's pet project and his baby from the start. He was very hands-on, especially in the beginning. (Ayers distanced himself after the first year to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, as he was applying for funds himself, such as for the aforementioned "Peace School".) I believe there is no way Obama would have have gotten his position without Ayers's direct approval.

People interested in learning more can watch the latest CNN report.

[edited 3:05 pm, to clarify and modify run-on sentence.- V]