The Campaign Spot shows us numbers that indicate Palin delivered for the Republican ticket, and talks about her future in politics.  I would like to see her stay on the national stage, so we can get to know her better. I have my disagreements with her on some social issues, but I don’t think she’s the kind of social conservative who will want to shove her social values down everyone else’s throats. I’m hoping she can develop into the kind of political personality that can hold the base together, and appeal to more conservative independents.
16 thoughts on “The Palin Effect”
Comments are closed.
She’s the kind of Republican we need, the Conservative kind, not someone who’s looking to compromise their beliefs all the time in order to “reach across the aisle.” I’d love to see her stay in the national spotlight because of her Reaganesque toughness.
I guarantee you that you and I disagree on social issues, but from what I’ve seen of her actions, she’s a lot like me.
I’m not into the whole gay thing. Don’t particularly care for the lifestyle, and it’s not for me. But I also voted against Amendment 2 here in Florida (which $#&(* passed) which basically bans gay marriage, because I don’t believe my social morals have to be yours. Especially when they don’t affect my family.
I’m actually *very* socially conservative, but never in a million years would I vote to require you to be. Palin has voted in ways that show she feels the same, and I respect that.
I truly don’t understand the reaction of the David Brooks wing of the GOP to her. I’m forced to conclude that it’s snobbery – that when it came down to it, Columbia and Harvard versus the University of Idaho mattered more to those folks.
It bothers me that someone who thinks Africa is a country and doesn’t know what countries make up North America was a benefit to the Republican party. Knowledge matters, and wanting your leaders to be better than mediocre doesn’t make someone elitist or a snob.
I don’t understand where this “I want someone just like me” trend came from. I thought we were supposed to have higher standards for the highest offices in the land. I want someone who UNDERSTANDS someone like me, but I don’t actually want them to BE just like me—because I’m certainly not in any way qualified to be VP, and I know a fuckton more about the world and foreign policy than Sarah Palin does.
And I didn’t go to college at all.
Guav, the Africa thing isn’t verifiable, just a rumor. Palin was specifically targeted by the media to look ‘stupid’. I don’t think she interviews very well, but I’m of the mind I want someone who thinks more like me than someone who thinks they know what’s best for me.
Obama, Biden, and McCain are just as ignorant on as many topics as Palin. Sarah just isn’t as polished of a bullshitter as the others and it comes across as “dumb”.
Guav: Knowledge doesn’t honestly matter, because most voters aren’t knowledgeable. Knowledge can also be gained, and I think Palin is a lot smarter than her detractors give her credit for. She has work to do, but she has good instincts. She can pretty much write her own future at this point.
Guav: The fact that the next president says there are 57 states is also bothersome to me.
Robb, she was not specifically targeted by the media to look stupid, she was just totally unprepared for the interview and the national spotlight. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the questions she was asked, she just couldn’t answer them well. She doesn’t interview well, she doesn’t debate well—says a whole lot of words and doesn’t answer the question—so what is it that she does do well? Read scripted speeches? Anyone can do that. I just see in her a female GWB, and I’m very much not interested in that.
Sebastian, knowledge matters to me in a candidate—I know most voters aren’t knowledgeable, but most voters are not trying to VP or POTUS.
And there’s a difference between being stupid and being ignorant or unknowledgeable. I don’t think she knows enough for the office for which she was running, but I don’t actually think she’s stupid. Yeah, she’s smart—but she’s also incurious and not knowledgeable enough.
Like you said, that can be fixed. When it is, I’ll reassess her.
Zeron, obviously Obama does not actually think there are 57 states—it’s misspeaking—just like I know Palin does not actually think that Afghanistan borders the United States. I can easily forgive gaffes like that on both sides, everyone makes those.
“obviously Obama does not actually think there are 57 states—”
And yet you claim Palin thinks Africa is a country?
I disagree that “she was not specifically targeted by the media to look stupid” and that “was absolutely nothing wrong with the questions she was asked.”
Of course she was targeted, the MSM hated her from the instant she was picked and many of the questions were “gotchas”. I do agree that she could have answered better, but the questions were not designed to gain information — they were to stump her.
The fact that the Gibson interview was extremely edited (to the point that her answer was from another question than the one they asked) tells me that they were out to get her. Yeah, even the raw footage it wasn’t a great interview, but they made her look far worse than she was and had too many gotcha’s when Gibson was actually wrong. (The Bush Doctrine, Exact Words, etc)
Robb: She wouldn’t be the first person to think so—I’ve actually encountered someone who thought that before. I find it conceivable, yes. Geography is not everyone’s strong suit. I’m far less troubled by that then her not knowing who NAFTA involved or making fun of fruit fly research. Or sitting there telling us that she was not found guilty of any unethical behavior or wrongdoing when the verdict was the precise opposite.
Tom: the McCain campaign has said there was nothing wrong with the questions—they were all perfectly legitimate. If you want to see how a prepared candidate handles a tough interviewer, watch O’Reilly’s interview with Obama. O’Reilly was aggressive and combative—and that’s fine, because he should have been. But Palin has never faced an interview like that, and probably never will. Katie Couric is not exactly known for her toughness. “What news sources do you read” is not a “gotcha” question.
Guav, who cares is she was the first or last person given that there’s no proof she actually said it???
I agree though that she didn’t interview well. However, I attribute it to “Oh crap, what can I say that won’t piss of half the country that already hates my guts” more than ignorance.
But between you, me, and every last human on earth, I prefer my politicians to not understand the intricacies of fruit fly reproductive systems. I work in the computer programming business and there’s nothing more destructive to a working application than a VP who remembers a little code from ’74 and thinks that gives them all the know how to tell me how to write the system.
The US is too big for any one person to know every last bit about how it works. Even as a developer, I don’t know a lot of the features available in the frameworks I use. What I AM good at is figuring out things in short order and understanding how they all fit together. I want that from a politician more than I want them to be able to recall the names of the last 7 sultans of Shitcanistan.
Hell, I don’t know everyone involved in NAFTA.
Robb, I certainly don’t expect her to know anything about fruit flies—I sure as hell don’t—but she had just got done talking about how:
And then she says something like ….
…. without, apparently, knowing that fruit fly research is the cornerstone of much of modern genetic research—and has been key in understanding autism.
Yeah, I get it: it sounds funny, and it’s fun to make fun of France too. But this is stuff you learn in biology class. It’s in the news. I don’t expect our politicians to understand all of modern science, but it shouldn’t be too much to ask for them to learn about it before they mock it. It’s not even like someone asked her what she thought about fruit fly research and she didn’t know the answer so she winged it—she brought it up.
I’m tired of this anti-knowledge, anti-intellectualism that’s going around. It’s the same thing that happens in the inner cities where kids who bother to learn are mocked, beaten up and accused of “acting white.” Yeah, that’s working out real well for them.
Right. And I’m willing to wager you don’t present yourself as someone who knows enough about them to speak on them, and you probably don’t make fun of them. Mocking shit you don’t understand is just ignorant. Period.
I don’t expect you to—you’re not running for Vice President of the United States. If you were, I’d expect you know. It involves North America, so it’s the US, Canada and Mexico.
Guav lost me at comment #8. He’s willing to give Obama a pass on the “57 states” , but Palin is just ignorant.
His mind is made up, and I wouldn’t waste time arguing with him.
As I already explained, there is a difference between misspeaking and not knowing things. I give Obama a pass on things like for the same reason I give Palin a pass on things like that–I don’t for a minute think she thinks Afghanistan borders the US–she just misspoke. It doesn’t bother me when candidates make verbal gaffes or misspeak, it bothers me when they don’t have a basic working knowledge of important issues.