Listening to Democratic people on Twitter and in a few blogs since yesterday has not been a good thing. Why? Because it is very hard not to respond the the vile talk without a knee jerk reaction which could prevent clear thinking. You have to understand that honesty is not something I automatically associate with Democrats. Now I am suspicious of any politician but when it comes to private citizens Democrats just go off the deep end a lot. They call my target rifle an “assault weapon” for example. They call supporting vouchers and charter schools and getting rid of bad teachers “anti-education.” And on and on.
But I do try hard to keep an open mind as much as possible. Much of what Democrats were saying was as positive to me and it was negative to them. Things like her stance on abortion and gun control. The ethics issues they brought up were disturbing but looking closer at them they don’t seem so bad. Especially when compared to other national political figures. <cough> Bill Clinton <cough> Even if they are completely true which there seems to be some doubt about.
I have some concern about her energy policy still. I have some concern about her lack of experience. She doesn’t have a whole lot of it. It is executive experience though so what she has is more directly applicable to the job than some other candidates. If she were running for president I’d be a lot more concerned. But anyone who can live with Obama’s experience in a presidential candidate should not reasonably have an issue with Palin as VP.
All in all she gives me a better opinion of McCain in much the same way Biden makes me think a lot less of Obama. Really I would have trouble voting for Biden for anything. The idea of a less experienced Palin being a heart beat away from the presidency scares me a lot less than having Biden being a heart beat away. I know where Biden stands on a lot of issues and shudder to think about a Biden presidency. So in effect Obama’s pick for VP makes it easier for me to overlook flaws in McCain’s pick.
I’ve been hearing quite a lot of whining from Democratic women about Palin. They are upset because they believe that Republicans think that women who supported Hilary will automatically vote for Palin because she is a women. Well that would be crazy if true but I don’t think it is. Well not completely. I do think that for some nut cases who are wildly upset about Clinton losing Palin will make it a little easier for them to vote for McCain. But it will not be a deciding factor and very few Clinton supporters will actually vote for McCain when push comes to shove.
But history shows that a lot of people, men and women, vote for people for reasons other than issues. Sometimes it is name – Kennedy. Sometimes it is looks – Kennedy. Well others too. Sometimes it is race or gender. Will Palin help pick up some women who just want to vote for a women? Perhaps. She might pick up a few men who vote for her just because she is attractive. Anyone who doesn’t think that Obama picks up a lot of votes just on looks is clearly not paying attention so it works both ways.
When Obama picked Biden I thought he was throwing the election. Biden has high negatives and conservatives will be able to use him as a “bogey man” to raise lots and lots of money. Palin may serve the same purpose on the liberal side so it may balance out. Or maybe she will turn out to be a huge liability and cost McCain the election. There is no doubt that selecting her was/is a huge risk. The willingness to take a risk says something about McCain.
Last note, I have long believed that the first woman president would be a Republican. I thought the same about the first black president. I may be wrong about the first black president. Obama might be the guy. On the other hand, imagine VP Palin running for president in a few years. And wouldn’t a Clinton/Palin race be an interesting thing some day?
I think part of the problem is that you and I seem to be in a very small minority: people who might tend to vote one way or the other, but who actually consider both sides of an issue. I’ve long thought that both sides automatically oppose whatever the other side tries to do, to the point that if Republicans introduced a bill tomorrow to end the war in Iraq, Democrats would oppose it and suggest that a withdrawal from Iraq was preposterous, and if Democrats introduce a bill tomorrow to ban abortion, Republicans would oppose it and say that banning abortion was an affront to woman’s rights / state’s rights.
You have to understand that honesty is not something I automatically associate with Democrats. Now I am suspicious of any politician but when it comes to private citizens Democrats just go off the deep end a lot.
I think we’re each biased our own ways: I tend to notice more Republicans than Democrats going off the deep end, though I couldn’t possibly pretend that Democrats don’t do it, too.
They call my target rifle an “assault weapon” for example.
This bothers me a lot, actually… Not everyone will agree with me, but I think that there are weapons that citizens shouldn’t be allowed to own. (Nuclear weapons as the most obvious example, but I’d peg certain types of firearms, too.) And I think it’s reasonable and something that a majority of both sides might support. But people keep trying to push the envelope on what an “assault weapon” is, to include common weapons, which suddenly makes the cause of trying to keep legitimately-bad weapons from being sold look ridiculous. (Try, for example, taking a handgun with an 11-round magazine into Boston. Well, for that matter, trying to get a permit for a handgun in Boston… Or, try carrying a handgun with a 9-round magazine, that was built to take an 11-round magazine, into Boston…)
They call supporting vouchers and charter schools and getting rid of bad teachers “anti-education.” And on and on.
I used to emphatically support vouchers. Steve Jobs (of all people) had a really persuasive essay out somewhere about how they basically bring the power of free markets and competition, to the school system, and how incredibly great it can be for eliminating the problem of under-performing schools.
I heard an interesting interview with Fidel Castro’s daughter (?), who is a very articulate speaker. She made some comment about how they were still trying to “tweak” Socialism to work better, and the interviewer basically said, “So you’re saying Socialism isn’t perfect?”And her response was that it’s an excellent system in theory, but that no one’s figured out how to put it in practice that well yet. While I think many of us will disagree about Socialism even being a perfect theory, I kind of feel that her comment applies to vouchers, too: I love the idea, but in practice, everything I’ve seen suggests that it doesn’t do enough to make the bad schools _close_, as much as pulling some of the good teachers and some of the better students out, leaving the bad public school even worse, but still there.
