Palin!?

[arkster]

Sarah Palin!? Are you fucking kidding me. How dumb do they think women are.

I'm looking at this, and looking and looking, and all I can see is that this is a move based on an assumption of the fundamental stupidity of American women voters. You can't have Hillary, so why not vote for an anti-choice woman with wayyyy less experience than Obama? SHE'S GOT THE XX, LADIES, VOTE FOR HER. Never mind that she's apparently being investigated, currently, for abuse of power of the governorship. Jesus.

Kay Bailey Hutchison, now, I woulda been worried. KBH would have been a fucking scary choice for a McCain win. But Palin? She's not a VP. She's barely a VP candidate. Are they even thinking about what happens if (god forbid) they get to the White House? Because all this looks like is a move designed to feed the polls.

Comments

[jijnasa.livejournal.com]

I agree...but even if that was McCain's motive, there were better ways to achieve the same end. There have to be better female republicans out there. Maybe the others just had enough principles to refuse to be a thinly veiled lure for disgruntled Hilary followers?

[arks.livejournal.com]

Either that, or the others are smart enough to be pro-choice? I can't think of any other reason they wouldn't tap KBH.

[jlc.livejournal.com]

That's the entire reason, of course. It's a horribly brilliant attempt to play towards ticket diversity while shoring up the ridiculous anti-choice, anti-thinking base.

[maggiekarp.livejournal.com]

Mom said it was because she had a downsbaby so she'll be harder to attack, but I haven't seen anyone else say this.

[arks.livejournal.com]

The downsbaby makes it thorny. I've seen a few comments on left-blogs about 'betraying her family values' and 'abandoning' the kid to run, but uh, as a line of attack that just makes the left look terrible. Then again, if somehow she or her handlers use the downsbaby as a defense, that could easily make THEM look terrible. I harbor (likely futile) hope that the kid will just not enter the discourse.

[jijnasa.livejournal.com]

Hold on a second...she's using her child for the purpose of self-promotion and she wants to drill for oil in Alaska? I can see where this is going...

[nistelle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but a lot of centrist women are appalled that she would be subjecting herself to such an ordeal when she has an infant baby, with Down's nonetheless, to care for. Sounds sexist, since her husband's taking care of the kids a lot of the time, except (1) a lot of these women would be as appalled if a man with an infant downsbaby were doing the same thing, and (2) the ones who care so deeply about "traditional family values" are indeed sexist and do indeed expect her, as the mother, to be the one to take care of her children.

This has been the reaction from a lot of my mother's older friends.

[khab-rmb.livejournal.com]

The pitch from the National Review types is that she's a) young and pretty b) "a real American" who likes to hunt and fish and drill for oil and kill charismatic megafauna and reproduce as much as possible c) an evangelical Christian and d) capable of learning quickly. Also, she's the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, and Alaska borders Russia so she's qualified on foreign policy (?????). They see her narrative as "woman from a working class background who rose to power by fighting corruption" which may or may not sell. The Republican base is delighted by this pick, to judge from the Corner.

She's clearly intelligent and gifted at political maneuvering, but seriously, wtf?

[arks.livejournal.com]

Ah. Great. So she's their 'likeable' person.

[khab-rmb.livejournal.com]

Dontcha know, she eats mooseburgers!

[sharkswlazers.livejournal.com]

dude,
it is such a poor choice that of course no former Hilary supporter will go for it. It's just McCain being dumb yet again. I think it's funny. Let us mock her! Let us mock McCain! Hoho!

[nistelle.livejournal.com]

I know it's 95% sure to be a suicide move, but I am honestly scared now of the both of them and will have to leave the country if they manage to get voted in.

A part of me feels really mad for her, as well. She's being used in the most basic sense. They're going to feed her lines and hide her from the press whenever they can and control her completely; they have to. And she'll accept it. She already accepted with a thousand-watt grin.

[coppelius.livejournal.com]

The fact that it stinks so of gimmick is actually what wrings the concern out of me. It's TOO obvious, it's TOO simple, what the hell else could they have up their sleeves? D8

[arks.livejournal.com]

My back-home types have been telling me this is about solidifying the base, with the creationists and the rural types, as well as giving an 'out' for people who can say 'see, I'm not bigoted for voting against the black guy, I'm voting for the chick!'

Personally I also think that anyone they picked was going to crash and burn against Biden in debates, so this will be a Bush v. Gore-type defense where they lower expectations for Palin as far as they can and then call Biden a bully. I do not think it will work near as well.

Otherwise, I can't see it. =/