Monday, September 8, 2008

Election

I haven't talked much politics on here even though it is a topic I enjoy following.  I guess I don't like attempting to carry out arguments over emails and message boards--kind of pointless.  So if anyone disagrees with my politics, statements, etc, let me know but don't expect much give and take.

I am really excited about McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.  While obviously she lacks much in experience, she does seem to have some solid conservative credentials as well as an outside of Washington or the Beltway appeal.  I, as many did, watched her speech at the convention--it was an impressive giving of a speech.  You can see why she was certainly one to be considered by McCain.  Given that it had to be her largest audience ever and most important speech ever, she really came off confident and self assured.  That was simply test #1 though.  She still has a long way to go before most of the general voting public will feel safe with her as a VP.

I had heard about Sarah Palin first in April on a Down Syndrome message board, where articles were linked after the birth of their 5th child Trig who happens to have DS.  I remember feeling happy because she had gone right back to work and that Trig did not have some of the more common health defects at birth, especially the heart defects that somewhere around 50% of children have, Thomas included.  I also remember thinking that it is nice for children with DS and their parents to have another person kind of "in the news" that will share an idea of what others are going through as well as expressing positives about having a child with DS.

When I first heard that McCain was picking her, I was really surprised because I knew of her and heard she was being mentioned as a dark horse for the VP.  The day before I had read about Kay Bailey Hutchinson being someone he should consider and was actually kind of excited about that--having a good conservative female on his ticket.  I still wonder why Palin over Hutchinson, to me it seems Hutchinson might have come without the fears of lack of experience and without the fears of stuff lurking in the closet.  Palin's energy, ethics battles(in the positive sense) and able to fashion as a maverick to fit with McCain are probably what won out although I wonder what the history is between McCain and Hutchinson really is.  

It is kind of funny the negatives the left is reaching for on Palin, I guess the lack of experience doesn't really stick because that just points to the lack of experience Obama has also.  The whole business with Palin's oldest daughter expecting and dating/engaged to a "red neck" high school hockey player is really no big deal, at least for me.  The rumors that Trig was actually her daughter's child were just absurd, but did push the pregency to the open.

Now it seems they are trying to stick labels like banning books and creationism onto Palin.  I would guess both of those are dispelled by this weekend once the ABC interview comes out.  From what I understand on the banning books, she was asking a series of questions as mayor to the city librarian about which banning books was part of it.  It doesn't sound like she actually wanted to ban any, more like just a policy question.  I haven't seen anything beyond this and no lists of books so again a non-issue to me.  On creationism, all I have seen was a copied transcript from an interview where she says something to the effect that evolution should be taught but she would encourage a classroom discussion of creationism.  Again like the book banning, neither issue ever came up to where she tried to change anything.

I am expecting her education to come under attack also, but if the Dems are smart they might want to avoid this.  While she only has a bachelor's degree from a state university in Idaho--can't remember which one & too lazy to look up--attacking her on this would make it too easy to counter attack the Dems as elites, Ivy league educated, out of touch with the common persons.  

I found it interesting and I am not sure where I heard this, but they expect her to do real battle for female votes, especially the non-college educated females.  I guess the ones that really don't follow politics and all of the insides and guts but those that get most of their info from those 30 second commercials.  Kind of scary but I guess those voters could be the deciding voters in some key states.  

Sarah Palin will still have at least a couple of real tests yet ahead of her, the interviews being #2.  I expect them(the news media) to hit her hardest on foreign affairs where they would expect her to be weakest.  I would expect simple memory things like countries and leader's names to be asked, while I don't know if memorizing them really shows she is ready for the VP job, any mistakes will be blown up and run with by the media.  From her one speech it would seem she has a idea of how not to get caught in some of the media traps where they try to define her in the question, but still knowing this and answering correctly hundreds of times a week are two very different things.  I still have plenty of doubt that she will come through this process unharmed in her image.  Obviously, the debate would probably be test #3.  This might be the easiest of all though.  While Biden is experienced and knowledgeable about everything inside the Beltway and foreign affairs, I think she might have the presence and one liner type answers that will keep him on his heels.  Cheney I think always looked great in the VP debates vs Liberman and Edwards, just because he had a confidence about him.

That was a lot of typing, but I needed to get some of it out.  It is always good to get some thoughts on paper/close to it, it kind of clarifies things at least for me.

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