By picking Governor Sarah Palin as his running mater, I personally think McCain just did a huge favor to Obama.
Taking Palin is a huge risk for McCain and he may have just thrown away the election. McCain has always had trouble with the party base. The conservative Christian right is suspect of McCain and he has been losing some of them to Obama and had trouble getting them to back him. This woman is a hardcore Christian and is very pro-life and pro-gun. I think, by nominating her, he was going more after the base of the party and less after the Hillary supporters. The angry Hillary supporters were either going to vote for McCain or not regardless of who he picked and I don't think many of them are simply going to vote for any woman on a ticket. Palin gives him someone that is firmly in the base to back him up which could help him out. Unless they decide that he is just taking her to try to manipulate them.
So while she probably helps him with the base, she hurts him bad in other areas. First, she has almost no experience. She makes Obama look like a seasoned veteran. When you pick your VP you are basically saying, "If I can't be president, this is the next most qualified person." Well, how can he now go after Obama for being too inexperienced when his own VP has even less? He can strike out against Obama on that topic, but he just gave the Obama camp plenty of ammo to fire back with.
Second, when she has the VP debate with Biden, who is the current chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, he is going to tear her apart. She has zero foreign relations experience and almost no domestic experience. She will have a very hard time against him and if she comes off badly it will hurt McCain.
Third, she is currently involved in a major scandal in Alaska. It seems her sister was married to a state trooper and they got divorced. During a bitter custody battle Palin decided to help her sister out and asked the state commissioner of public safety to fire her sister's now ex-husband. When he refused she fired him for not doing what she wanted. He made such a stink that the state legislature appointed a special prosecutor to investigate if she had abused her powers as governor. You know that prosecutor just got really popular. The Bush administration has been under heavy fire because they fired some federal attorney's for political reasons. Now McCain's VP has fired someone for person reasons so that her sister can get custody of the kids. That doesn't look so good and you know it will be brought up. It smacks of abuse of power and that is something the republicans are already struggling with and she doesn't help that fight.
Lastly, she will have the same problem Hillary had. This may sound sexist, but a lot of men just won't vote for a woman. They see her up there talking and to them it sounds like she is nagging them. Guys don't want to be nagged and they won't vote for someone they feel is nagging them. There are many a swing voter in this election who may now look at McCain and say, "He is old and if he dies I don't want that chick." They may not then vote for Obama, but they may just not vote at all.
This is a huge risk that basically took away one of McCain's only real attack points on Obama and she is so connected to big oil it is going to make McCain seem like he is in the pocket of big oil who are currently not looked upon very nicely. McCain used to be known as a Maverick, maybe he thinks this will help bring that image back. Me? I think he is in big trouble. What do you guys think?
stinging rebuke of mccain -
08-30-2008, 10:51 AM
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