City, Submitted Opinion - by Dene Chen on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 13:30 - 8 Comments
The Election is a Circus
Since John McCain announced his running mate about a week and a half ago, the general public has been blitzed by a fountain of information regarding Sarah Palin. It’s almost like the press is trying to make up for their ignorance of her during the first few hours of veep candidancy. I will never forget the reaction from one of my editors at the news organization that I worked at this summer– he had received the news via phone at around 10 in the morning– “Who the fuck… ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” before he started laughing.
He wasn’t the only one who reacted with humor to this. A friend who works at MSNBC said, “At first I thought it was funny. But then I started thinking about it, and I just got really angry.”
To be honest, I haven’t taken it too seriously, mostly because I trust that most Americans will just call bullshit. I just really want to believe that most Americans are intelligent enough to see past this gimmick. I should probably clarify here that when I say “see past this gimmick” I don’t mean “Any intelligent American will vote for Obama.” What I mean is that I hope voters, even the Republicans, can look at Ms. Palin and say, “The reason why McCain chose her is not because of her experience or credentials.”
Anyway, yesterday the Democrats and news media worked themselves all up in a tizzy because in the latest polls, McCain has gained about ten points, and most of them in white female voters. I really hate that this happened because I feel like this just played right into McCain’s ploy – like he’s sitting in his office, pumping his fists in the air and shouting, “HAH! I knew those women really are that stupid.” Robert Mcelvaine from the Huffington Post wrote a rather succinct piece about her views, which really helps cut through all the noise that the press and media is working through. Most prominently, Ms. Palin is a literal Biblicist, and she is against abortion, even when it is from rape and incest. No, seriously.
Historically, it seems that when things get tight in an election for the Democrats, they tend to say, “Don’t worry, we got it, we got it. It’s not that bad.” But when things tighten on the GOP, the Republicans start to throwing out panic signals and they run around saying, “Oh no, we’re gonna lose, we’re gonna lose - gotta kick it up a little.” Two good examples of how perpetual optimism got the Democrats in the gutter are Gore and Kerry.
According to the news media, this period will prove difficult for Ms. Palin because it is a time when everyone is focusing on her critically judging her. However, I think, more importantly, this is also be a time of judgment for Sen. Obama as he will have to figure out how to hold his hubris in check and to keep his language straight-forward and smart. The real reason why Sen. McCain chose Ms. Palin as his running mate, which was obvious from the get-go, is exhibiting itself right now – that the fact she is a woman will make it easier for critics to hurl the word “sexist” around when Sen. Obama criticizes her.
8 Comments
Chris Kennedy
dene chen
I suppose that is one way of looking at it. I don’t know if “stupid” is the right word, but she is definitely unaware.
Chris Maggio
no stupid’s the right word
When has a presidential candidate ever, in the history of American politics, not chosen a running mate for strategic purposes? Find another line of work.
I think the point here is that regardless of why VP candidates are picked, most of them can at least point to a handful of qualifications they have for being a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the land. Palin? Not so much.
She’s singled out corruption in her state, abides by her opinions, sticks to her guns, and has a platform that a LOT of conservatives agree with. She presents a powerful image and represents the same freshness that a lot of people admire in Obama. I don’t mind if you guys are liberal, but stop writing insanely biased essays and calling them analytical. Or at least have the decency to focus on your own side as well. Everyone knows Obama’s a G, everybody knows that, but it’s not like McCain is a Poltergeist. Frankly I’d take either of them over Hillary. Just be fair, it’s more interesting to read, and it’s better journalism.
If you’d like to run a pro-Palin op-ed, I’d be happy to publish it. But she’s only “singled out” corruption in her state to the extent that she’s actively participated in it by doing things like running for governor on a pro-bridge to nowhere platform and then lying about it, running the super-corrupt Ted Stevens’ PAC, and firing both a Wasilla librarian and the Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner under very suspect circumstances.
Also, you’ll notice at the top that this is clearly labeled as Opinion, and the word “analysis” doesn’t appear once in it. So accusations of bias don’t really make a whole lot of sense.
dene chen
Justin, I’d admit that this is a rather one-sided, but on the basis that I disagreed with her issues from a liberal stand point (the abortion and creationist issues)– which is rather pointless since if I am a liberal, of course I would disagree with that. I should have also linked to an article that was from a more conservative news source and cited from that instead of the Huffington Post - here’s one from the Wall Street Journal that focuses on her opinions on abortion and gun laws: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122107636582120477.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
My problems with her are the same problems that the McCain campaign had with Obama- that she is inexperienced when it comes to foreign policy (and if you’re about to start hollering at me about being a hypocrite for rooting for Obama, well– I am actually against him as the primary candidate. I always wanted Bill Richardson, so my hopes for America kinda dipped after he dropped out very early in the race.) If McCain REALLY wanted to go with a women to get the Hillary voters- which by the way, is ridiculous because everything Palin is like is nothing like Clinton- he should have gone for someone with more experience, like Elizabeth Dole, senator of NC.
Frankly, when I was writing this, I thought about putting up the video that the campaign made for the convention, but vetoed it because although it did put up all her good qualities, it made it seem rather like a parody- like all the aides who put together this powerpoint project were in on a joke. I’m sorry if you think that this is biased (it is in the sense that it’s an opinion piece- but not in the way you are referring to) but really, with this candidate- what the hell am I supposed to say? I can only direct you, once again, to the interview between Campbell Brown and Tucker Bounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMCp1vydEI&feature=relate
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He chose her because she is just about the only highly elected Republican politician that isn’t blatantly corrupt, divorced, stupid, or gay. Emphasis on blatantly.