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

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

She went into office with a voter approval rating of 90%, winning on an "anyone but the incumbent" platform.

Her approval ratings were considerably lower last week! (They've popped back up again over the last couple of days, as Alaskans are full of pride over one of their own being on the ticket -- I've heard as high as 68% approval for her now.)

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I have not been able to find a place that reports her state ratings below the upper seventies.

Given the rating of King George (or congress) those numbers are still fantastical. Running on the "Anyone But the Incumbent" produced Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and (I think) Abe Lincoln. So our results are somewhat mixed.

Palin has always seemed to ended up falling in the clover for her political career. I think things will be a lot tougher from here on out. It will be instructive how she reacts.