OT: Woman on GOP Ticket?

McCain spends two months hammering Obama for being an inexperienced celebrity and then runs out and picks a former beauty queen with two years of experience as governor of the most backwoods and sparsely populated state in the Union. Oh, but before that she served on some city counsels and stuff. The VP debate with Biden is going to make Ghoulston-Schilling look like a pleasant give-and-take.

 I mean, she'll appeal to some women, sure. But people don't vote for president based on who the VP is. If so, Walter Mondale would have won.

All of that said, this is a nice pick and will give McCain some positive press, but things are FAAAR from locked up.

(Also, what's with all the politics in here lately? I thought that was somewhat verboten?)

Well, unlike McCain, she's actually conservative, so that will definitely help him. Conservatives should be very happy with this pick. I don't know if it will "lock" his chances at victory b/c he still has many flaws, but it's a step. Since the media & opponents haven't been able to demonize her yet like they already have McCain, Obama, Biden, et al, she seems like a really good fit for voters on the right.

helloheisman - Why is this insulting to women? I understand your claim about him not being able to use Obama's inexperience as much, however, the presidency and the vice presidency are different in terms of how much experience they seemingly should have (at least public perception wise, which is all that matters at this point).

And she's a creationist! Awesome!

I'm sure she'll do GREAT.

kinda cool that now we'll either have the first black president or first female vice president...or ron paul pulls the upset (which would also be a first)

I think McCain has his reasons, and she does have good qualities that conservatives are looking for, but I think this VP choice was just as flawed as Obama and Biden.

1. Undercutting themes of the campaign: McCain can't attack Obama's inexperience if Palin has even less experience than Obama.  Obama can't harp too much on changing Washington culture if Biden has been a 35 year insider.

2. Picking VPs from small states with tiny electoral votes that weren't going to vote for the opposite party.  There were a ton of VP possibilities from large battleground states, all of which have more than the minimum of 3 electoral votes of both Delaware and Alaska

3. It seems like the Palin pick was pandering towards women/younger voters.  After all, there were plenty of conservatives to choose from, but McCain lags far behind in women.

Yeah, she'll make conservaties happy, but so would Tom Ridge or Mitt Romney, who have lots more experience and could possibly make the difference in a larger, battleground state.  All in all though, Palin addresses some of McCain's weaknesses, just like Biden addresses some of Obama's weaknesses, like a good VP candidate should.

woooooooooooo, i'm a hockey mom!  and my husband's a fisherman and plays in the snow!  and i was on a couple commissions in alaska and have been governor for a tiny bit!  and now i get to be the VP nominee!!!   woooooooooooooo! 

about as presidential as my mom. 

he just needed someone young to run with to get the average age of his campain under 85

Palin's main strength is her ability to attract disenfranchised Hillary
supporters. And her anti corruption record. Two, her two major
strengths are here ability to attract disenfranchised Hillary
supporters and her anti corruption record. And she secures Alaska.
Three, her three major strengths are here ability to attract
disenfranchised Hillary supporters, her anti corruption record, and
that she secures Alaska. Also, she brings youth to the Republican
ticket. I'll start over.

I could see some women being turned off by this, but realistically, I suspect that the women who would be genuinely offended would mostly be hardcore feminist types, who almost certainly weren't voting for him in any event.  On the whole, it's probably a small net positive for him.  The bigger issue, I think, is not so much her gender as the fact that she's more conservative than he is and thus is an olive branch to the right wing of the GOP.  

I think that he found someone who is willing to challenge the status quo like himself, and I think that it showed tremendous courage. When I look at the other potential choices, I do not know that there were any who were demonstrably better for him (Lieberman would never have been acceptable to the conservative base, he and Romney attacked each other way too much in the primary season, picking Tom Ridge would have made it hard to separate him from W, Polenty would have brought many of the same concerns with regard to experience that she would, and it would have been a huge political error to go for Jindahl with Gustav on the way). I do not think that it is a good thing for the GOP that there were so few reasonable choices. I don't know much about her, but it sounds like she is a pretty good person, and I think that she helps McCain to secure his conservative base. Her pro choice stance will make a lot of Hillary supporters stay with Obama, and I think her selection was much bolder than the Sen. Obama's selection (she certainly brings less baggage than Sen. Biden). At the end of the day, I think that this election will be about Senators Obama and McCain, and I think that Obama will win.

What's a GOP? Is that a linebacker? How long until kickoff?

Did my favorite site just become Daily Kos or Red State.

Cripes......if i am unable to avoid the political debate at my mgoblog refuge, then its going to be a long fall.

Although, I will say at least this thread has been conducted with decency unlike most of political forums you can find.

my chest: fuck anyone with ties to the bush administration.

With that being said, this is a brilliant move by mccain.  The presidential election will not be decided by partisans.  He needed to grab middle ground voters, and after the crap hillary did at the convention you can imagine a lot of P'O'd women joining the mccain camp. (for some god awful reason).  Leave it to the GOP to find the one black person in the room and pretend he represents the party.  I'm sure this 'woman' is a religious nut who doesn't really support woman's rights.  She also highlights the issue of oil drilling.  

The only way this could backfire on him is if she's not 'conservative enough' for the religious nut base, which mccain has had to do a lot of lying and waffling to try to win over in the first place.  but from the few comments here it seems she's more nutty than chunky peanut butter.

I'm sure deibold will hand the election to the republican scum in the presidential election, I'm just hoping the people will vote in a super majority in the house and senate. Then mccain can go take his veto pen and assfuck himself with it for all I care. 

For the record, if you don't want to talk/read politics, you can easily avoid the post. It's not that hard. I see plenty of the most asinine freakin threads you can imagine on this site and choose to simply not read past the first post and/or to not participate. Unless Brian wants to regulate the board based on subject, don't be that guy/gal and complain about the topic of a thread.

Vote Putin in '08, you dogs

Her husband works for BP, the Dems can just rub everybody's face in that from here to the end and alienate enough voters from the McCain/Palin ticket.

We should've been drillin' in Alaska and elsewhere for the last 30 years as well as building refineries. Peak oil is nothing but an f'ing scam. The oil companies love the fact that we have a bunch of morons in Congress that haven't let us drill and keep the supply up with the demand. It makes them richer and richer.

Shikselover's mom may not be as hot, but she does do that thing with her tongue.

One of the criteria of nominating a VP should be their capability to act as commander in chief.  Someone who was mayor of a town of 9,000 people 2 years ago does not fit this criteria.

Oh, and the VP debates should be interesting.  And by interesting I mean a massacre.

. . . as long as he defends himself at all times.

 She's a committed Christian who's pro-life in practice as well as in
theory; she recently gave birth to a son that she knew would have Down
Syndrome.

I have, and always will be pro-choice, and suspicious of politicos wearing the "Christian" tag.  And in spite of that, this is perhaps the most exemplary thing I've heard a politician do.

There's a lot of people in this world who would not have taken this
route, pro-choice and pro-life (hypocrites). I admire the hell out of
her for this single moral choice. It's exactly what this country needs
- someone who practices what the hell they preach.