Looks like it’s going to be Palin – a gun toting chick with five kids (one w/Down’s). Smart choice. There’s a lot of downsides to her, such as having only two years of experience as governor. But she does balance out the dinosaur problem and the man problem.
UPDATE: It’s official. Reactions from the blogosphere: here, here, here, here, here, … Matt Yglesias is posting a series of fun facts about Alaska.
Apt. 11d 
There goes the argument that Obama does not have enough experience to be president.
Two years as Governor of Alaska?!
Good luck debating Joe Biden, governor!
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Maybe it’s she, maybe not. But yes, I think Governor is about the best skill set either one of them could have chosen – I thought Obama should have gone for a governor, I think McCain would do well to pick one.
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An *experienced* governor, maybe. But Palin is, as Charles Krauthammer said this morning, “a rookie from Alaska.” What skill set do you think she has amassed in two years in a remote, small state?
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She is inexperienced, but her Wikipedia page makes her sound like Wonderwoman. Her husband is apparently Inuit (or Eskimo as it says on Wikipedia), which should be good for a few diversity points. They’ve got a son deploying to Iraq in September, which would make a total of three (McCain, Palin, Biden) out of four of the people on the presidential ticket having sons on active duty. That’s a remarkable percentage.
If it is Palin, I would be concerned that the life of a VP would be rather confining and dull after the outdoorsy life she’s used to.
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Palin confirmed on AP
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A governor for less than two years, and previously a mayor. A former beauty pagent contestant. She graduated from U of Idaho, which I can tell you is not one of the great universities. Party school.
I honestly can’t believe this, any of the other people who were mentioned seem like a better choice.
He’s going for the surprise, shock factor I think. It seems like he wants some of that historic election vibe for himself.
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The commentor crew at my favorite evil conservative blog is doing the happy dance over the Palin pick. There has been a lot of conservative anxiety up to now over McCain’s VP pick.
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The choice of Palin as VP is a huge relief. It means that the Republicans have conceded the election to Obama. I refuse to spend another moment of angst about the election.
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Palin also has a newborn with Down’s syndrome. I have never seen her debate, but she could lead Biden into a reprise of the Rick Lazio role in 2000 versus Hillary, if she is skillful.
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Biden is going to have to be really careful in the debates on how he comes across — I’ve heard complaints that his questioning of Elizabeth Warren during the bankruptcy bill hearings was pretty condescending, and then there’s the old Anita Hill issues.
I don’t think she’s qualified to be President. But I’m not sure she’s *less* qualified than Romney.
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I think it’s a brilliant pick — my Republican parents who hate Bush will love it. I’m really kind of shocked they went for it, but damn, it could be interesting.
Lisa, I’m continually perplexed by people who put so much stock in where politicians in their 40s, 50s, and 60s went to college. Do you believe an Ivy League degree should be a requirement for being president? Does it matter if that Ivy League degree was earned 30 years ago? Seems about as anti-progressive an attitude as they come.
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Although Palin’s a traditional conservative, Alaska has been flush with cash in recent years because of the new drilling and have pursued some interesting progressive policies. They have a whole department for helping kids with FAS, because it such a problem up there. Palin may be quite knowledgable about progressive family issues. We’ll see.
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Wow, I’m surprised. I didn’t think he would do it, and I didn’t think Palin would take it. But, I’m not going to change my mind about thinking she seems to be, personally, an amazing woman. She’s a former basketball player as well as a beauty queen. I recently discovered that three feminist moms I know (the artist, the harvard educated MD, and the alternative/athiest athelete were cheerleaders in high school).
(But, I do agree that the choice sounds a bit last-ditch, kind of like Mondale’s choice of Ferraro, picking someone that McCain thinks would be interesting to run with, rather than to govern with.)
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(Oh, and this might be an effective way for grooming her for 2016)
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My sister has been in Alaska for 15 years. I’m waiting until it is late enough to be socially acceptable to call her and get the local scoop.
