The dark days of ambivalence and poor leadership are behind us and John McCain has banished our doubts and restored our hope.
In a miraculous moment in Dayton, Ohio, John McCain announced what may be the most politically significant decision of the new millennium. Faced with many choices and the challenge of a resurgent left, McCain defied all of those who questioned his worthiness as a leader and a candidate and those who worship 'conventional wisdom,' by making the boldest and most courageous choice of a Vice Presidential running mate since William McKinley reluctantly accepted the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt. Out of a field which included many safe choices and many establishment figures, McCain vindicated himself and the hopes of those Republicans who had extended him the benefit of the doubt, by picking Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.…
Article comments
26 - Zedd
Alaska has the population of Austin Texas. Executive experience! Good luck with the war on drugs or war on terrorism or inner city issues!
Way to go GOP you great lovers of our country!!!
Phone call at 3:00 in the morning.... Joe Biden or Sarah Palin.
27 - Dave Nalle
"and Illinois Project Vote."
A project closely-tied to the corrupt left-wing organization ACORN. His job there, while officially nonpartisan, was to register as many black Democrats to vote as possible. I will cede that he was successful in that endeavor.
Man, I didn't realize Obama had connections to ACORN. Maybe we should be considering him for a jail cell rather than the Oval Office.
Dave
28 - Dave Nalle
You cant be serious. Do you really believe the things you post?
Absolutely.
Have you watched her? She's George Bush in a dress.
George Bush never looked that good in a dress. And you need to learn more about her if you can make that completely off base comparison.
Alaska has the population of Austin Texas.
Actually, Delaware has the population of Austin. Alaska has the population of Austin in 2000.
Executive experience!
Yes, she has more than Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton added together. She has 4 times as much as McCain for that matter.
Good luck with the war on drugs or war on terrorism or inner city issues!
You don't get Palin at all. She's most likely to be against the war on drugs. Good luck with it indeed. We can finally work on making that albatross of a policy go away. And despite the small size of Alaska, it does have bad inner city areas and a crime problem and major poverty issues. The city she was mayor of is a suburb of Anchorage. The Anchorage metro area contains more than half of Alaska's population and it's a city somewhat larger, but comparable in size to New Orleans.
Phone call at 3:00 in the morning.... Joe Biden or Sarah Palin.
Palin, because she's used to getting up at night to feed and change her 1 year old.
Dave
29 - Dr Dreadful
Sure. Palin has eight more years of executive experience (the relevant kind for the job of Vice President) than Biden. She was Mayor for six years, and has been Governor for almost two.
Oh, come off it, RJ. As Zedd has repeatedly pointed out, executive experience in Alaska is a bit of a stretch. Five thousand people live in the 'city' she was mayor of. Where I come from, we call that a village. It's like claiming that your cousin Willie would run the Washington Post better than Rupert Murdoch because he once edited his high school newspaper.
You might as well argue that the Prime Minister of Barbados is qualified to run the US based on his executive experience.
And I asked you to consider Palin's legislative experience precisely because the VP's main function, other than stepping in for permanently horizontal chief executives, is as President of the Senate. I don't regard that as irrelevant.
I'm not saying that Palin wouldn't make a good VP just because she's a relative greenhorn. But trying to inflate what limited experience she does have, in an attempt to compare her favorably to Obama, makes you look rather ridiculous.
30 - Baronius
I think both VP choices balanced the tickets. Now both parties have a stale, unimaginative white guy and a person with virtually no qualifications. Brilliant tactics. Embody every major weakness of the other presidential candidate in your own VP pick.
McCain's move will probably pay off, but this is everything I hate about identity politics.
31 - Matthew T. Sussman
I gotta say, McCain-Palin is looking to be the tits. In fact, both politicians on the ticket have them!
32 - Silas Kain
And Matt, my dear boy, never let anyone take away from you the distinction of being a tit man.
33 - handyguy
The rhetoric flying around from the right-wingers on here is not to be believed. Is it fear that brings the silliness out, or just the bad habit of reflexive, smart-ass insult humor?
