I think the choice is clear.
Back in the day, the Republican/Democrat difference boiled down to things like the size of government, taxes, etc.
In 2008, it’s really very simple: Republicans want war, Democrats don’t. Everything in the Republican convention oozed war is good, more is to come. The choice is America’s to make… and honestly, a more war-loving nation I’ve not seen…
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WatchMojo NewsletterFrom MSNBC:
A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice.
This then begs the question, why? Why was Palin chosen:
Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could name as his running mate a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.
But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.
Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.
With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later.
“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”
I think Sarah Palin will pull out. That’s right… it will snowball into too much of a distraction.
“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.
“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”
This is getting interesting:
The woman introduced to America as a reform-minded Washington outsider who opposed the infamous “bridge to nowhere” — the symbol of McCain’s hatred of wasteful spending — originally supported its construction. The governor who in her introductory speech decried the practice of budgetary “earmarks” sought, as the state’s chief executive and as mayor of Wasilla, hundreds of millions of dollars in such federal funding for local projects.
Most importantly:
One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate’s closest supporters as “keeping their fingers crossed” in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin’s potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain’s short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.
Wow. What is crazier - and more insulting to women - is that Republicans think that would-be Clinton voters would not throw their support behind Palin. Which is crazy when you consider this:
As a staunch opponent of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, Palin has invigorated religious conservatives and other members of the GOP base who have been cool to McCain’s candidacy and reluctant to work for the campaign with the same verve that fueled President Bush’s 2004 reelection.
Wow indeed.
Critics continue to question why McCain, after months of assailing Democratic nominee Barack Obama as lacking foreign policy experience, would tap a running mate who has been governor for less than two years and before that was mayor of Wasilla, population 7,000.
Madness indeed. This shows the Republicans desperation… but more importantly, it does strengthen the Republicans chance of winning by emulating Karl Rove’s tactic of going to the right to bring out the Evangelical base… which shows just how backwards the USA has become.
Face it, this was a dumb move… but when you are appealing to a rational-less constituency, dumb ain’t a bad idea:
Palin could face questions in on other facets of her past, such as her 1990s membership in the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that has pushed for more than 30 years to give Alaskans a vote on whether to secede from the union.
Another potentially troublesome story line is Palin’s past support for federally funded projects that she now claims to have opposed — a key piece of her reformist image to which McCain was most attracted.
As mayor of Wasilla, Palin made regular trips to Washington seeking federal aid. The city received $26.9 million in earmarks during her tenure from fiscal year 2000 to 2003, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks pork barrel spending.
As The Times reported Monday, Palin has requested 31 earmarks in next year’s federal budget worth about $197 million. On Friday, she portrayed herself as a champion of curbing the “abuses” of earmark spending.
For McCain, the Friday surprise of introducing Palin resulted in a weekend of buzz and anticipation. But if additional surprises surface about Palin, McCain could face stark choices.
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