Chalk up another guy with Palin derangement syndrome. Rep. Charlie Range, Chairman of House Ways & Means Committee, suggested that Palin was mentally “disabled” (i.e. retarded) and therefore not viable as a vice-presidential candidate. Here’s the video including Rangel’s interview:
Oops. Well, not surprising given Rangel’s history. Even if Palin didn’t have a child with Down’s Syndrome, it’s still inaccurate and inappropriate. It’s hard to believe that a “politically” disabled Palin (or anyone) could work her way up from City Council to Governor with 80%+ approval ratings. The natural corollary to Rangel’s statement is that only “disabled” voters would appoint Palin in office - so do we infer that the state of Alaska, former Hillary supporters like Trump, and McCain are all “disabled” as well?
Backtracking a bit on statement by qualifying Palin’s disability as “political,” he then makes a strange argument for foreign policy, saying that proximity to a foreign nation has no bearing understanding that nation. No doubt Palin has a lot to catch up to foreign policy-wise; most governors (not to mention people in congress) who leap to the national stage do. But Alaska has long history with Russia, and yes, part of that has to do with its proximity.
And as the actual physically disabled person on the video points out, Rangel really puts his foot in it with a backhanded slap to one a revered Democratic model - Franklin Roosevelt, who suffered from polio.
Politicians may not agree with or understand many of their voters’ tastes or opinions. Obama’s gaffe about religion & guns is a case in point. Palin’s pro-life stance angers many self-proclaimed feminists. Too often, politicians and average political devotees hiss and boo blindly, with little or no regard for the object of their derision. To hear Sarah Palin described as “trailer-trash” only reflects the naysayer’s inability to recognize that a large contingent of voters (women, faith-foward, hunter, small-town & suburban, blue-collar) might identify with her accomplishments. Moreover, the politically astute consistenly fail to connect with these large voting blocs. However much democrats (secretly?) despise “trailer-trash” voters, to win this election, Obama will need these some of these blocs behind him.
Polls may indicate where the wind blows, but years of analyzing polls apparently can’t teach democrats how to best their frenemies.
A great article from Financial Times describes the democrats’ problem with learning to respect thy voter quite well. See the article here.
My favorite part about blogging with pictures, as in the “Sarah Palin Revealed in Shocking Photos” post, is how many commenters never bothered to read what I hard written. Both pro-Palin and anti-Palin folks came to the post with their preconceptions, and then commented without actually reading the post.
Amazing.
I’ll file “commenting on things you haven’t read” as a pet peeve.
Oh my God! This is outrageous. If that’s your reaction, you’re helping Sarah Palin and John McCain win in November.
Sarah Palin in an American flag bikini with a rifle at a shooting range. So a lot of women are thinking she looks great for a mother of five. Everyone else in the picture is in swimsuits and facing over the water. My guess is they’re at a shooting range.
A girl, who I guess is a Plain daughter, with some guy. They are holding three guns. The girl is wearing ear muffs (safety first!), so I assume they’re at some kind of shooting range. This may look odd in Boston, but in Alaska, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, etc., this is nothing unusual.
The same girl on the phone holding a bottle of alcohol. I assume she’s been drinking. So what.
Same girl and a friend holding more alcohol. Good times.
Same girl again doing a tongue out pose with a friend. This kind of stuff is common on facebook and myspace. This pose is extremely tame by those standards. Miley Cyrus anyone.
Two more girls with yet another bottle of alcohol. Looks like they did some damage to that bottle of Captain Morgan’s. Wake me up when something interesting happens.
Sarah Palin in a mini skirt. She looks like she’s ready to go out for the night. Besides gaining some male votes and making some women wonder how she pulls this off with five kids, what’s the gotcha here?
This is supposed to discredit Palin? If anything, it just reinforces positive feelings people have about her. The only thing remotely “wrong” here is the underage drinking. By putting all the pictures together, it implies Palin knows about the drinking and condones it. We have no evidence of that, but let’s assume she does. So what?
