Summary of the Arguments by Dem’s against Palin and ultimately McCain
Do these stick? Are they relevant? Are there more?
- She has only been a mayor of a small town and 20 month governor of a small state. Before that she was a “Hockey Mom.”
- Any quantifiable accomplishment is diminished because she is from a small town/state.
- She should be home with her children (one of which has Down’s Syndrome and one is pregnant). One poster here on DWC even said “What kind of mom would inflict this scrutiny on her daughter?”
- She is white trailer trash. Bristol’s pregnancy is a family tradition. (Anonymous here on DWC)
- She has an accent that is a cross between northern Minnesota and Native American. (Anooner here on DWC)
- She has no foreign policy experience.
- She was not vetted by McCain.
- She was taken over more qualified men like Lieberman, Pawlenty, Ridge and Romney.
- Any or taken together speak to why John McCain doesn’t have the judgment to be President.
Did I miss any? We don’t need a litany of policy disagreements as it is natural that Dem’s would not agree much with the GOP’s Presidential or Vice-Presidential nominee. I’m trying to focus on the non-policy issues raised by Palin’s opponents in the practice of “politics of personal destruction.”
What is the effect on the election if Palin performs well on the stump and ultimately matches or beats Biden in the debate? What is the effect if the opposite occurs? Will the VP candidate actually have an effect on the selection of our President?
I do agree with Bill Fleming that her characterization of herself as a pitbull and her willingness to take on Obama at his core will open a floodgate of personal attacks by liberal bloggers, the DNC, and the Obama-Biden ticket. If we get a good list here, Bill can then forward them on to the Obama campaign so they have them handy.
Sidebar: The pitbull line was not in the prepared text. It was an ad lib.
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Comments
I really was set to give her the benefit of the doubt last night. No kidding. I really tried to be open minded about the whole thing as I sat down to watch her speech, contrary to what I’ve posted here.
I thought maybe her small townness, genuiness, average Americaness might really take hold and she’d explain away all the supposed misconceptions that are coming down the wires.
I would love to have a 2000 McCain running today, so I’m not totally bipartisan.
About 10 minutes into the speech, it was all over. The “gotcha” lines, the jabbing, the lies about her “accomplishments”, and no real future outlook was really difficult to swallow.
She made the masses howl, but those are the masses already voting for McCain.
That speech wasn’t meant for me.
That speech didn’t incite any political unity in me.
That speech seemed to further divide the parties, which is what we’ve already got.
By the end of the speech I was embarrassed for the Republicans. They want such change that they’ll circle around her and all that is wrong about her, just to spite Democrats.
That’s the message I got.
So Pat, you’re saying that the “pit bull” line was a throw-away? Too bad she didn’t. So much for her ability to think and act wisely on her own.
p.s. the “scripted part was actually worse.
Here are some early rebuttals, but keep ‘em comin’ I’ll pass them on… :
(Because of the length of Bill’s post and it being a “cut and paste”, I have deleted the post and instead provide a link to the source of Bill’s information. Pat has in the past done the same to other “cut and paste” posts. I refrained from adding any editorial comments. 
Troy Jones)
For the text of Bill’s post, please refer to:
http://WWW.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/09/palin_v_reality.php
BFF, Dayum!
The gas shortage/businesses closing in Alaska was news to me.
So, nearly every phrase uttered by her is contradictory to the truth.
She makes lifelong politicians look like pikers.
Was all of this a joke? Is she a red herring?
Suppose he’ll dump her for Lieberman, whom the Democrats are going to slay anyway for his comments?
Jeez, Bill, your post is way to much a Sibby-like cut and paste. Way below your standards
My take on Troy’s 8:
1. We gauge a presidency on the 1st 100 days, yet she is criticized for only being Gov. 20 months? EVERYTHING a governor or president is going to do with their administration happens the 1st year. After that is reacting to situations.
2. Local government is where federal policy happens. Any mayor that has a landfill knows more about the EPA than any US Senator. County commissioners know more about medicare and medicaid than anybody else, it’s nearly 50% of their budgets. School Board members knowing federal programs like No Child Left Behind better than Congress? please.
3. Did we return to 1950 without my knowing it?
4. And rich folks kids never have to get married?
5. She’ll fit in well in Red Lake and Bemidji
6. Neither did Richard Nixon. Palin and Putin in a Nixon / Kruschev style kitchen debate? I’d pay to see it.
7. Moot after last night
8. Lieberman wouldn’t have worked, Pawlenty’s a lightweight at best, Ridge will be SecState (unless Bill Richardson says yes) and Romney talked his way back in to the private sector for good last night.
