Palin for VP - Inspired or Disastrous?

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

I am more and more convinced that Palin is a disastrous choice for Vice-Presidential candidate. John McCain and his campaign team exhibited a seriously poor level of judgement in selecting her which bodes unwell for how they will judge the manifold situations concomitant with controlling the executive branch of the US federal government.

I agree whole-heartedly, Ard. How do you assess the record of the Republicans and their contribution to the monumental mess the USA finds itself in now? You know my opinion.

George W Bush = Worst President Ever

That's my opinion, I'm a Clintonista so I wish Bill had a third term to head off the awful prodigy of Dubya.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

I am more and more convinced that Palin is a disastrous choice for Vice-Presidential candidate. John McCain and his campaign team exhibited a seriously poor level of judgement in selecting her which bodes unwell for how they will judge the manifold situations concomitant with controlling the executive branch of the US federal government.

I agree whole-heartedly, Ard. How do you assess the record of the Republicans and their contribution to the monumental mess the USA finds itself in now? You know my opinion.

George W Bush = Worst President Ever

That's my opinion, I'm a Clintonista so I wish Bill had a third term to head off the awful prodigy of Dubya.

Succinct and to the point, as ever, Ard. And I'm sure it an opinion shared by many. But he has not been alone in doing damage in the name of the Republican Party.

Worst "President" Ever?? That's easy. Dick Cheney.

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

I am more and more convinced that Palin is a disastrous choice for Vice-Presidential candidate. John McCain and his campaign team exhibited a seriously poor level of judgement in selecting her which bodes unwell for how they will judge the manifold situations concomitant with controlling the executive branch of the US federal government.

I agree whole-heartedly, Ard. How do you assess the record of the Republicans and their contribution to the monumental mess the USA finds itself in now? You know my opinion.

George W Bush = Worst President Ever

That's my opinion, I'm a Clintonista so I wish Bill had a third term to head off the awful prodigy of Dubya.

Succinct and to the point, as ever, Ard.

Well myself and Samuel Beckett do share birthdates!

Quote :

And I'm sure it an opinion shared by many. But he has not been alone in doing damage in the name of the Republican Party.

Oh no indeed. There have been thousands of others who have conspired to utterly undermine the basic societal underpinnings which keep the US on broadly the right track.

Quote :

Worst "President" Ever?? That's easy. Dick Cheney.

Right again. He's really a Co-President isn't he?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

I am more and more convinced that Palin is a disastrous choice for Vice-Presidential candidate. John McCain and his campaign team exhibited a seriously poor level of judgement in selecting her which bodes unwell for how they will judge the manifold situations concomitant with controlling the executive branch of the US federal government.

I agree whole-heartedly, Ard. How do you assess the record of the Republicans and their contribution to the monumental mess the USA finds itself in now? You know my opinion.

George W Bush = Worst President Ever

That's my opinion, I'm a Clintonista so I wish Bill had a third term to head off the awful prodigy of Dubya.

Succinct and to the point, as ever, Ard.

Well myself and Samuel Beckett do share birthdates!

Quote :

And I'm sure it an opinion shared by many. But he has not been alone in doing damage in the name of the Republican Party.

Oh no indeed. There have been thousands of others who have conspired to utterly undermine the basic societal underpinnings which keep the US on broadly the right track.

Quote :

Worst "President" Ever?? That's easy. Dick Cheney.

Right again. He's really a Co-President isn't he?

I would be inclined to replace "Co-" with "de facto"

Slim Buddha wrote:

I would be inclined to replace "Co-" with "de facto"

Hmmm, that does seem to be right on the button re Cheney.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

I would be inclined to replace "Co-" with "de facto"

Hmmm, that does seem to be right on the button re Cheney.

This man is, I believe, one of the Über-Sultans of the Dark Side.

Slim Buddha wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

I would be inclined to replace "Co-" with "de facto"

Hmmm, that does seem to be right on the button re Cheney.

This man is, I believe, one of the Über-Sultans of the Dark Side.