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And, I do wonder how she will run for vp with a newborn (of any sort, but especially one with Downs). I look forward to hearing more about how she will do that. Is her husband the primary child care provider? Does she have childcare? Will she travel with Trig (her son), or will he stay somewhere else?
And I ask these questions not to say she can’t do it, but to understand how. Just like Hilary & her pantsuits, Palin is now going to be a role model of how to do it. My only hope is that we will actually be permitted to understand how.
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Siobhan: While you await an asnwer to your question, why don’t you answer mine. To refresh your recollection: you asserted there was “a convention-week slide” in public opinion for Obama. I challenged your claim and asked for evidence. I then supplied some evidence to the contrary. You have yet to provide anything.
Wherever one went to college (or not), it is anti-intellectual to make empirical claims but disregard evidence.
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Amen, Siobhan.
I’m a western Washingtonian and went to a rich kid private school in Southern California, but practically all my cousins eventually wound up at Washington State (with one outlier at UW). My parents did their grad work at University of Idaho and my brother and his future wife went there (WSU and UI are actually really close together). That’s typical, I think, for Westerners, to go to their own state school or one a state or two over. I really don’t think dissing Palin’s undergraduate institution is going to be a winnning strategy. (As far as partying goes, it’s hard to touch the 1998 incident at WSU where up to 2000 rioting students burned mattresses and furniture and injured a couple dozen polic officers after a ban on alcohol.)
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But, I’m not going to change my mind about thinking she seems to be, personally, an amazing woman.
Yeah, the more I read, the more I like. Apparently she vetoed legislation barring same-sex partners from receiving state benefits because she thought it was illegal. Refreshing to see someone go against their personal politics in the interest of upholding the law. Depending on how the media spins it, she could really pull in a lot of moderates who haven’t warmed to McCain.
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Another reason it’s a brilliant pick is that the news anchors seem to be genuinely fascinated and dying to parse this selection to death. If it had been a more obvious, conventional pick, I don’t think it would have stolen the post-DNC spotlight so quickly and so thoroughly.
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We just had the discussion about whether which college you went to matters. It’s complicated, ’cause it does, for certain things one might want to do, but as a marker for one’s ability it depends a lot on the circumstances started out in. I know a young woman from Alaska who went to MIT, but it required an extraordinary amount of identification on the apart of others, and on her own. I don’t think we can use Palin’s choice of college as a marker of her effort and ability because her opportunities were different, and I think it likely that she made the best of them (including being a beauty queen).
(We couldn’t use it against Obama or Clinton-B, either. But, we might use it against Bush, or Kerry, or Gore, and maybe Clinton-H).
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I agree with Siobhan, too, about criticism based on the undergraduate institution. And I await any evidence that Siobhan feels an obligation to back up her empirical claims with actual evidence.
The problem with Governor Palin is that her governing experience is two years as the executive of the fourth smallest state in the union. It would be hard to find someone with less actual experience than that. And since the possibility of a McCain VP becoming president must be taken quite seriously, this is a terrible choice. And it reveals McCain to be desperate.
This is what all of McCain’s tauted experience led him to do: pick a complete rookie from a tiny state for the Vice-Presidency?
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“But, I’m not going to change my mind about thinking she seems to be, personally, an amazing woman.”
But mind you, I would never ever vote for her in a million years. Her personal amazingness means nothing (as a vp or presidential candidate) balanced against her anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-single sex marriage stance (to me). I don’t find it difficult to separate my admiration of her as a woman from my abhorance of her as a vp candidate.
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I think its a good pick, politically, for the moment, like the next few weeks. We’ll see if the thrill lasts past the convention.
I like that she seems to be a fairly progressive republican, aside from the hyper Christianity and pro-life stuff.
If Democrats wind up losing, she might actually have a clue about family needs and special needs which can only be a good thing. The pro-life stuff really scares me, though.
Hey, at least no Lectures from Lieberman for the next 2 months!
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Frankly, I would not think twice about what university she went to if it wasn’t a local one that most of the locals don’t send their own children to- it made me laugh to hear she went there. I can’t tell you how many parents who won’t let their kids attend there because of the party school reputation.