I’m not sure who’s protested the cuts of bad teachers (aside from… bad teachers), but what I tend to call “anti-education” are the people who talk about how much help our school systems need, but then go and cut funding. Money isn’t everything, but schools need money to be effective. I don’t mean to suggest that the military gets carte blanche, but if someone were to try to suggest massive, indiscriminate cuts to military spending, they’d probably be laughed out of Congress and labeled, by both sides, as hating America. I don’t see why that doesn’t happen with education. Unless enrollment drops or we find new economies of scale (legitimate ones), I don’t think educational spending should go down. I’m yet to see a public school that had too much money, or paid its teachers too much.
The ethics issues they brought up were disturbing but looking closer at them they don’t seem so bad. Especially when compared to other national political figures.
Bill Clinton made a horrible decision, but I never got why it turned into such a witchhunt. (Though the fact that lied definitely didn’t help…) I’m hearing that she basically pressured the head of the state police to fire a trooper because of a messy divorce involving him and a relative of hers… That concerns me, but it’s yet to be proven. (Then again, when have we let proof stand in the way of us sinking politician’s careers? *grin*)
Palin does get tremendous “cred” in my book for having the guts to out members of her own party on corruption, though. Both sides need more people willing to do that.
I have some concern about her energy policy still.
I haven’t seen enough of it to really judge; all I know is that she’s in favor of drilling for ANWR. (Interestingly, it seems that upwards of 75% of Alaskans support ANWR drilling. Oil apparently accounts for more jobs than any other industry in Alaska, so it would be kind of silly for them to oppose it.) She’s talked about the importance of energy independence and alternative energy, which I like, but any idiot can (and will) say that; I wonder more about what she proposes. But then again, it’s not up to the VP, really — I have no idea what Biden’s stance is, either. (Al Gore, OTOH…)
I have some concern about her lack of experience. She doesn’t have a whole lot of it. It is executive experience though so what she has is more directly applicable to the job than some other candidates.
I thought the same. Congress gives a lot of experience dealing with national issues and foreign policy, and being Governor gives a lot of executive experience. The Oval Office is the only place where you need to be good at both. So I like that McCain brings the Congressional experience, and Palin brings executive experience. But it’s not like Palin has decades of experience there.
But anyone who can live with Obama’s experience in a presidential candidate should not reasonably have an issue with Palin as VP.
I’m on some sort of mailing list (I’m actually not sure what it is?) for Democrats, and almost immediately after Palin was announced, a prominent Democratic pundit sent out an e-mail blasting McCain for choosing someone with so little experience. I kind of cringed, because it’s exactly what the attack on Obama has been all along. (While I certaily don’t want a total tyro in office, I actually kind of like that Palin is fairly new, for the same reason I like that Obama’s fairly new — I’m convinced that, as you start getting decades and decades of experience, you start to become too comfortable, stop really caring about your constituents, and lose sight of the big picture.)
I do think that for some nut cases who are wildly upset about Clinton losing Palin will make it a little easier for them to vote for McCain. But it will not be a deciding factor and very few Clinton supporters will actually vote for McCain when push comes to shove.
I couldn’t agree more here. I’m still pretty convinced that Palin’s gender definitely played a role, but I’d hardly be willing to say that it was her main qualification. (Then again, I really have no idea?) But the Clinton-for-McCain folks (I’ve _got_ to find the name they use; they had some catchy acronym, but it slipped my mind and I can’t find it.) seem to be in love with Palin. But much like you, I really can’t see all that many Clinton supporters actually voting for McCain. They’re polar opposites.
But history shows that a lot of people, men and women, vote for people for reasons other than issues.
I think that there are a lot of factors, and that some of them never even come to the surface. In deciding whether I was going to go to Babson or Bentley, the fact that Bentley offered a bigger scholarship was one of the things that helped me make up my mind. And yet it wasn’t really an important issue. But I just couldn’t make up my mind. Both were really good picks, I thought. If I was on the fence between McCain and Obama, and went to a rally with each of them, I’d probably end up picking Obama because he’s such a good speaker, and can move you so much, but that’s not _why_ I’m supporting him.
Then again, I don’t think many people give first impressions the credit they deserve, either. My first impression of McCain was that he was a lot “less bad” than the others running in the primary, so I kind of liked him. My first impression of Palin was that she doesn’t look like a stodgy old meanie, and that she’s at least a little bit progressive on some issues. (At least, judged against other Republicans.) And when your first thought is, “They’re not so bad,” your mind kind of works to support your first impression.
(Ack, Labor Day party guests are here… More rambling response to come later on.)
I’ve since found some faults, though I still think that, overall, she’s not that bad of a candidate. (Though I’m not yet convinced that she has any qualification to lead?)
While I applauded her canceling of the Bridge to Nowhere, a ~$400 million bridge to an island with 50 residents, it turns out that she actually supported the bridge until she got into office, which bothers me slightly.
It also turns out that McCain has met her once in his life, which also concerns me a bit. If I were running for President, I think I’d like to be pretty familiar with my VP. To me, it only furthers the appearance that she was picked more as a strategic move to counter Obama than as him picking someone to be his stand-in and a valuable member of the Administration. (Plus, as recently as August 4, she was praising Obama’s energy policy, though obviously only in parts, given her support for ANWR and whatnot.) It also turns out that she’s pretty strongly against same-sex marriage and the government providing benefits to same-sex couples, despite my earlier reception that she was fairly supportive.
The group you are looking for is PUMA.