Comments on: VP Palin is Crass Political Pandering

By: Sandy

Sandy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:43:23 +0000

Greg, this article expresses to why your blog is on my favourites.

By: democraticspace

democraticspace — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:45:54 +0000

Simon – no doubt Obama wanted someone who was a straight-talking guy with working-class roots. But I wouldn’t characterize the selection of Biden as pandering. Biden is eminently qualified on his own to be President, and was selected primarily because of the knowledge he brings to the ticket on foreign policy. It wasn’t politics but rather balance that motivated Obama’s pick.

McCain’s pick is intended to help him get elected while Obama’s is intended to help him govern once elected (I doubt Biden wins Obama many votes). If Obama wanted to maximize his electoral chances, he would have picked someone else (for example, Clinton would have helped in Apallachia states; Bill Richardson would help with the Latino vote and help in NM, NV, CO, FL; Tim Kaine might have swung VA, etc).

By: Simon A. Dougherty

Simon A. Dougherty — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:04:16 +0000

In all fairness, Obama’s choice in Biden is also crass political pandering; only difference is that the target demographics include old, white, conservative, working-class men.

Admittedly, McCain’s choice in Palin is a more explicit form of pandering, opportunism, and expediency, but both presidential candidates are doing it.

Where’s the real change? It’s more of the same….

If there’s any real hope, it lies in the social movements Obama is inspiring. If they can better organize themselves and assume a greater position of political power, then they can hold Obama (or even McCain) to account. Then we might see some real change.

By: unstuck

unstuck — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:43:13 +0000

It makes sense to me that McCain would want to choose a woman, and a younger person, as his VP, but someone so blatantly unqualified?

It says a lot about the GOP that they could not find a qualified woman in their ranks…

By: Phillip Huggan

Phillip Huggan — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:33:38 +0000

I don’t think America, with their dumbed down population, is best served by democracy. They might take this comment as a slight; it’s not meant to be. I’m sure they understand they aren’t the highest IQs in the last because they don’t educate their poor, and their media doesn’t educate anyone.
For instance, in the near term a permanent Democratic Party tyranny would be preferable to their present democracy.
Canada has some sort of checks in place that prevent us from going too far to the Right; probably something to do with geography that necessitated a strong government at the start of the 20th century (or maybe even earlier with the motivation survival from invasion), that has somehow been compounding ever since in a positive way. I’m guessing the US has had the same compounding effects work in reverse since the 18th century because of their birth via hatred of the British government.
This isn’t bad, just inferior. For instance, the European model of constantly destroying eachothers capital pre-1945 didn’t work well.
Anyway, my point is that I view present US politics as an effort analogous to Chinese government, of ensuring a Democratic Party tyranny. I think all of the federal Republicans are so far in the stone age, it doesn’t matter to me one bit who the VP is.
Whatever makes Canadian travel so much and so world conscious, helps our society as other models can be used to baseline our own against.
I think their two term limit is particularly insidious for a society so far to the right; even assuming preschool funding and well-paid teachers it will take a generation to educate their poor and some CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS-backed Republican would just axe the program in 2016.
It isn’t that corporatism is particularly insidious. It’s just that America really could’ve been the light, the end of our civilization’s preoccupation with negative-sum ego. But when you have to seriously consider the Presidential credentials of someone like Palin, in spite of 8 years of…admittedly hilarious anecdotes.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:54:07 +0000

As a true measure of McCain’s cynicism, imagine that he had picked a *man* with exactly the same résumé as Palin… such a choice would have been universally ridiculed. But instead the media seems to be eating this up, heralding her as a “game changer”.

And as you point out, she’s eminently unqualified for the one essential job of the VP, namely to step into McCain’s shoes if his health should fail.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:25:03 +0000

She’s also a future grandmother. That’s one more demographic she’ll appeal to. ;-)