Beyond the Palin
Attention all those who want to defeat McCain-Palin: please ridicule Sarah Palin. Five kids with silly white trash names! She was the mayor of a small town! Ha! I mean, look at her — she must be dumb! And where did she go to school? I mean, come on! I mean, is McCain serious? What a joke. Her mere existence is an insult to women. She eats moose, she rides a snowmobile, and she supports drilling.
Serious people, incidentally, don’t support drilling: serious people support clean-coal-powered automobiles built by un-outsourcable American workers, each of which will be available at subsidized prices to all Americans. I mean, everybody knows that. Come on.
Yes, yes. Let’s keep it up, folks. While we’re at it, let’s bring Amanda Marcotte on board as the official anti-Palin blogger.
Here’s one line I found particularly amusing, via New York:
She’s the same age as Barack and has two years less experience on a national level, which will deflate the McCain campaign’s arguments that Obama himself is too green to be elected.
Notice how much “national level” experience is doing in this sentence. Bill Clinton, of course, had no “national level” experience. Rather, he ran as a Democrat in Arkansas during the Reagan era and won. Clinton was younger than Obama when he ran. But the nature of his experience — his non “national level” experience — was different in significant ways.
patronization bordering on misogyny and snobbery bordering on classism is ok if directed at a conservative. :-)
(i am personally skeptical about palin…but some of the criticism has been a bit much; a VP candidate does not a supreme court nominee make)
— razib · Aug 30, 07:18 AM · #
Reihan, I ask this question in total honesty, what are Democrats like me supposed to do except ridicule Sarah Palin? By that I mean, we can’t attack her on the issues – like foreign policy, for example – because we have no idea where she stands or if she’s even seriously considered anything outside the purview of the 600,000 person state she’s governed for less than 2 years.
The other line of attack we’ve been using (I got the secret blogger attack codes this afternoon) is that her experience governing Alaska – a state where everyone gets welfare from oil royalties and has fewer people than Indianapolis – isn’t exactly relevant to being a Vice president with a non trivial chance of assuming office. Is that somehow stupid or irrelevant?
Perhaps we should be ridiculing McCain, who seems to have made a pick that’s all about winning the next news cycle as opposed to actually governing. Now, I’m sure you disagree with just about everything I just said, but was any of what’s above constitute unfair “ridicule” of Palin? If it was, what attacks should we launch without being unfair and patronizing?
One more note – I think the experience argument is a tad oversimplified. It is, of course, OK for a governor to run for President or Veep. They’re have been a lot of them, and they didn’t get into the White House not knowing jack shit about foreign affairs (our current president notwithstanding). But Clinton, for example, at least showed some intellectual curiosity and had intelligent things to say about foreign policy. He was able to convince his party that he was the best nominee and had the faith of plenty of foreign policy pros. Palin, in contrast to Clinton or Obama, doesn’t seem to have much interest in foreign policy, much knowledge about it or anything at all to add to the discussion. I think much of the “inexperience” charge is just a simplification of that basic narrative.
Reihan, I’m afraid that your famous good will and intellectual sympathy is making you think more highly of Mrs. Palin than he deserves.
(sorry if this comment sounds super snarky, I tried to rein it in…)
— Matt Zeitlin · Aug 30, 07:58 AM · #
Really, you want to compare Sarah Palin to Obama or Clinton-92? What exactly does Reihan know of Mrs Palin’s views. She comes from fundie town of 7000 and seems to all the views that go with it (Creationism, Global warming denialism, anti-choice). I will agree that Obama’s speech had its flights of fantasy but it is absolute lunacy to think if you think Palin represents a leader of a 21st century superpower.
I thought Reihan was a serious conservative.
— dewces · Aug 30, 08:27 AM · #
Neither Reagan nor Clinton had any experience in national-level politics. Both were able to convince enough voters they were capable of governing the nation by their command of the issues. Obama has precious little time in the Senate. But on the stump and in his interviews, he shows he is no lightweight.
The buzz on Huckabee was that he’d be out of his depth as a VP pick and the same was said by those who knew of Palin. People with qualms over Obama’s nous are not going to be happy with a 72 year-old cancer survivor picking about the least-qualified person he could find.
— Ali Choudhury · Aug 30, 09:59 AM · #
I just want to say, all the Palin posts here are excellent. I probably wouldn’t have made that pick but the more I think about it and the more I see the excitement around it (and the Dems’ haphazard reactions) the more I think it’s the right one.
