And yet, somehow, life goes on...
Greetings to all! I hope you enjoyed Shabbos (I sure did).
As you all (probably) know by now, John McCain picked Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. When I heard about this, it begged 2 main questions: 1) Who? and 2) Why?
I started out being a little skeptical about this, but I've gradually warmed up to this exceptional idea of McCain's. Here are my answers:
1) She's a conservative that appeals to the hardcore of the Republican Party. She's very pro-life, going as far as to have a baby to term that she knew would have Down's Syndrome. That's some commitment to being pro-life. (BTW, just in passing I want to mention that last year I had to do a group presentation for a Genetics class that I had to take, and we did it on Jewish Genetics. What was really interesting for me was that there are actually famous Rabbis who have said that if you find out you're carrying a kid that's got some kind of terminal disease--like Tay Sachs and such--you're allowed to abort)Plus, she's a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. That kinda scares me, but appeals to the party base. At the same time, though, she's fought the party base in Alaska for a long time--she was the one who finally got rid of the Bridge to Nowhere.
2) She's got a very similar personality to McCain: Maverick. She doesn't care what her party thinks, she's going to do what she thinks is right, which meshes perfectly with McCain's message. In a McCain/Palin ticket, the GOP gets to say, "Yeah, Republicans haven't being so good lately, but here are 2 people who've fought that establishment, so vote for them". They also get to balance Obama's message of change with their own.
What was really hilarious to me was that numerous Dems, including Sen. Charles Schumer and CNN's Jack Cafferty, were panning this selection. Why did they think it wasn't smart of McCain? Because someone who's 72 and running for President should pick a VP who has experience. This puts McCain's age into the picture now while removing Obama's experience from being an issue, they say. Why is this funny to me? At the same time that they're panning the GOP ticket, they don't apparently realize who's on their ticket: Obama, who doesn't show up that often to vote in the Senate--and one time that he did, he voted against the Human Cloning Ban because as he said "I pushed the wrong button"--and who also has no experience. Oh, and he's running for President, not VP as Palin is. Further proof that they're just trying to make up something is evident in Obama's newest commercial. Whereas McCain's first commercial after Obama picked Biden was directed at what Biden said about Obama (video is below if you want to watch), Obama's first commercial after the Palin pick doesn't mention her at all. She's in there, but isn't mentioned by name, and the commercial basically reuses the typical Democratic attack of calling McCain 4 more years of Bush. This begs the simple question:
Do the Dems just not have a response to this?
$5 says that they never saw this coming, and so were never ready. I mean, come on: Who ever mentioned Palin as a potential VP pick? All the focus was on Romney, Pawlenty, and Ridge.
I'm loving this more and more as I'm writing it. Anyways, I gotta go get the laundry right now, so I'll talk to everyone later.
Toodles.
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As you all (probably) know by now, John McCain picked Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. When I heard about this, it begged 2 main questions: 1) Who? and 2) Why?
I started out being a little skeptical about this, but I've gradually warmed up to this exceptional idea of McCain's. Here are my answers:
1) She's a conservative that appeals to the hardcore of the Republican Party. She's very pro-life, going as far as to have a baby to term that she knew would have Down's Syndrome. That's some commitment to being pro-life. (BTW, just in passing I want to mention that last year I had to do a group presentation for a Genetics class that I had to take, and we did it on Jewish Genetics. What was really interesting for me was that there are actually famous Rabbis who have said that if you find out you're carrying a kid that's got some kind of terminal disease--like Tay Sachs and such--you're allowed to abort)Plus, she's a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. That kinda scares me, but appeals to the party base. At the same time, though, she's fought the party base in Alaska for a long time--she was the one who finally got rid of the Bridge to Nowhere.
2) She's got a very similar personality to McCain: Maverick. She doesn't care what her party thinks, she's going to do what she thinks is right, which meshes perfectly with McCain's message. In a McCain/Palin ticket, the GOP gets to say, "Yeah, Republicans haven't being so good lately, but here are 2 people who've fought that establishment, so vote for them". They also get to balance Obama's message of change with their own.
What was really hilarious to me was that numerous Dems, including Sen. Charles Schumer and CNN's Jack Cafferty, were panning this selection. Why did they think it wasn't smart of McCain? Because someone who's 72 and running for President should pick a VP who has experience. This puts McCain's age into the picture now while removing Obama's experience from being an issue, they say. Why is this funny to me? At the same time that they're panning the GOP ticket, they don't apparently realize who's on their ticket: Obama, who doesn't show up that often to vote in the Senate--and one time that he did, he voted against the Human Cloning Ban because as he said "I pushed the wrong button"--and who also has no experience. Oh, and he's running for President, not VP as Palin is. Further proof that they're just trying to make up something is evident in Obama's newest commercial. Whereas McCain's first commercial after Obama picked Biden was directed at what Biden said about Obama (video is below if you want to watch), Obama's first commercial after the Palin pick doesn't mention her at all. She's in there, but isn't mentioned by name, and the commercial basically reuses the typical Democratic attack of calling McCain 4 more years of Bush. This begs the simple question:
Do the Dems just not have a response to this?
$5 says that they never saw this coming, and so were never ready. I mean, come on: Who ever mentioned Palin as a potential VP pick? All the focus was on Romney, Pawlenty, and Ridge.
I'm loving this more and more as I'm writing it. Anyways, I gotta go get the laundry right now, so I'll talk to everyone later.
Toodles.
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