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Not that I am a supporter, but your words unless been following her are so out of orbit, where do you get clueless from, and ditsy - I highly doubt as in our reality on a 24-hour-basis - she is very far from ditsy - and inexperienced in comparison to whom????
When you accept VP from someone you've never met. And you don't know what a VP does. You're either very ambitious and don't care/know that you are (quite obviously) being used. Or you are totally clueless to the fact that you are being used. And I'm guessing the latter.
.. is Palin still under investigation for abuse of office??
Yes she is. And regardless of what the press is reporting, it appears her approval ratings have dipped considerably recently. It isn't 90% or 80% or even 70% any more: Try 67%-- still a very healthy number, but keep in mind that she's an ultra conservative governor in an ultra conservative state with a total population about the same as Boston or Austin.
Really want to learn about her? Try some of the Alaska-based blogs. Here's one for a start (Warning-- this is a liberal blog, but I'm sure there are conservative ones too if you want to look for them. All that matters, in my opinion, are whether the facts are verifiable, not which side of the aisle they come from):
I think Palin saw a wonderful oppurtunity to do even more good on a grander scale, not just for Alaska. I think she has always seemed very smart and articulate. I also hear she has done a lot of good for Alaskans with cleaning up some of the good ole' boy network here. She seems pretty tough, not ditzy.
Maybe, maybe not. But she does sound fiscally irresponsible.
As mayor of Wasilla she wanted to leave a big sports center as her legacy. Problem: The land was sold to someone else. So she decided to take the land by eminent domain. She raised taxes to pay for it and started construction before getting title to the land. The owner sued and won. The city appealed, and lost. So what would have cost around $125,000 if she had gone about it the right way ended up costing little Wasilla somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5 million. (The court case was finally settled (http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/474934.html - broken link) just this year.) The real legacy is that the city is still paying for this today, while having to cut budget in library service, postponing capital improvement projects, and raising fees. As a fiscal conservative, she left Wasilla about $7.6 million in debt for construction costs for the sports complex. There is a lot of information on this online for anyone who cares to check the facts. See http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/474934.html (broken link) for starters.
You might also want to investigate the big gas pipeline deal she's got going with Canada. Most Alaskans apparently want the pipeline to be all-Alaska, but she's got a deal going with BP to send it through Canada, thus sending US jobs and money out of Alaska/USA to Canada. The kicker is the clause in the contract wherein the USA (meaning us taxpayers) would guarantee to pay the difference to Canada if enough gas isn't generated to keep the pipeline full.
Fiscal conservative? We report, you decide...
All I'm sayin' is that before we take the soundbites on either side at face value, it never hurts to do some investigating on our own to determine the real lie of the land.
Sorry to say it, but that what the members of Congress do lately is nothing but whine, make deals to all day and night... In other words, nothing. Don't believe me? Look at their job approval, which is the lowest EVER, even lower than Bush's.
And who got picked by McCain, the governor of CA, NY, NJ, Massachusetts, ILL. FL,. or Texas? Regardless of who wins the presidential elections, what the Republicans need is new blood. It would be nice if Palin was running for president, but that's not the case. I have never seen the "oral" office as diminished as it has been for the past two decades or so, and perhaps a new breed of Republicans or Democrats can change that image. And no, I am not talking about wars and such things as it has been happening lately, but about national pride for our nation. The lack of respect for culture, and for national values is pitiful. It may take a woman, a mother, to turn this nation in the right direction. Saying that Palin is not qualified to be vice president is ridiculous. How can anybody say that Obama is more qualified than Palin, when all he does is to speak socialism?
Look...I have never seen this kind of excitement about a candidate choice for years now. Why not standing by and watching what the future holds?
I guess whoever wins you’ll be disappointed as do nothing whiner of a senator will be President. Republicans like to point out Congress’ low approval rating, but what they don’t point out is that right now Congress is very close to being split 54% to 45% so there are a lot of Republicans accounting for that low approval rating as well.
I think most Americans have a simplistic view of what a Senator’s or Representative’s job really entails. Maybe they didn’t watch enough School Hose Rock. Yes, Congress makes deals. That’s what they need to do to balance the needs and wants of 300 million people. Everyone can always have it their own way. And this is not England where initiatives can fly through Parliament. In that respect, our system is slow and hard to get compromises.
McCain didn’t pick the governor of California (ineligible), New York (Democrat with less time on the job than Palin), New Jersey (Democrat), Massachusetts (Democrat), Illinois (Democrat), Florida (not a woman) and Texas (not a woman).
Let’s face it. If Obama had picked a woman as his VP, would McCain have picked Palin (a governor with a good record so far, but no national experience)? Of course not. He’d look like a “Johnny come lately” and a “me too”. Obama picked someone to address his weak areas to balance their ticket. McCain picked someone for shock value. After all of his talk about being able to make decisions about what is right for the country, he made a political pick. Mitt Romney has “executive” experience and would have addressed McCain’s self admitted weakness, the economy. Tom Ridge would have been the perfect pick – governor of Pennsylvania (a state in play) and Secretary of Homeland Defense. He packed an economic and defense/security punch that would have easily countered Joe Biden. And they could have hammered home the inexperience angle from now to election day.