Two of the drinking pictures look to be at home. Most states allow this. I have no idea, and have no interest in finding out, but the drinking age in Alaska could well be 18. How old is this girl? I don’t know and don’t care. She has an underage daughter who drinks! For, yawn, shame.
Sarah holding a gun in a bikini. Now there’s a scandal. We know she likes guns, so what’s the problem? How dare a woman at her age with children wear a bikini! Are we seriously that backwards?
Look at Sarah Palin in the mini skirt looking like a hooker! I guess that’s the implication. First, I have no idea when this picture was taken. Second, let’s assume it was from the night she was picked as McCain’s VP. So? Women aren’t allowed to wear mini skirts? Is this 1948? Who thinks like this? Who thinks this is a problem?
Worst of all, how can a liberal use these to beat someone up. These photos show activities that liberals condone, indeed celebrate. Except from that the guns of course, because guns are bad, mmmmk.
Maybe the idea is that ultra conservative holier than thou types will reject Palin and her kids for these pictures. If someone thinks that, they just don’t know religious conservatives.
Update: A commenter just said that these pictures are photoshopped fakes. I was suspicious of the one of Palin in a mini skirt. It looks ’shopped to me. I was going to bother to check, but I just didn’t feel like it. It doesn’t matter. If they are real, it’s not a problem for Palin. If they’re fakes, that’s just more votes for McCain/Palin come November. Would a man be subjected to this? Hmmm, let me check my inbox for pictures of Biden in a speedo with a bong.
Sarah Palin struck the ball well and got on base. I don’t think the speech was a home run like some pundits, but Palin got the job done. That’s all she needed to do. Palin had to stand tall and show that she would not be pushed around by Obama’s attack dogs.
Palin showed she’s tough, willing to meet the challenge of a big moment in history, and able to weather the storm of criticism.
In the process, Palin diced up Obama nicely, providing the “red meat” the Replicrowd needed.
Palin’s line of the night: Obama has time to write two memoirs but no time to write a meaningful piece of legislation. Ouch.
Some Democrats and their surrogates are charging that the Sarah Palin choice is affirmative action. Most of the time it’s brought up in the form of a question to a Republican. The Democrat asking the question uses a sarcastic tone. Doing so is bad politics.
The sarcastic tone is meant to mock the Republican, but it makes it harder to separate the negative connotations from the Democrat asking the question.
Democrats strongly believe in affirmative action, so they should be thrilled.
Does anyone believe that a white man, who had Barack Obama’s identical message, resume and oratory skill, would have beaten Hillary in the primary?
I suppose the thinking is that hard core Republicans will view this “affirmative action” with disdain and sit out the election. If Hillary voters aren’t going to fall for the “Palin ploy”, is affirmative action baiting likely to work on Republicans? It might shave off a few votes, but Palin more than compensates by exciting the social conservative base.
Attacking Palin on experience is a loser and so is trying to charge McCain with affirmative action. Some Democrats are throwing out worse comments.
Shouldn’t she be with her daughter at a time like this?
Shouldn’t she be at home taking care of her infant son?
Yikes! Talk about sexism.
The woman is governor of a state. I don’t think going back to her day job is going to give her more time at home.
Call me crazy, but being VP might be easier than being a governor. As VP, you’re basically a figurehead at state functions, rarely vote in the Senate, and if, and only if, the President wants your opinion, you give it. You can be more activist as a VP, but you don’t have the responsibility the President (or a governor) does. The buck keeps going past you.
I’m no expert and I base this on absolutely nothing, but is having an infant with downs syndrome terribly different than having an infant in general?
I’m pretty sure the Palin’s are going to have help with their children whether she’s VP or “just” governor of Alaska.
Palin’s husband can deal with the kids. Why are people acting like she’s a single mom?
