My take on the whole Sarah Palin debacle…

Last Friday was John McCain’s 72nd Birthday and that makes him one of the oldest people to ever run for President of the United States. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugrated for a first term. After months of being bombarded with ads and interviews that slammed Barack Obama as ‘inexperienced’, ‘too young’ and ‘not the person you want answering the Whitehouse phone at 3am’ … McCain proves once again why the GOP is the party of true hypocrisy.

The one good card he had, the one arguement that was actually working for his campaign is no longer on the table. McCain had been quoted by several media sources in saying that ‘experience’ was going to be one of the biggest factors when selecting his running mate. Well, that turned out to be a big fat lie because he passed over more qualified canidates to pick someone who not only is younger than Obama but has even less experience than the Senator from Illinois. By doing this, McCain has done far worse than undercut his own message… the old fool has given up any chance he ever had to win this election.

McCain absolutely torched his own argument by choosing someone even less experienced than Obama. McCain’s age and fragile health is much more of a source for worry as odds are his vice president may have take over should he pass on like many people do his age. Because of this, Palin’s inexperience is thus magnified even further. Barack not only has experience in the Senate, but also with the State Senate as well. He was not selected to his position on the ticket but elected by the party delegates, which was a democratic process. Palin was selected by McCain after what seems like a very, very poor vetting process.

And the Repubs are still trying to say that Palin has just as much experience as Obama. Really? Being the Mayor of a town that has less than ten thousand people qualifies someone to run a country and have access to the launch codes? Just to give you a small sample of Mrs. Palin’s so called ‘experience’, take a gander at this photo:

Well, talk about efficency… the place had a drive through! Do you really think someone who was working in this place no more than two years ago is ready to be a heart beat away from being President of the United States? I don’t think so and I honestly don’t think anyone else does either. Barack Obama was selected through the long process of the primaries, going through countless debates and endless delegate votes. He was chosen by the people after being vetting for over a year, where as Palin was picked after only meeting with McCain once in person. That’s it, just once. I don’t know about you, but if I met a person only once that wouldn’t be anywhere near enough for me to trust them to be the guardians of my kids should something happen to Leah and myself. Yet to McCain we should accept that as enough for him to trust someone with the safety of an entire nation. The Senator from Arizona isn’t “outside the box” as some have said… it’s more like out of his mind.

I’m honestly puzzled that McCain would throw away his best argument against Obama’s candidacy in order to pander to the shrinking number of disaffected Hillary supporters. Turns out the gamble to win women voters and Hillary supporters is going to be a big, fat failure. Most of the women and Hillary supporters I have spoken with since McCain revealed his ‘surprise’ on Friday have all shown nothing but a collective disgust for the choice. They’re not insulted over the person but feel slighted that McCain is attempting to win them over by selecting a woman who has more looks than experience. Hillary was their canidate of choice because of where she stood in issues, not because of her biological plumbing. For that reason, odds of any Hillary supporters voting for a pro-life, gun torting, creationism suppoter are slilm to nil. Ditto for independents who believe that Palin’s nomination is nothing more than a gimmick to pander for votes.

It’s clear McCain was making a desperate grab for the alledgely disenfranchised voters who supported Hillary Clinton, but I doubt they are going to be fooled on this one, and the numbers are clearly proving it. Take a gander at this charge from Gallup:

Based on this chart, the voters have chosen to side with Obama since McCain made his VP choice. Of course Obama’s historic speech from Denver might have helped those numbers a bit but even if that’s the case… it would mean McCain’s attempt to surprise everyone hasn’t worked or stopped Obama’s numbers from going up. People are not flocking to his side, especially those who supported Hillary. Quite the opposite, they are flocking to his opponent. Many people are not fooled by what this nomination really is, a gimmick, and refuse to fall for it.

In contrast, Barack Obama picked Joe Biden because what he brings to the table benefits not just the ticket, but the country and the people. Biden as the Vice President would bring crediblity back to a nation that badly needs it, and a wealth of foreign policy experience to a position that has lost it’s luster over the last eight years. McCain picked Palin because it was in his best interests and he badly wants to win. It was all about himself. So who is really putting country first here?

Then there are the many growing scandals of Sarah Palin, such as Troopergate… where she fired an appointed official for refusing to fire her ex-brother in law who was a state trooper. There were over twenty calls made to this appointed official from her staff and even her husband pressuring this person to fire the trooper in question, and he refused for what were his own reasons. So for refusing to fall in line with what the Governor wanted, that person was fired himself. The State of Alaska has already appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the matter and Palin’s response to this? She’s lawyered up and refuses to comment on the issue.

The other scandal concerns her seventeen year old daughter who is not pregnant. She’s not old enough to vote or drink, is unwed and knocked up. The GOP clearly working that whole ‘family values’ angle to perfection, eh? The only reason we found out about this pregnancy is because there was a horrid rumor going around that Palin faked her recent pregnancy of son Trig and that her eldest daughter was the real mother of the child. If her daughter really is five months pregnant as it was told to the press, that would gun down the rumor that she is her brother’s actual mother… but the fact that they revealed this only to shoot down another scandal that would have been worse tells me one distrubing thing: if the Palins had their way they would have kept this teenage unwed pregnancy a secret until after the election and covered it up as long as possible. This is not the kind of person I would want running the government and I think the last thing the American public wants is another VP who keeps secrets.

Regardless if any ofthese allegations are true or false, what this means is that McCain and his people did a very, very poor job in vetting their future Vice Presidental canidate. If they knew all this going in, they McCain showed a severe lack of judgement going with someone as contraversal and inexperienced as Palin just to pander for some votes from a group of people that are likely not going to flock to his side anyway. This was McCain’s first chance to prove to the American people that he was capable of making the big decisions and be a responsible canidate for President. Instead he blew it with what can be the most horrid VP pick since … well … possibly ever. To emphasize that point, I present the following:

I doubt this is the kind of headlines McCain wanted his VP to make. Just look at two of the words that stick out, lies and scandal. Everyone who goes shopping is going to see that while waiting to check out. That is PR manager’s worst nightmare…

One more point I want to make: Is it just me, or does McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin remind anyone of Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? One could consider it clear cut evidence that a McCain presidency would be just like the Bush presidency, with totally unqualified individuals being selected for high government posts. We all know how that saga ended, and with one scandal after another coming out of the woodworks rather quickly… could we see this story end the same way? Should we start taking odds on whether Palin will drop out and open the door for someone less offensive to come onto to the ticket? Obviously whoever comes next like Justice Allito wouldn’t be critisized as much because he/she isn’t as bad as the previous pick. Would that same tactic work here?

Here’s an even better question for you, if Palin does step down and McCain calls up someone else and offers the job to them… what makes you think they even want the job now? After being passed over for Palin, do you honesty think someone like Mitt Romney is going to take VP leftovers? Ditto for Ridge or any other Repub who was passed over for someone who has less experience then they did. The only guy I see willing to take on this task after this mess might be Libermann who everyone was against from the very beginning. Yet those who I talk to on the other side say Palin is here to stay and isn’t dropping out. We’ll see cause right now, it’s getting ugly and right now it’s hard to talk message when you’re too busy defending your VP.

Peter