Excitement is nice, but he obviously went for style over substance because the Democrats left him that opening. That is opposite of his “celebrity” claim he made against Obama. And he also cut the experience argument out from under himself as well. For if they are going to continue to portray Obama as inexperienced, how can he defend his VP pick – no national experience on security, economics, social policy, defense, etc… At least Obama had been through the primary process, which is a lot more pressure and exposure to those issues than being governor of Alaska.
And the democrats feel that same excitement as well. We’ll see that happens over the next 9 weeks.
She can shoot, too. I really wanted to steal that photo to post here, but didn't want to get in trouble. Scroll down the thread until you come upon a woman behind a riflescope (that's her): Palin - Alaska Outdoors Forums
Ultimately, both parties do the same thing to the American Taxpayer.
I don't care if someone can shoot or not.
The real issues are the economy and the "war".
If we don't get this economy "fixed" and politicians keep ignoring it, like it is some kind of a natural flow that finds its own best course, the jobs aren't going to be here.
Alaskans might get all excited about more drilling up north, hence more high paying jobs, but those jobs aren't for everyone, and like the lower 48, we need various kinds of jobs to support this huge population down here.
Instead of more and more treading on clean and untouched areas, we should be developing more than just worrying about the internal combustion engine.
There is something wonderful and exciting knowing there are places on earth that man hasn't gone and muddied up. Places where man hasn't stepped foot, the wilderness. Even Mt. Everest has its share of trash, etc., from those who arrogantly have to tread its slopes.
Sapping everything Alaska has to give might not be the best thing for it.
The last state on the list [Texas] even punctuates the point – GW Bush was governor there, but he hasn’t been all that successful in running the country.
Depends on who you ask. Exxon-Mobil or Chevron shareholders would probably beg to differ. Numerous defense contractors, ditto. Small and medium sized homeland security outfits have never had it better. No matter how bad it is for everyone its always good for someone. Knowing how close to the point of death to bring the patient is what Republicans IMO don't know how to do. They screw the economy to hell and gone and have a good time doing it and then let a Democrat come in and fix things then say "thanks we'll take it from here" and do the same thing over again. There won't be any "fixing" a 2 Trillion dollar war debt and the money to be made (saved) outsourcing white collar jobs and insourcing illegal labor for local manufacturing and construction will see that the fight to repatriate the American worker will be just that, a fight.
I read through this whole thread and there was so much mention of "working class roots" as a virtue. Will someone please explain to me why in America there is such a knee-jerk response to liking a working-class person for the highest office in the land? Shouldn't we want someone who is elite? If we want to be led, shouldn't we want that leader to actually be knowledgeable? Haven't we learned from the past 8 years?
You need to go throught the entire list of Presidents we have had and find out how many were working class/middle class people. There were quite a few.
The "virtue" in being middle class is that that person "gets it" as to what MOST of the country deals with. The elite don't need to care about the middle class and the poor leech off us. I will take someone with a middle class upbringing any day.
There is something wonderful and exciting knowing there are places on earth that man hasn't gone and muddied up. Places where man hasn't stepped foot, the wilderness. Even Mt. Everest has its share of trash, etc., from those who arrogantly have to tread its slopes.
I couldn't agree more, not just with this point but with all the others you made in your post. Frankly, since I've been privy to the opinions of a number of Alaskans through this forum I am, I have to say, shocked and appalled and the number of anti-environmentalist, SUV loving, drill ANWR types that call Alaska home. Honestly, I thought one would find a much more environmentalist state of mind in a state that is all about natural beauty. Some here are excited that Palin supports drilling in Alaska but she is not going to be president... we hope. Maybe I'm wrong because I really haven't studied this, but is the oil in question high grade crude like say, Texas' best or the Persian Gulf variety? Is the estimated quantity of the oil fields in ANWR on par with say, Iraq? I will understand some of the excitement if the answer to those questions is yes. Only some because AFAIK there isn't anyone actually saying that the reason oil prices are high is because there isn't enough of it!! In fact, quite the opposite, like diamonds, oil suppliers have discovered how to manipulate markets to generate high prices in spite of a surfeit of product.
Man's consumption model has got to change going forward. Our pattern of discovering a good thing and glomming onto it like piranha on a wounded waterbuffalo has seen the decimation of shellfish beds, the extinction of game birds and other wildlife and in just one generation since the actual discovery of oil in the earth we are actually seriously considering fringe reefs of supply as worthy of mining. That smacks of desperation and if things are that desperate then we have bigger issues like our own rapaciousness to come to terms with. Why can't we agree to table (further) Alaska drilling for if (when) things are truly dire and in the meantime focus on alternative energy sources for cars and trucks.
McCain could have picked better. If he was steering towards choosing a strong woman, there were plenty others besides her. Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Condi Rice comes to mind. Geeze.
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Fiscally conservative?
