Huh. Very interesting choice. If nothing else, it made the race a little more interesting, if for no other reason than sheer demographic issues.
Only real beef I have with what information I've gleaned so far - I mean, she's pro-life, but since I have no vagina, why do I give a fuck? - is that she apparently named two of her 5 kids based on losing a bet. I mean, "Track" and "Trig?" Was she in high school when she had her children? What's her daughter's name, "Pep Rally?"
So anyway, no matter what happens, we've got some pretty historical stuff happening come November.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Gov. Palin, eh?
10 comments:
At this point, I'll be shocked when the GOP runs someone for Pres or VP that isn't a strict pro-lifer and while I don't think public policy or law should be in any way restrictive of reproductive rights, that's pretty much their baseline so I don't care on that point. What I don't like is that she's another goddamn troglodyte creationist. Fuck those people. You can teach creationism alongside evolution in biology class if I can teach humanism in your sunday school class. Deal? No? Then fuck right the fuck off.
All that said, there is definitely a demographic reach in this choice for VP, but I really think the pick of a woman here is for someone that won't be devoured alive by Joe Biden in the VP debate. Or at least someone that Biden will take it easy on, her being a woman. Or at least if he does beat the shit out of her, she'll look sympathetic. Unfortunately, Joe Biden just don't give a fuck and if the mood strikes he'll call her a cunt and pound his dick on the podium to interrupt her.
Seriously, though, this pick is clearly a gift to the Retarded Right with the hope that she's far enough under the radar that it isn't totally transparent to your average independent who wouldn't go for Huckabee. At this point the only hope the GOP has for the presidency is that the Confederate Yokel and Backwoods Mouthbreather voters turn out in record numbers. If there's a nationwide cable and satellite TV outage on election day, you'll know something's up.
Oh, also, she's a former beauty queen (and she's still pretty cute). That's not relevant to a VP race in and of itself, but I'm calling it right now: Homemade Sarah Palin Porn will surface between now and the election.
Homemade Sarah Palin Porn will surface between now and the election.
Man, here's hoping ... and INTERRACIAL porn at that! HAW!
It isn't the fact that she is a woman. I don't even think that was the primary consideration. The issue is that she will bring in the middle America vote, the people who Josh refers to as the "Confederate Yokel and Backwoods Mouthbreather" folks. The thing is, these people are the majority. I don't mean the Democratic majority or the Republican majority....I mean the majority of American citizens. Most people aren't die hard home-schoolers (despite Josh's best efforts to fit all conservatives into the worst possible stereotypes), nor are most Americans readers of the New Yorker. Most people are working to middle class who want to be left alone and don't want things to spiral too far out of control OR stay too stagnant. The trick is to assemble the most easy to relate to, centrist ticket that you can. Palin brings that much more than a Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, or Tom Ridge.
The other thing, which has been driving for me the press coverage of this event, is that the media (and by that I mean all the major press outlets including both CNN and Fox) are too busy focused on her gender to see the true implications of her selection. She is someone the majority can relate to. Her background story, life experience, and her actions in office (fighting corruption, working with natural resources, refinancing education) seals the deal and if you had a black man, a hispanic man, or a white man who had the same type story McCain would have picked up the same voting demographic. The female aspect is almost smokescreening her real strength. The only other person on the board who could have brought what she brings in this regard is Mike Huckabee, and he is just too dangerous and repulsive to do anything but hurt the ticket.
Palin could go the way of Dan Quayle and be an absolute disaster on the campaign trail. She could also be very effective. By dismissing the center-right vote and referring to them as the "Retarded Right," you will once again have the press predicting a major Democratic victory (as they did in 2004) and struggling to come up with why the Republicans won on election night.
Here's all I have to say about Sarah Palin:
1) I would TOTALLY hit that.
2) Anyone who has five children is in dereliction of duty as a citizen, IMO. We are simply too overpopulated to be doing that shit anymore. In the 1800's you had to have a bunch of kids cause chances are 40% of them would die of typhoid. Ortho-fucking-tricyclin, lady. Best invention ever. Also, "Track" and "Trig"...THIS is the woman who will be our leader in the even McCain has a heart attack or someone murks him? Bad idea. Or perhaps great idea, if it sinks the campaign.
