Originally posted by LabRat:
What I find ironic - and deeply amusing - is that if Ms. Palin is the paragon that everyone on the right seems to believe she is - why isn't [b]she the Republican nominee for President?
[/b]
You have to run to get on the top of the ticket. If she performs well in the upcoming 60+ days until the election, she may very well be the heir apparent. It's rather odd to say she should be at the top of the ticket when she never ran. In four years or eight, you may get what you asked for. She's in the VP slot because she didn't run for president and John McCain did, and he feels she's the best choice for VP. It's not like both of them ran and McCain defeated her for the nomination and then chose her as his running mate.
Republicans were begging for Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice to run. Well, they're not at the top of ticket, not because Democrats believe Republicans are racists. They're not there because they didn't run. It's likely Rice could have easily won the nomination had she chosen to run, but she's still looking for the job of NFL Commissioner.
People say Palin's choice was purely a stunt. I don't think so. While that political calculation exists, I think he may have found a political soul mate. Compatibility is a good reason for choosing a VP, too. While McCain is a social conservative, he's not a fiscal conservative while Palin is conservative across the board. But the big reason why she's compatible as a running mate is because she's a maverick with reformer's credentials, too.
Romney and Pawlenty are old boys and are not compatible with McCain, which makes them bad choices. Choosing them would be a pure political calculation while the choice of Palin appears to have both political calculation and political compatibility as well.
Anyone watch the sixth season of the show, 24? Now there was a case where the vice president had been chosen purely for political calculation and the two were completely incompatible. Does anyone really want that in any ticket? Granted this is a fictional show but it does showcase a vice president who had been picked merely to win a few states the presidential nominee had trouble winning. Palin, from a small red state, population-wise, does not fit that profile.
This type of thing is why the Constitution was changed to make the vice president be the president's running mate rather than the original text which had the runner-up in the electoral college as vice president. These days that would mean the vice president would always be of the opposite party to the president. That's a recipe for disaster with the VP constantly stabbing the president in the back at every opportunity.
This is why I believe Obama was correct in not choosing Hillary Clinton since those two are like oil and water. It might have helped him win the election but the aftermath would have been a disaster.
As for experience, McCain and Palin have something Obama does not; they have a track record of accomplishments. His are too numerous to mention (and I disagreed with about half of them, including the egregious McCain-Feingold bill). She has successfully fought the establishment to reform ethics in government and was in the process of helping us in our energy independence with the natural gas pipeline. So while she hasn't been in office long, she has shown she can get things done.
Obama, OTOH, hasn't shown an ability to do anything except vote "Present" most of the time. Keep in mind Obama had been a Senator for 143 days when he formed his presidential exploratory committee. At least Sarah Palin had two years as governor, which represents executive experience. True, not the same as the presidential level, but executive experience helps which is why George W. Bush could get away with a little foreign policy inexperience since he had been governor for six years of the second most populous state in the union. Obama's had the title of Senator longer than Palin's been governor, but counting the time actually spent doing Senate business and you'll find Obama hasn't actually shown up for most of his tenure.
As for the Democratic ticket, the same holds true when it comes to the "wrong" person at the top. Hardly anyone would say that Joe Biden doesn't have experience. By your reasoning, Biden should be at the top of his ticket. But hey, he didn't run either. When he did run a few years back, he was forced to withdraw after his bout with plagiarism came up. He would not have won a nomination even if he had run.
As for foreign policy experience, LabRat said that Bush got a pass while Obama doesn't. She forgets the circumstances. In 2000, there was no more enemy. The twin towers were still standing and hardly anyone had ever heard of al Qaeda. The 2000 elections were fought on the failing Clinton economy and virtually nothing else. Nobody cared if Bush had no foreign policy experience since who'd need it with Russia as an "ally" and no major conflicts going on around the world. The Cold War was over and we were still reaping the "benefits" of the "peace dividend." Today, foreign policy is front and center.
I'll save the comment on Bush's foreign policy "mess" for another time, seeing as we've essentially won in Iraq and kicked al Qaeda's tail in the process. I'll take that kind of mess anytime.
P.S. Yes I saw the smilie.