Barack Obama has young girls, why shouldn’t he be home nurturing them?
Michelle Obama works, is that wrong as well?
Coming from Democrats, these arguments are horrendous. This would be like Republicans going after a Democrat for starting their own company and selling it for millions of dollars. It just doesn’t make any sense.
More importantly, how are these arguments going to win over independent women and disaffected Hillary voters? If Sarah Palin has a strong showing with her speech at the RNC tonight, Democrats will be scrambling for another argument.
Democrats are using the argument that Sarah Palin is not the most qualified candidate for Vice President. Going down this line of reasoning leads us to examine all the candidates. Namely, is Barack Obama the “best candidate”. Yes, that was a voters choice and not a candidate’s choice, however, the question still comes up. Democrats, deep down, know that Obama-Biden is not the “best” ticket they could have put forward.
Late last year, I made predictions for the election (predicting: making unsubstantiated pronouncements and hoping one of them works out so you can claim you’re a genius). My analysis was this:
Hillary/X vs. Republican/X - Republican wins by less than 1%. If I had been smart enough to guess the nominee was going to be McCain (who at the time was broke and flying commercial by himself), I would have thought McCain by 2%+. Hillary is destroyed by the Bush->Clinton->Bush->Clinton argument. This is a year for change and Dynasty is off the air.
Obama/X vs. Republican/X - Obama wins by 1%. Romney, Giuliani, or McCain get edged by Obama. Huckabee gets smoked.
Now 1% isn’t a lot and either race could have flip flopped on the strength of one strange occurrence. But the Democrat uber ticket all along was Hillary/Obama.
Hillary has the baggage of dynasty. Obama inoculates against this.
What a historical ticket!
Obama gains much needed on the job training.
Democrats can look forward to 16 years in the White House.
There’s no way around the fact that Hillary/Obama was the best ticket for Democrats. Obama’s ego simply would not allow him to wait. He wasn’t running for VP. Obama wants all the marbles.
Saying Sarah Palin is not the best choice for Republicans brings up the issue of whether or not Barack Obama is the best choice for Democrats. We all know that’s not true, no matter how much we hope it would be.
Maybe Democrats finally realized attacking Sarah Palin on experience is a horrible idea. Bringing up a running mate’s lack of experience is a huge mistake when your top candidate has experience issues. Regardless whether you believe Obama is ready to lead or not, experience is not something Obama’s folks should be talking about.
Let’s be honest, Obama’s experience IS pretty thin for a President. An inexperienced VP who might be President if John McCain dies and dies soon is simply not a good counterweight.
Obama has defined his entire campaign on CHANGE. Why in the world he want to start talking about experience? Experience is not his strength and it’s not his core message.
So Democrats have dropped experience and gone after McCain’s lack of vetting. This is a much better line of attack. Unfortunately, this approach has a couple problems.
How many times did McCain talk to Palin and did the FBI do a thorough enough background check are a little too “inside baseball” to really affect the average voter.
Sarah Palin can completely obliterate the experience argument by having a fantastic speech at the Republican National Convention tonight.
Palin has a heavy burden today. Well see how she responds. If she performs well, Democrats will have to move on.
Sarah Palin is a genius VP pick for John McCain. To paraphrase Denzel Washington in Training Day - politics is chess, not checkers. Friday, John McCain made a strong move. So strong was the play, that McCain got at least 80% of the news coverage on the day after the most historic political speech in US history.
Sarah Palin balances McCain and at the same time reinforces and reinvigorates his image. Trying to attack her from the view of the Obama camp presents a conundrum.
The first move the Obama camp has made is to attack Sarah Palin on experience:
Obama camp: Palin is too unknown and inexperienced to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency with a 72 year-old John McCain at the helm.
McCain camp: As a three term mayor and currently the most popular governor of the largest land mass state in the nation, Sarah Palin has more leadership experience than Obama.