— PEG · Aug 30, 11:09 AM · #
There’s a difference between someone like Reagan or Clinton who stood before national primary audiences and convinced people that they could lead the country, and someone like Palin who convinced one particular old man that he’d help him win the PUMA vote. In contrast to Choudhury, I think that even separates her from someone like Huckabee, who at least had a respectable showing in the primary (get rid of winner-take-all rules and the dude would at least have been king-maker).
Frankly, she doesn’t even have very much state level experience, so comparing her to Clinton or Reagan (or even Huckabee!) here is a stretch. I guess we should notice how much “national or state” would be doing in that sentence?
Honestly, if you stopped typing after the Marcotte line, this wouldn’t be a bad post at all. But I’m glad you continued, because, hey, if people as smart and reasonable as Salam can be driven this insane by the election to write something like the final paragraph, well, maybe I don’t feel so bad about some of my excesses.
Let’s just pray that our sanity returns in ’09, whoever wins.
— Consumatopia · Aug 30, 11:32 AM · #
Does McCain know that if Palin gets hurt or is in a car accident or something, he can’t trade her in for a hotter, younger VP?
Sorry to be glib, I still can’t support an adulterer. That’s why I’m glad John Edwards did not get the Democratic nod even though he had the decency not to marry his mistress.
This VP choice for McCain doesn’t feel Maverick.
It feels Rove-ian.
And that unsettling suspicion is not how I want to approach the next 4 years.
I miss the old John McCain.
— Terry · Aug 30, 12:01 PM · #
@ razib
“Reihan, I ask this question in total honesty, what are Democrats like me supposed to do except ridicule Sarah Palin? By that I mean, we can’t attack her on the issues…”
Why can’t you attack her on the issues? Believe it or not, Alaska IS a state in the union (and an important one as well). Alaska does have a complex government and political structure. And she has been the executive of Alaska’s system for 2 years. I’m sure there are many decisions made over this interval and statements made running up to it that Democrats can critique and use against her and the GOP.
For example, John McCain has made his service, experience, and readiness as Commander-in-Chief the primary focus of his campaign; simultaneously he has mocked Senator Obama for his lack of these credentials. The selection of a small-state governor with seemingly no position or even interest in foreign policy for the VP spot is certainly worthy of the “hypocrite” critique. In fact, if you go to Andrew Sullivan’s blog, it’s saturated with these attacks. I disagree with them, but they are viable points that can and should be brought up.
However, to marginalize a VP selection when many complaints along the same lines can be made about the Democrats selection for PRESIDENT is a bad idea. Here is where the “elitist” charge that Dems and liberals hate comes into play. Because Senator Obama is a Harvard-educated, Constitutional legal scholar and political careerist with 2 books about himself we are supposed to take him seriously….but we are supposed to dismiss Governor Palin as a serioius VP selection because she is the Governor of (only) Alaska, with no national press coverage, no political soundbites, no biographies or campaign books, no Ivy League education, and seemingly no statements on hot-button national issues. However if you were to actually evaluate her political ACCOMPLISHMENTS over Obama’s….well then we would have another story wouldn’t we.
Reihan’s just saying be wary what you ask for.
— mattc · Aug 30, 12:20 PM · #
What an amazing pick by McCain!! Gov. Palin brings in a distinguished record of executive experience, running a successful and popular Government in Alaska. An ideal ticket is one where 1 person brings in the Washington experience/foreign policy/national security experience and the other brings in executive/administrative experience. This can be seen from all winning tickets in the past few decades. The republican ticket is the perfect ticket now. She has a record of clean governance, bipartisanship and reducing wasteful spending and is an ideal choice for McCain’s VP.
For all those who wish to raise the ‘experience’ question – do you honestly believe that Gov. Palin is too inexperienced to be President (a post for which, btw, she is NOT running for) despite being the Governor of Alaska for nearly 2 years and a mayor for many years before that, while Sen Obama is experienced enough to be President (a post he is running for)? If you honestly believe Palin is inexperienced, there is now way you could support Obama. Palin brings in executive experience, McCain and Biden bring Washington, foreign policy experience – what exactly does Obama bring in? Neither of the 2.
Also, it is incorrect to see the choice of Gov Palin as a gimmick to pander to the women voters. While that is a bonus, the most important point is that she would be an excellent person for the role of VP in McCain’s administration, with the executive experience, to help him run the country effectively. None of us know too much about her, but whatever little Ive heard so far is immensely impressive. I request all voters to give her a fair chance, do some research and find out about her, and you will see that her candidacy is no gimmick.
