All Posts Tagged With: "VP candidates"

A big thanks to my buddy Joe for sending this to me. This isn’t all that safe for work.

A friend of mine runs a blog called “Why We Need Obama.” He just put up a strong anti-Palin post that I wanted to refer our readers to. Click here to check it out.

I’m still sorting my personal views out on this pick. At the moment I think it was a smart political move. McCain needed a game changer. Picking Palin gave his maverick narrative a breath of life, it changed the story following a powerful Democratic convention. Despite her inexperience, many will find Palin a bold and compelling figure, including some former Hillary Clinton supporters.

That said, in terms of governance, this pick seems terribly irresponsible due to her complete lack of foreign policy experience and her weakness on economic issues. Also, as the post referenced above points out, it seems to have been hastily made without proper vetting. Before any of you McCainiacs come after me and say Obama = Palin on foreign policy, I’d remind you that Obama sat on the foreign relations committee for 4 years, which includes heavy briefing and study of the most pressing international issues that will face the administration.

I recently heard a former GOP congressional leader comment on the absurdity of letting one man (or woman) decide who the Vice President will be. I think there is very little doubt Palin would not have been the selection of the majority of Republican voters because of her inexperience on economic and international issues, and because of her far-right views on social policy. VP candidates should also have to run in a primary. The people deserve a say in who each parties VP will be, particularly when the candidate at the top of the ticket is a 72 year old former P.O.W. who is also a cancer survivor.

Sarah Palin has chosen to have a large family, which poses demands on her time. Is it fair to ask her how she would balance her young family’s need for a mother against the impossible rigors of the Presidency? Brain accuses Johnathan Atler of sexism for raising an issue particularly likely to be weighted by conservative republican “family values” voters. Is it sexist to ask a political question about whether this view of family values held by a portion of her base will impact voter turnout?

It is probably true that most commentators would hesitate longer in raising this issue if Todd Palin were the candidate, I wonder if that alone makes it fair to call the question sexist. Is this mitigated in any way by the political truth that a significant portion of her base includes “family values” voters who tend to think a child’s mother should play a significant role in child rearing, particularly in the child’s younger years?

How about a different, but related question: “Governor Palin, do you intend to have more children in the next eight years?“

Something just feels wrong about asking that, and the follow up of “do you use birth control” seems pretty squarely out of bounds. Still, having a child at her age carries with it attendant health risks. How would the American people feel about a woman in the third trimester of pregnancy trying to meet all the duties that come with that office? At what point would she invoke the 25th Amendment? Is it reasonable to ask if she practices safe sex. Probably not, but we did get to learn that Bob Dole uses Viagra! If there is much of a possibility she will have another baby, and she would invoke the 25th Amendment, should we be troubled by not knowing who she would nominate to be her VP if she were elevated (not knowing who would be running things if Am25 were invoked).

There are obvious birthing issues that apply to women and not men. We’ve never had to address these before as the only other female VP nominee would have been 50 when in office, and less likely to have another child. I’m interested in where the line between a fair question and a sexist question should be drawn.

McCain is getting a little bit of media attention with speculation that he will announce his VP choice this week. So far the sources lurk in anonymity. Contrary to what U of I alum Bob Novak claims, the McCain campaign is bluffing.

But this is a shrewd tactical bluff. The former media darling McCain is discomforted and perplexed by the media’s scant coverage of his lifeless campaign. Speculation he’s about to announce his VP carved out some coverage for McCain in a media week that would otherwise be consumed by Obama’s world tour. Reports are now saying the campaign will “hold off for now.”

A good friend of mine put it an entirely different way, significantly cruder way: “The VP thing was kinda smart, kinda sad in a way. It’s like a fat girl wearing a miniskirt in a last desperate act because it’s the only thing left that gets a look her way.”

It was a smart move, though probably a dishonest one. Incidentally, I think McCain should have picked this week, or better yet last week, or even better yet, the week before. The sooner the better.

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On an unrelated note, does anyone else think its lunacy that the selection of a VP is left to the whims of one man? After all, the VP is one breath of one man from being the leader of the free world. The public should have a much greater role in this pick. It is too important for a politician to pick some fool just because he might be able to carry an electorally significant swing state.

Part 5, Independent Senator and former Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Lieberman.

First, I’d like to point out that my good pal Billy Joe Mills has been talking about McCain-Lieberman for years. Here is his post on the “McCain-Lieberman Party.”

This would give McCain the opportunity to have his own “first” moment and capture a wave of news coverage. It would reinforce a message that he is better at working in a bipartisan way than Obama. Lieberman joining McCain would further Obama’s problems with Jewish voters.

McCain considered running with Kerry in 2004, and probably thinks that if Kerry would have asked him, they would have beat Bush. As we’ve seen over the course of this cycle, unlike the John McCain of 2000, the John McCain of 2008 is willing to do almost anything to win. I wouldn’t completely rule out him making a radical maverick play and asking his close friend Joe Lieberman to go beyond joining him on the trial, and join him on the ticket.