Experience is not a fight the Obama camp wants to wage. The Obama campaign and several surrogates have been shouting that the Palin pick nullifies McCain’s argument about experience. If camp Obama keeps this up, they lose. Saying that your #2 is just as unqualified as our #1 is just not a winning argument.
Palin helps McCain in the VP heads-up match. When Obama picked Biden, I thought this was a good choice because Biden has decades of experience and would prove an effective attack dog on the stump and in the VP debates. Sarah Palin nullifies this. VP candidate Romney, Pawlenty or Giuliani get destroyed by Biden in a debate. Unfortunately, Biden has one gear and it’s full throttle. This can go very badly in a debate. If Biden hits her too hard, he comes off as a old-school Washington bully. If he’s too soft, which is unnatural for him, he comes off as patronizing and demeaning. Biden will have to have a pitch perfect performance just to not come off as an ass. It’s hard to score political points under those conditions.
Palin helps McCain on the abortion issue. Since McCain has always been pro-life, I’ve long wondered why conservatives give him a hard time on this topic. Palin helps to inoculate McCain with the social conservatives. However, that’s not the real power of Palin vis-a-vis the abortion debate. Imagine this dialog at a VP debate.
Biden: This election is important. We have to preserve a woman’s right to choose.
Palin: Well senator, I have made a choice and my newborn son is alive because of that choice.
This is no-win for team Obama. In a normal election, you’ve got a bunch of men talking about women’s choice versus preserving life as if women are “others”, because, well, they are. Having a woman as a candidate, who has made a very real, very heart wrenching, very recent choice of this kind simply does not present an attackable surface for Obama-Biden.
On energy, Palin helps again. Palin is more pro-drilling than McCain, so this should be a soft spot.
Biden: We can’t destroy our native wilderness that must be protected for all Americans to enjoy by drilling in Anwr.
Palin: Senator, unlike Washington lobbyist talking about Anwr, I’m from Alaska. I’ve been to Anwr. I’m here to tell you, the people that live in Anwr want this drilling. The people in Alaska want this drilling. And senator, America, now more than ever, needs this drilling.
While it’s hard to really persuade people on this issue, I just don’t see team Obama gaining ground here while they risk losing a couple of points by even bringing it up.
The Obama strategy has been to paint McCain as Bush III. Well, if McCain’s own record doesn’t belie this, Palin strikes another blow.
Biden: We can’t afford more of the same.
Palin: You’re right. That’s why I fought corruption in Alaska. I took on corrupt Republicans and defeated the Republican incumbent governor in the primary. Then I defeated the Democrat, who was a former governor, in the general election. The first thing I did as governor was to kill that stupid Bridge to Nowhere which was concocted by the corrupt Republican Ted Stevens. And that’s what I’ll do in Washington. I’ll work to root out corruption endemic in ensconced, Washington insiders.
Mr. Biden, you have one minute to respond. Yikes.
On top of all of this, Palin is a “hockey mom”, a working mother, a hunter, and has a folksy accent. I can’t be the only person who thought of Fargo while she was giving her speech. Her husband is a union man who goes out to fish during the season (who didn’t think “Deadliest Catch”) and who works the oil fields in the off season.
The only weakness that has come out so far is that she abused the governor’s office to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his state job. Almost immediately it emerged that the brother-in-law is generally regarded as a jackass and is alleged to have tasered his own stepson and threatened the life of Palin’s father. Even if true, many will regard this “abuse” as justifiable.
Team Obama will have to settle on some line of attack. The choices are just not looking too appealing right now.
What can you say about the US Presidential election this week? No matter how you slice it, this was a fantastic week for politics and social progress in the United States.
Wow. Hang on tight.
Barack Obama made his historical acceptance speech as the Democratic nominee on Thursday. Friday morning, John McCain announces Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his choice for VP.
Just like that, we either get the first African-American President or the first woman Vice President in the history of the country. You can get better than that.
