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Frazzled, I agree some of the stuff with Palin has been nasty. However, the narrative that Palin's people pushed is "hockey mom -- five kids, one of them special needs -- pit bull in lipstick." All politicians use their family as props. But Palin did it a little more than most. Do that and you have to expect people to start looking for a soft spot there.

Both sides have spread a lot of ugly, vicious rumors in this race. No one's hands are clean and I don't think there's any high moral ground on other side.

Having said that, one thing we should all keep in mind is that these races always have and will always be dirty. Go back 100 or even 200 years and look at what candidates were saying about their opponents then. Elections = dirty. Just eight years ago, Bush's team spread rumors in the South during the primaries that McCain's adopted daughter was actually his illegitmate child with an African-American woman. Filthy stuff...but it is politics.

And for the record, I wouldn't have been opposed to any Republican. The McCain of 2000 would have created a tough decision for me. I told an Obama-supporting friend two years ago that the guy just wouldn't be ready to be POTUS in 2008. I'm still not sure that he is. But the McCain campaign created more questions for me than it answered. Mainly I'm not sure who the guy is anymore. And since I have questions about both sides, I'm going with the guy I think can be the more transformational and inspirational. I think the country needs that more than anything right now, not unlike 1980.

Regarding PanamaG's comments, he just echoes the thoughts of those in the GOP that helped make her nomination happen. I'll link the article again. Those are some serious conservative columnists, and they talk like little boys with a crush.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/27/081027fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1

Palin is a lot smarter than people give her credit for. It's pretty clear she knows how to use what she has to get where she wants to be, which is out of Alaska. She can't answer even moderately difficult policy questions...but the real problem for many is that she doesn't see this as a problem. Combine that with a heaping helping of ambition, and that's why many moderates and independents are scared of her. She has some real work to do there before she can win over a national audience.

Dee Dee Myers is on the other side of the political spectrum, but in an article I read she offered what I thought was some pretty good advice to Palin. Myers basically said Palin should spend the next several years becoming very active in that governor's association (whatever it's called), traveling, learning, and just basically forming a world view, then come back to the table. I think some time away would benefit her more than a rushed run in 2012.

Frazzled wrote:In defense of Palin, no one has asked about the legitimacy of the children of any of the other candidates, whether they are being unfit parents by working instead of taking care of the kids, or where their clothing was acquired. Absent PanamaG above, the responses so far have been from those that would have been opposed to any Republican. While PanamaG is equally onesided (no offense meant PanamaG) it is a counterpoint. Frankly most of the attacks on her have been grossly partisan, grossly personal, and just gross. Its representative of the problem of modern politics. The foam at the mouth types and gotcha media do not argue the issues, they attack personally (edit: and that occurs on BOTH sides).

There's been a lot of pretty crappy criticism of Palin. The stuff about her motherly duties meaning she couldn't fill the role was ridiculous, and should have been laughed back to the '50s. The hoohah over the daughter being pregnant out of wedlock was just tacky.

But you're being quite dishonest when you pretend that was the majority of attacks. Most of the attacks have been centred on her far right values, dangerous populism (they be spending $3 million on researching fruit flies in that wasteful govt), lying, gross lack of knowledge, refusal to do interviews, and willingness to play any card needed to attack Obama no matter how stupid (terrorist, maxist, 'other').

Oh, and 'gotcha' media is an invention of the right, trying to explain away Palin's Couric interview. Truth is, she wasn't even asked difficult questions. If there's something the US lacks, it's a real gotcha media, willing to ask challenging questions.

Palin was inadequately vetted. The McCain campaign did not do enough checking into her background and actual qualifications.

Palin’s inexperience and demonstrated lack of policy knowledge are big targets for criticism because they demonstrate pure hypocrisy on McCain’s part. His main argument up to her election was his superior amount of experience and foreign policy knowledge by comparison to Obama. The moment he picked Palin, he completely undercut his own strongest point and the main focus of his campaign. Being geographically proximate with another country does not automatically make you a foreign policy expert. But the best qualifications for foreign policy experience put forward by her or the campaign are a)living near Russia and b) being the nominative commander of the Alaska National Guard. Neither of which actually give you anything resembling foreign policy knowledge or experience.

Palin’s public hypocrisy on the subject of earmarks strikes a similar chord. At every rally and speech, and at the debate, she had decried funding by legislative earmark. But with the help of Washington lobbyists she employed, during her term as Governor Alaska got more money per capita in earmarks than any other state. Wasilla itself got 27 million dollars in earmarks. When she was first announced, most people knew of her as having opposed other, corrupt, Republicans in Alaska. When this impression and her record were examined, it was found that she worked closely with and supported Ted Stevens generally, and the “Bridge to Nowhere” project specifically, right up until it became politically expedient to distance herself from both.