Uber-Sultans, now there's a nice combination, we should have it as a rank on this website.

johnfás wrote:

If the unthinkable happens and the Republicans win this election, the most important man in America will be John McCain's physician.

Slim Buddha said

Quote :

20 of the last 28 years has seen a Republican president and the drift to the right in US politics has been alarming. By implementing neo-liberal economics and taking the theory to the maximum extent, they have ruined the US economy. They mortgaged the future of the US and the US citizens of tomorrow to the hilt. They have bequeathed a mess of monumental proportions. Can the Democrats fix it? I am not sure because it will take people of courage to do it. There is so much to do and whoever gets in will need time to sort it out. Two terms minimum. Because during the first term, I believe, the unravelling of the US economy will continue. The bailout is a sticking plaster since nobody has addressed the problem, for instance, of the derivative sub-prime market, only the primary sub-prime market. It suits the Republicans to blame Wall Street for the mess, but really the Republican Party is as much if not more to blame. No wonder McCain is portraying himself as a maverick. The task for Obama and Biden is to fix firmly in the minds of Americans "The Republican Party are primarily responsible for this mess. McCain and Palin are Republicans standing for the Party responsible for this. Do you want this mess compounded?" And they must hammer this message home with all the force they can muster. Because it is the nature of the Republican Party to fight dirty and below the belt all the time. And there are sure to be lots of dirty tricks from the extensive catalogue of dirty tricks in the Republican Party cookbook put into play.
It will be a fascinating election campaign from here on in.

So Sarah Palin says the "gloves are off" (will someone get the poor woman a towel btw) and Obama consorts with terrorists. We should expect plenty of attempts at Swift Boating in the next few weeks - the best time to drop any real bombshell allegations is immediately before the election when there is no time to reply.
The "Weatherman" connection is of no substance and has been touted around on Fox News for weeks. Terrorism allegations seek to place Obama outside the law and are incitement. We can only expect it to get worse.

But is is it not the economy that will settle this?

cactus flower wrote:

Slim Buddha said

Quote :

20 of the last 28 years has seen a Republican president and the drift to the right in US politics has been alarming. By implementing neo-liberal economics and taking the theory to the maximum extent, they have ruined the US economy. They mortgaged the future of the US and the US citizens of tomorrow to the hilt. They have bequeathed a mess of monumental proportions. Can the Democrats fix it? I am not sure because it will take people of courage to do it. There is so much to do and whoever gets in will need time to sort it out. Two terms minimum. Because during the first term, I believe, the unravelling of the US economy will continue. The bailout is a sticking plaster since nobody has addressed the problem, for instance, of the derivative sub-prime market, only the primary sub-prime market. It suits the Republicans to blame Wall Street for the mess, but really the Republican Party is as much if not more to blame. No wonder McCain is portraying himself as a maverick. The task for Obama and Biden is to fix firmly in the minds of Americans "The Republican Party are primarily responsible for this mess. McCain and Palin are Republicans standing for the Party responsible for this. Do you want this mess compounded?" And they must hammer this message home with all the force they can muster. Because it is the nature of the Republican Party to fight dirty and below the belt all the time. And there are sure to be lots of dirty tricks from the extensive catalogue of dirty tricks in the Republican Party cookbook put into play.
It will be a fascinating election campaign from here on in.

So Sarah Palin says the "gloves are off" (will someone get the poor woman a towel btw) and Obama consorts with terrorists. We should expect plenty of attempts at Swift Boating in the next few weeks - the best time to drop any real bombshell allegations is immediately before the election when there is no time to reply.
The "Weatherman" connection is of no substance and has been touted around on Fox News for weeks. Terrorism allegations seek to place Obama outside the law and are incitement. We can only expect it to get worse.

But is is it not the economy that will settle this?