Palin is no worse a pick than...Dan Quayle, maybe. But if the Dems had nominated someone with similar [sparse] experience, and especially someone with 'bona fide' liberal credentials [equivalent to Palin's gun love and inflexible abortion stance], the salivating Huns would be denigrating her or him even more vociferously than the relatively mild criticism coming from the left about Palin. Any claim that she is more qualified to be president than Biden or Obama or Clinton is just so much partisan wishful thinking.
It's all so hypocritical. Do you really expect us to believe this relative nonentity was a heroine of yours before this morning? The mere possibility of a 'game changer' [after 38 million tuned in to Thursday evening's genuinely exciting and inspiring spectacle] has you guys jumping up and down in a most amusing yet ridiculous manner. Good grief.
34 - RJ Elliott
Dave:
If you're interested in Obama's links to ACORN, and ACORN's recent history of corruption and vote fraud, I suggest you read this.
35 - handyguy
Citing loony-tunes loudmouth crackpot Michelle Malkin as an authority on anything is a bit desperate, I'd say. Trying to link Obama to Acorn in a way that is genuinely relevant to this election is even more so. But discussing actual issues is just so...boring, eh? Calling someone an empty suit and pretending he's corrupt is so much more fun.
36 - Clavos
Do you really expect us to believe this relative nonentity was a heroine of yours before this morning?
A casual perusal of the threads on this site over the past several weeks would reveal a number of mentions of Governor Palin as an ideal candidate for VP, posted by a number of commenters. An even larger number of comments advocating the nomination of a woman as the Republican VP nominee would also show up.
But if the Dems had nominated someone with similar [sparse] experience, and especially someone with 'bona fide' liberal credentials [equivalent to Palin's gun love and inflexible abortion stance], the salivating Huns would be denigrating her or him even more vociferously than the relatively mild criticism coming from the left about Palin.
Speculating about what other commenters might have voiced under hypothetical circumstances, as you do here, is just that: pure speculation, with no basis in fact.
Spare us.
37 - RJ Elliott
"Oh, come off it, RJ. As Zedd has repeatedly pointed out, executive experience in Alaska is a bit of a stretch."
I disagree. Why is it that experience in Alaska supposedly doesn't count, in your mind? Just because of its relatively small population? (How about being one of two Senators from tiny Delaware, then?)
Actually, if anything, it should count *extra*, since it's such a large and diverse state, and so far away from the Beltway Bureaucrats.
"Five thousand people live in the 'city' she was mayor of."
Closer to 8,000 ... but hey, who's counting? ;-)
"Where I come from, we call that a village."
Where you come from, you have no say in our elections. ;-)
"It's like claiming that your cousin Willie would run the Washington Post better than Rupert Murdoch because he once edited his high school newspaper."
It's actually not like that at all.
Alaska is certainly larger than The Harvard Law Review, Illinois Project Vote Smart, and The Developing Communities Project in Chicago - COMBINED. ;-)
"You might as well argue that the Prime Minister of Barbados is qualified to run the US based on his executive experience."
Almost certainly more qualified than Obama! ;-)
"And I asked you to consider Palin's legislative experience precisely because the VP's main function, other than stepping in for permanently horizontal chief executives, is as President of the Senate. I don't regard that as irrelevant."
So, like once or twice a year, she might have to cast a deciding, tie-breaking vote in the Senate, whose outcome is already a foregone conclusion based upon the stated position of the administration? Stressful stuff! But I'm pretty sure she can manage. ;-)
"I'm not saying that Palin wouldn't make a good VP just because she's a relative greenhorn. But trying to inflate what limited experience she does have, in an attempt to compare her favorably to Obama, makes you look rather ridiculous."
Nope. She *does* compare favorably to Obama, in both experience and accomplishments. And she's not even at the top of the ticket! ;-)
38 - RJ Elliott
"Palin is no worse a pick than...Dan Quayle, maybe."