3) John McCain traditionally always fell under the category of Republicans-I-Can-Stomach, along with Guliani, etc. However I just don't trust the man to not blow up the world. It's really not his fault, the man WAS in a torture camp for chrissakes...but that's like making "First Blood"-era John Rambo the manager of your resteraunt. It might not end well at all.
4) Unfortunatley, Jo$hua and Ron are BOTH correct. People who vote conservative ARE the majority. They ARE the ones who show up at the polls, because as great as liberals think their ideas are, come election day they have a film festival or a Radiohead concert or something more interesting to do. However, many (not all of course, but a higher percentage than I'd like) of these people are, in fact, "Confederate Yokels and Backwoods Mouthbreathers" who are easily wooed, like early-90's Undertaker and the Urn, by "morality" issues that really have shit to do with how this broken machine of America operates. The ones who were afraid "Al Gore is gonna take our huntin' and fishin' awaaaaay...." and who year after year shoot down liquor-by-the-drink in Morristown and simply the ones who make the decisions in this country.
I expect a Republican victory at the end of the day, not because I have any political theory or info to back this up with, but because I've just learned to quit hoping. Especially when it comes to America and good decision making. Not that I think Obama is the cut-and-dry answer. But I think 8 more years of a Republican regime we'll be in about the same shape the AWA was toward the end.
* DISCLAIMER: I am not, nor do I pretend to be, a political analyst or expert. I am a Selectman, however.
mmmm.....vpilf
Http://www.vpilf.com
Maybe Middle Americans will identify with Sarah Palin. I'm sure most American women will identify with wanting to be her: a woman in her mid-forties who has popped out five kids and still looks great. But I'm not entirely sure being as anti-homosexual as Palin seems to be is "center-right" and I know that being stridently anti-abortion isn't "center-right"; that's "far right", which is what I mean by "Retarded Right." That's also the type that think creationism should be taught alongside evolution in school, want a full on ban on embryotic stem-cell research, and are generally holding back progress and can't or won't die off fast enough for my liking.
In Palin's defense, most of the quotes from her relating to her stance on benefits for same-sex couples or creationism use a lot of weasel language where she doesn't specify if she supports banning benefits for same-sex couples or she supports the right of the public to vote on a constitutional amendment doing so. She doesn't specify if she thinks creationism should be taught in Biology class or if it should be taught in Comparative Religion courses. So it isn't entirely clear if she's another halfwit evangelical values Republican or, just as bad, one that panders to them without actually agreeing with them.
It's interesting to note that you and others have pointed out that on social issues she brings to the table much the same as Mike Huckabee, but somehow Huckabee is recognized as unpalatable. Why is that? Could it be that Middle America is starting to see Republican support of far-right "values issues" as pandering to a noisy but increasingly marginalized minority and a distraction from real issues? Because aside from his batshit-craziness, Huckabee comes across as a geniunely humble and likeable guy, which would be a great asset as McCain degenerates further and further into crotchety old-bastardness. But Huckabee is visibly and undeniably far right, something that low information voters might not find out about Palin until it's too late.
What will really be interesting is watching Republican commentators correlate (or outright deny) her support of liberal economic policies such as windfall profit taxes on oil companies and suckling at the Federal tit (which is really all Alaska seems to do, fucking freeloaders) with McCain's opposition to windfall taxes and pork-barrel spending.
Regardless of where her heart lies on these issues, the American people can't let themselves be fooled into thinking these social issues are important, because they aren't, and they can't let themselves be fooled into thinking that McCain's economic policies are going to be any different than the busted-ass economic polices of the last eight years, because they won't. The 2004 election was during the peak of support for the Iraq War with the attacks of September 11th still fresh in people's minds and that clearly colored people's opinions far more than anything else, allowing the GOP to throw a few bones to the far right without risking much backlash, but I believe the Republicans have to make a better case than fear, hatred, and tax cuts for the rich (or as Rush Limbaugh said, "babies, guns, Jesus! Hot damn!") to get another four years.