Yes, cactus flower, the economy is practically the only issue this election should be about. Obama and particularly Biden must tie the economy to the Republicans as tightly as possible and not for a second let them off the hook. Use TV spots to demonstrate is the simplest way possible how the Republicans waged economic war against Middle America and how a continuation of these poliices means greater impoverishment for the average American family. They must show clearly that the Republicans are Wall Street's Party, ie "the people who have taken your pension, your savings and your childrens education". Run TV spots illustrating Dick Cheney's personal financial profit, from options in Halliburton, from the war in Iraq while referring to the five draft deferments he received in the 60s to get out of serving his country in the Vietnam war. Run TV spots naming all the vicious anti-employee legislation passed by Republican presidents and Repubublican-controlled legislatures since 1980.

The gloves are off, says Palin. If I were a Democratic Party campaign manager, she would be leaving this election every half an hour in plastic bags by the time it was over.
(I must confess to having worked in the US 1988 election for the Democrats, on a mayoral level. We won that fight.)

This is a good NY Times editorial on Sarah Palin and Cheney's respective takes on the Vice Presidency:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

cactus flower wrote:

This is a good NY Times editorial on Sarah Palin and Cheney's respective takes on the Vice Presidency:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

It tells you all you need to know about both Cheney and Palin. One is an intelligent but dangerous lunatic and the other is a stupid, dangerous lunatic.

Some people are on the pitch.....

Doesn't seem to be causing a huge stir in America all the same. Presumably because she doesn't have much credibility anyway and also they haven't pushed for any legal action.

All the news outlets are covering it heavily.

The top news story on CNN, Fox and NBC are all unrelated to Palin.

Yes she features in the main headlines but she is not the top story. It would have been useful to Obama had she been the top story.

It can't go unignored though. However, I'm not sure Obama even needs this.

Of course Obama would be a better choice albeit from a very limited pool. The problem with Bush and Cheney is that they were too brazenly open about the motives of American foreign policy. There's just things that are not said..... In reality there's simply no great gulf between Bush and even the most nominally liberal of democratic presidents --a Kennedy say or Clinton etc etc.

It's the vulgarity of this openess that gets to a lot of liberal commentators and that can be seen again when you look at Palin and McCain versus Obama. Your typical soi dissant liberal 'decent' would be much happier to get back to the days of less-hard-to-defend humanitarian imperialism. Something which is likely to become even more of a requirement if profits start falling further.

This report in the Guardian illustrates the type of people Palin's candidacy attracts. It is ugly stuff.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/12/uselections2008-sarahpalin

They have spent over 150 thousand dollars on clothes for Palin so far. That really disgusts me.

johnfás wrote:

They have spent over 150 thousand dollars on clothes for Palin so far. That really disgusts me.

but OMG she looks, like ,so totally hot! - especially the glasses! - and we know how important style is in the White House

Edo wrote:

johnfás wrote:

They have spent over 150 thousand dollars on clothes for Palin so far. That really disgusts me.

but OMG she looks, like ,so totally hot! - especially the glasses! - and we know how important style is in the White House

Are you sure you are looking at images of the Governer of Alaska and not stills of the actress playing the lead role in "Who's nailin' Paylin?", a recently-produced DVD?

Is there anyone else here who now thinks that Palin was pushed forward to be a VP candidate by people who felt that McCain wouldn`t win, knew Palin would be weak and realised that, as prospective candidates in four years, that it would not be in their own interests to allow a strong VP candidate the advantage of the free publicity of a Presidential election?

anmajornarthainig wrote:

Is there anyone else here who now thinks that Palin was pushed forward to be a VP candidate by people who felt that McCain wouldn`t win, knew Palin would be weak and realised that, as prospective candidates in four years, that it would not be in their own interests to allow a strong VP candidate the advantage of the free publicity of a Presidential election?

The choice of Palin is extraordinary, and we're living in extraordinary times. I just watched her completed rolled over by a very clumsy hoax call from a fake "President Sarkhozy" who invited her out on a helicopter hunt to "kill living things", and then, on the stump reminding people that she has a son in Iraq and that John McCain is the man who has her confidence.

If Obama fails, Palin, or someone like her, may be a very different proposition in four years.