Palin Power! Politics Thread

by **Laexile** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 21:11:54

dajafi, I'll assume you've reviewed many of the laws Obama has passed. And that's where your judgement comes from. Have you done the same with Palin? His big advantage over her is that he's been in a national Presidential race for a year and a half and knows all the issues. Fortunately she's running for Vice President, where she'll have time to learn.

John McCain won't be the oldest man to take the oath. Ronald Reagan was. And somehow he made it through four years. He left office just shy of his 78th birthday. McCain has never had a life threatening illness and is in very good health. I know Democrats think he'll drop dead on day one, but he probably won't. Just ask his mom.

by **mpmcgraw** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 21:17:32

Cancer is life threatening.

by **Mountainphan** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 21:33:30

dajafi wrote:MP, I've read a lot of Times articles that have taken a harsh view on Obama. They endorsed Hillary. They covered the Wright thing, they've detailed his changes of position, et cetera.

The Palin piece today had supporters of hers as well as critics. But even if you believe it's a hit piece, does the pattern it describes concern you at all? These people are democratically elected officials with limited powers, not sovereigns who can use their powers to settle scores.

His record has been dissected by primary voters who chose to ride the wave of his personality and speech making 50.5/49.5 over Hillary Clinton.

I think this is at least a little presumptuous... even if I probably would have made a similar statement about Bush, bearer of a famous name and with the good fortune to have held a limited-power, part-time governorship in a booming economy, eight years ago. In both cases, whatever the reasons, the partisans get to pick.

Otherwise, I can only speak for myself--or at least I try to only speak for myself--but what I initially liked about Obama wasn't his political persona (and that criticism is a little rich for a defender of Palin), but his record. I think it's a strong one, in terms of the issues he's engaged with and helped pass laws around, both in Illinois and the U.S. Senate. The other aspect of it was what struck me as a strong, thoughtful, principled but non-dogmatic approach to public policy. At the end of the day, I think he's an empiricist--as FDR was, and as Reagan at his best was for that matter. I've looked into his advisers, I think I have a sense of his decision-making process, and I believe he'd represent my values (you know: radical Muslim, America-hating...) very well in the presidency.

I don't pretend that he's perfect or that he's never flip-flopped for political expediency, or shown questionable judgment. But I found him vastly preferable to Clinton on those questions--whom, of course, all Republicans now totally love and respect :? --and McCain.

You're right that Palin isn't running for the presidency. But the truth is that the guy who is, would be the oldest guy ever to take the oath. He's got some health problems. Her temperament, record and qualifications are more relevant than they might be if it were, say, Romney at the top of the ticket.

I believe you support him for the reasons stated above and I appreciate that you can only speak for yourself.

My concern is regarding the majority of people who still support him and at the same time run down Palin at every turn, often in a rather nasty way. Is it because of Obama's stated policies or more of a cult of personality type of thing?

To that point, here's the interview of Kirk Watson, Obama supporter, by Chris Matthews (before he got a case of the tingles running up his leg):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj4VK9wVAi0[/youtube]

by **dajafi** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 21:37:46

I saw that interview, MP. (And I think it was after the tingle... as well as Tweety's saying that "The press loves McCain; we're his base," and that unseemly speculative gushing about how Grampa Fred Thompson might smell.)

It was funny, and it certainly was embarrassing for the guy... but that someone I've never heard of came up small in his one shot at national exposure means no more to me than Tom Ridge, when asked how McCain would be different from Bush, saying "John Bush... John McCain is his own man." In the first case, you can blame the Obama staff for not prepping the Texas guy (or that he just got flummoxed by being on TV). In the second case, Ridge mis-spoke at the end of a long day. Neither means anything.

edit: also, to get back to the point Vox sometimes makes when he's not shooting virtual spitballs, a lot of the people who support Obama at this point presumably support him because he's a Democrat, and they're Democrats. Same with (I get the sense) many of McCain's supporters here.

I guess I could add that the research Paul could cite for us about how much most voters know about "their" candidates--or more to the point, the stunning misconceptions millions of them have (like the Bush 2004 voters who thought he was pro-choice!)--suggests that you're probably right in this case, but that it's also no more or less true of Obama than anyone.

Other than jeff2sf and, if/when he reaches voting age, young mpmcgraw, it's hard for me to believe that there are very many voters who are truly well-informed and engaged on the issues and up for grabs.

by **Philly the Kid** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 21:52:16

mpmcgraw wrote:95% of the outrageous stuff posted in this thread is you making ridiculous theories based on nothing and telling us to prove you wrong, 3% of it is jersey saying "i just wanna win man" which I argue he should be bannished to guam and have all his voting priviledges revoked for saying and the other 2% is me complaining in hyperbolic terms about whatever I have come across that has pissed me off that day.

So in summary, ITS YOU.