Except Dan Quayle was never a Governor. (And didn't the GOP win in 1988?) ;-)
"But if the Dems had nominated someone with similar [sparse] experience"
ProTip: They did. And at the *top* of their ticket. ;-)
"and especially someone with 'bona fide' liberal credentials [equivalent to Palin's gun love and inflexible abortion stance]"
Supporting the Second Amendment isn't viewed as "gun love" to any but the most extreme leftists.
"the salivating Huns would be denigrating her or him even more vociferously than the relatively mild criticism coming from the left about Palin."
The GOP = Huns? We're a confederation of Central Asian equestrian nomads? HOLY FUCKING SHIT! And I thought I was Irish-German... :-/
"Any claim that she is more qualified to be president than Biden or Obama or Clinton is just so much partisan wishful thinking."
Or, at least as far as Obama goes, objective fact. ;-)
"It's all so hypocritical. Do you really expect us to believe this relative nonentity"
Wait. Are we talking about Obama or Palin now?
"was a heroine of yours before this morning?"
I didn't say she was my hero. But I certainly like her more than a Harvard-educated Marxist who attended a radical Black Nationalist "church" for 20 years.
"The mere possibility of a 'game changer' [after 38 million tuned in to Thursday evening's genuinely exciting and inspiring spectacle]"
Hey, leave some Kool-Aid for the rest of the kids in Jonestown!
"has you guys jumping up and down in a most amusing yet ridiculous manner. Good grief."
Hey man, she's kinda pro-gay. And she loves to shop. So she can't be all bad, amiright?
39 - Dr Dreadful
Why is it that experience in Alaska supposedly doesn't count, in your mind?
I never said that. I do call into question how much it counts - especially based on the fact that if Palin does end up fulfilling the office of Vice-President, she'll be doing so in Washington DC, not Alaska.
Where you come from, you have no say in our elections.
That's what you think... ;-)
It's actually not like that at all.
Alaska is certainly larger than The Harvard Law Review, Illinois Project Vote Smart, and The Developing Communities Project in Chicago - COMBINED. ;-)
I was actually drawing the analogy with Biden there, but never mind.
She *does* compare favorably to Obama, in both experience and accomplishments. And she's not even at the top of the ticket!
We'll just have to agree to disagree. Like I said, I don't have any negative vibe about Palin at this point - I know very little about her and have seen even less. I'm just glad she's not Romney.
On the other hand, Obama is at the top of the ticket and looking pretty damn impressive from where I'm sitting. When he first announced his candidacy I did cringe a bit, as I thought he needed a further term or two more in the Senate. But he's had four years of national experience and exposure - the last year and a half of them intense, as he's campaigned for the presidency, and I do think that counts for quite a lot.
40 - Dave Nalle
So the experience of applying for a job now counts as qualification to have that job? By that logic I can be a qualified brain surgeon just because I'm applying to be a brain surgeon. Uh, ok.
dave
41 - Lee Richards
#40:
Or by that logic Palin is qualified to be president(if the need arises)just because the Republicans will pick her. Uh, ok.
42 - Larsbarbow
Four words -- Harriet Meiers, Clarence Thomas. Please use your bigger heads (VPILF-do you think that shows respect or is any way an appropriate endorsement for a candidate for the second highest office of the country?) This is not a beauty contest. What is McCain thinking? I can't decide if he wants to lose of if he's senile. Maybe both. Pathetic.
43 - Cannonshop
No, Lee, the logic of "Experience" comes down to one thing- "What did you do with the time?"
Put it another way-which machinist do you want working on your car-the guy who's spent ten years talking about being a machinist, while working the cash-register, or the guy who's spent two years actually BEING a machinist?
Palin's spent her time in the Governorship DOING THINGS. USEFUL things, like getting rid of corrupt bastards, balancing a genuine budget, hell, she's even been subjected to an investigation (and kicked its ass without having to call a defense lawyer. It's amazing how much of a non-issue a probe becomes when you cooperate fully and really DON'T have anything to hide.)
There are a lot of Western conservatives that wanted to draft Palin for the GOP Nominee back in December '07.