McCain has rarely shown political judgement, he just does what’s right.
6.
6.
“Sidebar: The pitbull line was not in the prepared text. It was an ad lib.”
Wow, not only is she a bad liar, she is funny too. Get out!
Sorry about the long cut and paste.
But Troy asked “are there more” and I was just thinking, “well, um yeah, actually.”
Anyway, I’ll try to keep that kind of thing to a minimum.
Just thought y’all would like to say you read it here first.
Bill, I looked in detail at the list, it includes $36,000 to fix a school bus. You can buy a new one for not a lot more. Maybe the old one still had a good set of tires? Sounds like liberal re-treading to me . . .
snark, snark
It’s not the same link, Troy. I would have posted a link myself, but for some reason when I try that on SDWC lately, the post doesn’t go through.
But hey, let’s try again.
Here’s what I was referencing:
http://WWW.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/09/palin_v_reality.php
Great job Bill! Kind of takes the gloss off the lipstick when someone does a little fact checking.
Point number five in PP’s post was informative. I just couldn’t quite get a handle on her speech patterns, but that sounds about right. And why is that considered a criticism? We all have some sort of accent.
Yeah you missed some..
10. She is under investigation by the Alaskan legislature on corruption charges.
11. In 1994 she attended the Alaskan Independence Party’s convention.
12. When asked about Iraq, she responded that she doesn’t think about it much.
13. She needs someone to explain to her what the vice president does everyday.
14. When running for governor, she was FOR the Bridge to Nowhere. Now she constantly touts that she told Congress “No thanks.”
15. She received over $27 million in Congressional earmarks for her small town. And she cut out a newspaper article about it and sent it to the city council and wrote “We did Well!”
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/4346/palin-on-earmarks-we-did-well
… but she’s against pork.
I think that sums it up.
Troy, did I say her accent should preclude her from serving? There are other reasons in support of that. I simply made an observation on her intonation because to me it kind of sticks out. I’d do the same if it were southern, eastern, northern or cajun. I’m not voting R this time around (and I have in the past) bc of 8 years of GW, and I think John M, God bless him, is too old and too entrenched in DC to bring forth anything but a marginal difference. I also find it shallow the R’s are jumping on this “change” and reform mantra now because they think it will serve them at the polls.
All your points are excellent, Troy, and they’re all examples of how this woman has the libs in a panic!!
It’s obvious to see, that Palin is not only going to appeal to the Republican base, something McCain was having problems with, but she will also appeal to the non-political moms, who don’t pay much attention to politics, but still vote.
Many libs are counting on her to lose her gloss during the VP debates, and that isn’t going to happen either. She’s going to be expected to lose to an experienced beltway politician, and well-known debater like Biden, so when she manages to at least hold her own, she will get another bump in popularity.
McCain’s team did more than hit it out of the park when they selected Palin, they won the election!
One more:
That whole selling the state jet on eBay thing? Didn’t happen.
“After going unsold for months, the jet was put into the hands of Turbo North Aviation, an Anchorage aircraft broker, which put an asking price of $2.45 million on the nearly $2.7 million jet. It quickly sold to Alaska businessman Larry Reynolds for $2.1 million ($31,000 of which went to Turbo Aviation). Today the Westwind II jet spends its days ushering wealthy hunters around Alaska and Russia.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-palin_planesep05,0,3470364.story
The plane was put on eBay, but it never sold there, as Palin claims again and again and again.
Mellow Redhead,
Republicans will have their panties permanently a wad when the Democrats win.
Anon,
I doubt Palin will have the entire mommy vote locked up. Women with kids aren’t an automatic lock for her. Neither are political moms, political child-free women, non-political moms and non-political child-free women.
Get the point? An uterus doesn’t exactly guarantee all women think alike with regards to Palin. That she spitted out more kids than Hillary is shouldn’t make her the ‘better’ female candidate.
Further proof from Patti that Redhead was correct about the shorts in a wad.
By the way, I listened to the speech Palin gave at the convention again, and she never said she SOLD the plane on ebay, she said she PUT it on ebay.
I’ll bet you a ten spot right now, Braeden, that you can’t find one reference where she actually said SOLD it on ebay. She put it there… the effort was made, just not a lot of people who typed in “jet” when they hit ebay, I suppose.
Braeden’s got his panties on too tight too. Ooooh… barracuda, got you too…
You forgot “shrill”.