— James Downing · Aug 30, 01:08 PM · #
Alaska does have a complex government and political structure. And she has been the executive of Alaska’s system for 2 years. I’m sure there are many decisions made over this interval and statements made running up to it that Democrats can critique and use against her and the GOP.
You’re right. This a good point that inspired me to actually look at her record (okay, I just opened up wikipedia, but hey that’s something). Specifically, it’s interesting that Gov. Palin supported taxing oil industry profits. And her $1200 payments to Alaskans as energy relief kind of looks like Obama’s energy relief.
Maybe she’s not so bad.
I still think this pick reflects badly on McCain. With the VP, who’s only expected to become important in the middle of a national crisis, I think foreign policy is the central issue. And she really does have no record, views, or accomplishments there at all.
kudos to mattc for a great comment. Reihan’s last paragraph is still crazy, though.
— Consumatopia · Aug 30, 01:39 PM · #
Reihan – that nyt quotation actually does count Palin’s gubernatorial as “national experience” — thus it notes that Obama has two years more experience than her and doesn’t say that she has no national experience (which would be more accurate, though not necessarily desirable).
I do think you are right as to the larger issue though – dems who mock Palin play right into her hands. (You’d think the lessons of the primary would still be fresh.)
— berger · Aug 30, 02:15 PM · #
After the primary campaign, ridiculing any woman is bad strategy and tends to open up the wounds of the primary campaign among former Clinton supporters now working for Obama. Certainly it reawakens my anger that Obama didn’t chose Clinton as his running mate.
Obama should take the high road and leave Palin alone. Attack McCain’s judgment in selecting a running mate whom he seems to know less well that I know the used car salesman who sold me a ford last week.— Redstocking Grandma · Aug 30, 03:04 PM · #
Reihan: McCain has brought up Jimmy Carter’s unsuccessful term in office a few times. A major factor in Carter’s failure is that he did not know how things worked in Washington.
Palin has the same problem. What differentiates Obama and Bill Clinton from her is that they both prepared for their presidential runs by networking extensively, asking the right people the right questions, and reflecting on the answers they got. Palin seems to have done none of that preparation (and, to be fair to her, she had no reason to do it).
If McCain-Palin is elected, and McCain dies early in his term, we will get the second Jimmy Carter administration that McCain warns us about, and it will be his fault.
— Steve Casburn · Aug 30, 03:43 PM · #
“Reihan, I ask this question in total honesty, what are Democrats like me supposed to do except ridicule Sarah Palin?”
Seethe more quietly, so as not to further embarrass yourselves?
— Jim Treacher · Aug 30, 06:01 PM · #
I’m the I totally agree. Trying to keep it fairly light-hearted on the site. There are a ton of really obvious jokes I could make, but really not interested in making it too political. Still, the selection is still a bit out there and jarring.
More importantly, the photos of her are beyond ridiculous. I’m an Obama supporter but always been registered Republican. Above all else, though, I am a proponent of poking fun when it is deserved.
And stuff like this (http://lolpalin.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/we-r-herr-2-pillaj-u/) and this (http://lolpalin.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/and-a-bear) simply cannot be ignored.
— Shawn Shahani · Aug 31, 03:27 AM · #
18 million Americans went to the polls and made a judgement that Barack Obama was experienced enough to be president. John McCain and his cyncial Rovers made that judgement alone about Sarah Palin. There is a difference.
— Jerry · Aug 31, 12:02 PM · #
Oh dear, how silly you are.
Not married are we? Don’t have daughters do we? Never worked with women colleagues have we? Obviously not. I am married to a smart self sufficient woman and am the father of two competent, independent women medical doctors. I have worked with many achieving, smart and strong women who are in command of themselves and are absolutely solid in a crisis. Some beautiful, some not – there’s no correlation between smarts and looks don’t you know. (No you don’t)
Oh yes, my wife and daughters can all catch fish and light a camp fire.
Thank you for providing the “Joke of the day”.
— westerncanadian · Aug 31, 05:01 PM · #
“18 million Americans went to the polls and made a judgement that Barack Obama was experienced enough to be president. John McCain and his cyncial Rovers made that judgement alone about Sarah Palin.”
And Obama and his advisors made that judgment alone about Biden. I’m not sure you’re going to get very far with that one.
— Jim Treacher · Aug 31, 11:20 PM · #
This is what happens when we goto sleep for 8 years… they think we are mindless sheep that will believe whatever fear fear fear they tell us to believe McCains not really all that smart;http://www.debatetherace08.com
— Mrmoderator · Sep 4, 12:05 PM · #