The thing about it is, from 2002 until 2007 the economy was humming along and Bush's economic policies did not have us in a recession. The economic policies of tax cuts to corporations did what they were supposed to...stimulate the economy. The tax cuts to the working class and middle class Americans also did that (remember the $400 rebates we got in 01 or 02?). I wish he had not ran the national deficit up as high as he did, but you can't say that Bush's "busted ass" economic policies have given us 8 years of turmoil and strife. Sure the economy is not great now due to, as Bush put it, "Wall Street getting drunk," but Bush, the Fed, and Treasury have read and reacted and are working to fix it. The GDP grew 3.3% in the second quarter thanks in part to the stimulus package. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are still touch and go but appear to be stabilized. Home prices are finding the bottom which will lead to a turnaround in existing home sales. So far, knock on wood, the credit crunch appears to have been isolated in the home market. Once the hurricane goes through and oil prices start dropping again, the prices on staple goods will continue to go down. Milk has already dropped over $1 a gallon down here and orange juice dropped $1.50. Gas was down over .50 before Gustav. Economists are predicting an end to this downturn by the second quarter of 2009.
Also, the surge worked and Iraq is a much more settled place than it was in 2004. Note that I didn't say it was settled, just much more settled.
The reality is that America is not as bad as the Democrats tried to make it out to be in their convention. I would daresay that they are playing the fear tactics up just as much as the Republicans are but on economic issues and not social ones. I remember in 1992 this girl in high school telling everyone to vote for Clinton or her Teamster-member, truck driving daddy was going to lose his job. I expect that we will see much of the same from now until November.
Huckabee is a liability because he doesn't know when to shut up. That is the biggest problem with American politicians these days. Just like when Obama said that people in rural PA cling to "guns and religion." No one doubted that he thought it, just don't say it. Same goes for Huckabee and his tirades he goes on from time to time.
Honestly, I think that's exactly what's wrong with American politics...politicians being expected to "shut up", and tiptoe around issues that are going to offend the sensitive. For example, if you live in rural PA, you are probably aware that even if you don't personally cling to "guns and religion", for fucks sake you should be observant enough to accept that statement might be an accurate "blanket statement" for your neighbors.
Call me crazy (and I have used alot of drugs in my day), but at what point did it become no longer safe to state how we actually feel about an issue? Whether the next man agrees with your stance or not, why do Red and Blue politicians both have to distance themselves from their...uh, stances on things? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose.
If Mitt Romney hates immigrants, faggots and liberals, then I want to know how he feels, to influence me to make a decision (Romney at least was kind enough to be truthful). If fill-in-the-blank Democrat is an sensitive Yale student from a wealthy background who wants to turn this country into a punch of pussies, I want to know. The entire fucking point of this shit is that you get up, state your stance on things, and we make our decisions from there. The election process has become a game of deception and no one on either side seems to deny or even give a shit about this.
I'm in a crabby mood today, my employers expect me to work because they don't recognize US Government holidays. And on Friday I asked my boss if I could have the day off without pay (since I was under the impression we all bow to the government, regardless of religious affiliation), and was denied. Come to find out today that the fuck-stick is at a barbecue, taking today off. I can only pray to my Jesus of Jesuses that someone slips some bacon into his meal.
Sarah Palin's 17-year old daughter Bristol is pregnant. In continuing with Nate's musing on the Palin's strange choice of names for their children, I've decided this woman isn't fit for office based solely on that aspect. Bristol? That's the name of a shitty town in Tennessee whose only claim to fame is a racetrack; not the first name of a person.
Also, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Abstinence-only education, baby! It works!
Anyway, to a couple of points: adjusted to inflation, wages have been flat since 2003; massive trade deficits; sickeningly weak dollar; anemic job growth (worst since tracking began), and a broken health care system: these are the economic factors that directly effect The Average American. Sure the economy grew well recently, but it was as you noted buffered by the stimulus package. And that just adds more to the national debt and it isn't something that can be done often. And saying "I wish he had not ran the national deficit up as high as he did" is an understatement, because what Bush's tax cuts did (if anything) for the middle-class over the last six or seven years will be wiped out as we face the reality of paying that tax-cut induced deficit off in the future.
And the surge is among a number of factors that led to an increased settling in Iraq. But it has always been about whether or not Iraqis want to stay settled down in the long term, not our presence. It looks like Maliki is going to force the issue of us getting out, so that may be good news regardless of who our next President is.
The people have never been particularly receptive of the truth or reality, especially as it applies to politics. It's all about being told that voting for candidate X will make us safe, rich, and big-dicked or perky-tittied. Will that actually happen? That's just details and no one cares about that.
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