I'm yawning...

by **FlightRisk** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 23:25:33

McCain vs. Obama. Liberal vs. Liberaler. Yes, it's weird. But it's "their way".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UACdooVFClY[/youtube]

by **Woody** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 23:26:24

I want more dajafi v. DA KID political puglistic stylings

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 00:34:35

With Wall Street about to come unglued, it probably wasn't a good time for a McCain adviser to publish this.

by **Laexile** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 02:53:01

mpmcgraw wrote:Cancer is life threatening.

So is crossing the street. Skin cancer results in death less than 1% of the time. The majority of lung cancer patients will die within a year. 80% of people with stomach cancer will die within five years. Prostate cancer is lethal in 25% of all cases. Ovarian cancer, which is what Obama's mother died from, is fatal in 75% of all cases.

Skin cancer is almost always caught early, and if it is, it rarely is fatal.

by **VoxOrion** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 07:33:48

I love how Chomsky is celebrated for all his "citations". Then you start to check them out and realize that 70% of the citations are references to his own books and books written by other goof balls, the rest are cites to actual newspapers and journals, except he's sourcing some odd barely related tidbit.

Call me a wacky conservative, it really bothers me when I walk through the school bookstore every semester and see his books on the shelves for multiple classes.

by **drsmooth** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 08:38:58

TenuredVulture wrote:With Wall Street about to come unglued, it probably wasn't a good time for a McCain adviser to publish this.

According to the FDIC, there have been a total of 13 bank failures in 2007 and so far into 2008. There were 15 in 1999-2000, the climax of the Obama-celebrated era of Clintonian prosperity. And in recession-free 1988-89, there were 1,004 failures -- almost an order of magnitude more than today.

I'm probably just one of those exaggerators Luskin decries, but apparently he, a person well-versed in financial data, feels that it is the # of failures, rather than their economic magnitude ($volume of accounts, #accountholders, etc) that is of greatest consequence.

by **z ipper** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 08:41:12

Laexile wrote:
mpmcgraw wrote:Cancer is life threatening.

So is crossing the street.

lol not for all of us

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 08:43:06

Omigod.

by gr » Mon Sep 15, 2008 08:50:15

Chomsky's a tool. A friend of mine was a student at Cornell about 6 years ago and through a lexis-nexis search, was able to figure out that he ownes like 3 mercedes, 2 houses, and bunch of other things (4 boats?) acquired through the capitalist system he rails against. When he emailed him and asked how he justifies this seeming double standard, he got a back a reply that could only be lableled as yet another worthless disertation no one needs to read. If I can find it, I'll post it. He used to have it on his livejournal.

Love those millionaire socialists.

EDIT: OK, I found it, he still has it up. Entry is here. I got some of the facts wrong when I first posted here. There is no glut of cars, I was thinking of the boats. My mistake. IU misremembered, as soneone once said.

EDIT: Ha. LGF blogged about this. Totally forgot about that.

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 09:01:45

On the Chomsky tip, I highly recommend Unused Audio Commentary for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky from the last McSweeney's humor collection. It's brilliant.

by **dajafi** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:34:41

gr, is that noted Ovaltime comic Kenny Banya in your avatar?

by **Bob Loblaw** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:47:29

Palin doesn't have bikini lines

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:01:27

So the old dude with (OMG not deadly!) skin cancer picked the hot young chick with the tanning bed. Delicious

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:14:52

Laexile wrote:
mpmcgraw wrote:Cancer is life threatening.

So is crossing the street. Skin cancer results in death less than 1% of the time.

Skin cancer is almost always caught early, and if it is, it rarely is fatal.

True. But having a melanoma or three ain't your garden variety skin cancer.

I'd imagine the mortality rate quoted below has improved slightly since 2001 (pasted from an article about McCain, btw) but it's still no picnic--and much higher than the 1% you threw out there.

This year, the American Cancer Society estimates, 51,400 people will be diagnosed with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, and 7,800 will die from it, Kalb reports.

7800/51400 = 15.2%

I don't think McCain's health history is that big of a big deal, but since he's had melanoma on at least three separate occasions, it's not totally insignificant, either

by **BuddyGroom** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:29:33

Laexile wrote:
Mountainphan wrote:
BuddyGroom wrote:America is being dumbed-down, and the conservatives are leading the charge.

And this is a dumb statement.

Especially considering that the Dems have a candidate who is running on the important policy issues of "hope" and "change." It took Hillary a long time to figure out running on experience and understanding the issues was a little too complicated for America.

Wrong. There is no sense among Democrats that Barack Obama doesn't "understand the issues" - whatever that means. The narrow selection of Obama over Clinton was based on a lot reasons - among them not wanting a return to Clintonism, a sense that Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton would smack of monarchy, and, oh yeah, the fact that Clinton supported much of the Bush administration war policy and Obama did not.

Not sure, either, how campaigning on themes of hope and change is dumbing down - at least not to the extent of right-wing themes like creationism, homophobia, hatred of the poor and hatred/distrust of the "other." Their may be an equivalence there - but I really don't think so.

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Palin Power! Politics Thread

Sarah Palin: Great VP pick, or the greatest VP Pick?