Y'know ...

[unixronin]

... I still say that both of our Presidential candidates suck.  (And that's in the "wet farts out of dead pigeons" way, not the good way.)

But I gotta admit, after today's perhaps-surprising news, I think our Vice-Presidential choices — or the Republican one, at least — just got a whole lot better.  Sarah Palin appears to be sane, honest, and fiscally responsible, and she's not afraid to out corrupt members of her own party.  She cleaned house in the Alaska state legislature.  Further, it looks as though she stands by her principles, but is willing to calmly accept being overruled or proven wrong, and she's not afraid to publicly change her mind.¹  Her approval ratings in Alaska are frequently in the 90s.  When she ran for Mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she made a campaign promise to cut her own salary — and kept it.  Then when she ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006, she made a campaign promise to sell the IAI Westwind II executive jet purchased (on state government credit) by the Murkowski administration ... and kept that promise, too.

I mean, DAMN!  Can't we, you know, swap the ticket around and make McCain VP?  C'mon, folks, our first female President doesn't HAVE to be a Democrat.

[1]  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.  With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.  He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.  Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day." — Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think anyone who seriously thinks Palin was chosen in an attempt to get disgruntled Hillary zealots to leave the fold is deluding themselves. I'm betting anyone who's a fanatical enough Hillary follower to refuse to vote for Obama, after Hillary publicly threw her support behind him and asked her followers to vote for him, isn't about to jump ship from the party altogether and vote for McCain just because McCain picked a woman for the VP position on the card. It's just not plausible.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

"Not plausible" -- the argument of incredulity -- is especially weak applied to voters. To me it makes absolutely no sense to vote for Clinton in the primary and McCain in the general election, but people are loudly promising to do so. For those who are thinking of doing so but haven't decided yet, a female VP would be attractive -- at least in theory, and I admit I'm theorizing about the thinking of McCain and his advisers, whose minds I know as well as I do the back side of the moon.

A similar calculus applies to Palin's religious-right qualities. The religious right has always had trouble with McCain; a religious-right running mate would sweeten the pill for at least some of them.

And of course (as the mainstream media have pointed out) picking someone whose name elicits a universal "Who????" is a good way to reinforce one's reputation as a maverick.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You have valid points there. (Including "never underestimate the irrationality of the electorate".)