Palin’s demonstrated inability to speak in an informed manner about policy (whether the Bush Doctrine or McCain’s record) in interviews was very damaging to people’s impression of her as an effective and informed politician. Her inability to name a single newspaper or publication she reads, not even local Alaska ones, was inexplicable in a politician, even more so in someone whose degree is in Journalism.

Her performance at the VP debate wasn’t terrible, but also generally came out as a negative. While she displayed charisma, determination, and drive, everything she actually said was from a very limited set of talking points, which she basically openly admitted early on, saying she wasn’t going to answer the moderator’s questions “the way (they) want (her) to”. Again, on personality people like her. But the knowledge isn’t there.

Her choice of attacks on Obama, including trying to paint him as a terrorist (or terrorist sympathizer) and as a socialist, betray a propensity to focus her politics on the dirtiest and most dishonest arguments of her party. No one in the center is likely to buy either argument. Which means she is doing it to incite the lowest passions of her base. The kind of folks who yell out “terrorist!” and “kill him!” at her rallies while she blithely nods and ignores those cries.

While attacks on family are certainly out of bounds, it is also not irrelevant to note when a family-values candidate has an unwed pregnant child. Especially if that person has supported abstinence-only sex ed, and presented their religious values as a superior model for parenthood and leadership on social policies.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:If she sucks so badly (as the US media seems to universally portray her) why did she have the highest approval rating of US governors (within their own state) pre nomination. (I don't know if the numbers have held up since the nomination).

When she's talking about issues relative to Alaska, she seems pretty cluey (I don't know Alaskan politics so what she was saying could have been gibberish, but she was certainly citing names and figures with comfort). I think its largely a case of her not really looking at the national political scene until everything suddenly fell into place and she was put on the Republican ticket and thrust into the national debate. If anyone was put on the national stage all of a sudden when they'd never really followed it before, they'd look pretty stupid as well.

I suspect that if this happened four years from now, in her second term as governor when she'd had a reasonable time to start looking at higher duties, her performance would have been a lot better. As for why they put someone on the ticket that hadn't really been involved or seemingly interested in national politics up to that point... that's a whole other conversation.

There was a large media bias against Hillary Clinton, and it seemed to just shift to Palin, whilst Obama continued to cruise on in his rosy coloured world of change...

I've yet to see Saturday Night Live parodies making out Obama as an idiot but there are plenty appearing for Palin...

Yeah, but there weren't any parodies of Hillary as stupid. But if someone gives interviews like the Couric one, spends their time winking and flirting with the camera, and explain that they have foreign policy experience because their state is near another country... don't you think you spend they should be mocked for being stupid?

I'm not going to argue that there aren't media problems with sexism, but it is not the source of Palin's problems.

On the stage, Mrs Palin did nothing but play her part as the energising number two to her boss with all the gusto that has made millions of Americans either fall in love with her or run screaming. (Four young men on the terraces here filed out early from the rally after being heard to complain loudly that Ms Palin was not wearing a skirt as they had been hoping.)

original article

Politics: U R doing it wrong !

Hey - at least in the US they have an attractive politician to look at. The closest we got in britain to glamour was Theresa May's tiger-print high heels...

*shudder*

You don't remember Edwina Curry in her younger days.

sebster wrote:Yeah, but there weren't any parodies of Hillary as stupid. But if someone gives interviews like the Couric one, spends their time winking and flirting with the camera, and explain that they have foreign policy experience because their state is near another country... don't you think you spend they should be mocked for being stupid?

We're talking about *comedy*, after all. With that kind of humor, you exaggerate a perception of someone to create a caricature. No one thinks Obama is an idiot, so building a caricature and skit along those lines just isn't funny. Building a skit around him as a holier-than-thou "chosen one" -- that exaggerates a perception and therefore could be funny.

Really, if people think SNL has some kind of political mandate to treat the parties equally or something, you've lost your grip on reality. Their job is to make people laugh (hopefully). Again, if you don't like the election results, play better next time and stop blaming comedy shows and other external factors. That goes for the Dems in 2000 and 2004 and the GOP in 2008.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Hey - at least in the US they have an attractive politician to look at. The closest we got in britain to glamour was Theresa May's tiger-print high heels...

*shudder*

Look up Pauline Hanson in google image search. Some folk were quite keen on her back in the day.

raise ya !

The Hanson lady googles a bit like the bird from garbage... Shirley Manson is it ? Believe she's in the new terminator TV series.

Pauline Hanson looks nowt like Shirley!

reds8n wrote:raise ya !

The Hanson lady googles a bit like the bird from garbage... Shirley Manson is it ? Believe she's in the new terminator TV series.

I know you warned me but even still... People weren't actually talking about being attracted to her though, were they? Because people were pretty keen on Hanson. Well, Queensland farmers were, anyway.

Actually I believe no one has ever been there at all. Ever. She makes a big thing of the fact.

*shudders*

meanwhile