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Almost every school is a party school, if that’s what you’re looking for.
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But mind you, I would never ever vote for her in a million years.
An hour ago I would have said the same thing, but it’s amazing how many sneering references to a “former beauty queen” one can see on supposedly progressive blogs in that amount of time.
Lisa, I don’t want to get all McBickersons about it so I’ll drop it after this, but your follow-up seemed like more of the same: if she had gone to the “right” sort of school (26 years ago…) you wouldn’t of said anything, but she didn’t, so you mocked her for it.
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No, no Siobhan. It was just an intial reaction from a local. It doesn’t mean she was fit or unfit based on school. I was just quickly summarizing what I knew about her. I said I laughed, I thought that made it clear. Their football team loses to ours to, so I mock them.
Honestly, has nothing to do with elitist. It’s a school that is commonly mocked in my community. The first joke a DJ made this morning was “she went to U of I- what was McCain thinking- they always lose!”
I wouldn’t vote for her if she had gone to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Vassar combined. I disagree with her party and her philosophy.
I mocked her school before her, and will after her.
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Siobhan: I guess you’re also dropping any pretense of having any actual evidence to support your bald assertion about the convention-week decline that wasn’t.
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RCinProv, The only person with less executive experience in this race that I can think of would be Obama. At least she has had to run something and she actually was the decisive factor in protecting domestic partner rights in Alaska. What has Obama actually accomplished?
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“An hour ago I would have said the same thing, but it’s amazing how many sneering references to a “former beauty queen” one can see on supposedly progressive blogs in that amount of time.”
Voting for someone with whom you disagree with on fundamental issues because some people behave inappropriately (attacking her personally, rather than her politics) is a choice I’ve never understood. I always try pretty hard to vote for the viable candidate I most agree with, and I do that when they seem a bit slimy (like I’ve always felt about Bill Clinton), or when I identify with them (Obama) or when I admire them (Tsongas, Feingold, Wellstone).
Sneering about being a beauty queen is an interesting one. I don’t think it’s completely unjustified to sneer about that choice, certainly in this day and age. But, Palin did it in a different time, not so long ago, but long enough ago, that it was one of the few routes of women to power. I can’t diss a 40+ year old woman from Alaska for it, though I’d certainly dissuade my daughter from that route.
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bj, I think it’s a problem particular to disdaining Obama from his left. When we know so little about him and when he’s never had the temerity to make a controversial Senate vote and when his supporters who claim to want change seem to contain a large contingent of sexist thugs, well, it gets harder to assert that he’s the viable candidate that I most agree with. With his pie-in-the-sky promises? Sure. But with no track record to suggest what he’ll pick when a bill requires him to choose between two or more of those promises? Eh.
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Aw, come on. Bashing beauty queens is fair game, especially if it is done with humor and flair. Of course, college professors and bloggers should be mocked as well.
Palin’s lack of experience is going to make Obama look like a seasoned veteran. Palin has only two years of real political experience. Alaska is not only a small population state; it also has a very weak government. There’s an elected leut. governor. BTW, TX is also a weak governor state with a leut. gov who does most of the real work and look what came out of that state. Obama was a state senator for seven years in a state that actually has some power. And one term in the US senate. And he’s won out over very experienced pros in the Democratic campaign.
Some geek at Wikipedia has already updated Palin’s wikipedia page.
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“I like that she seems to be a fairly progressive republican, aside from the hyper Christianity and pro-life stuff.”
Jen, you’re cracking me up!
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And, RC is right. Given McCain’s age, his VP choice is super important. This choice has an air of desperation about it. It says to me that McCain is extremely worried about winning this election and hasn’t thought beyond that point.
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Carosgram: I will, unlike Siobahn, provide a response when questioned. Siobhan makes assertions, ignores evidence to the contrary, and then changes the subject.
You have slid the word executive into the experience argument without any clear reason why. Are you saying that years of experience in a state state legislature and in the US Senate do not count for anything because they are not executive? Well, McCain has no relevant experience by that crabbed standard! He has not “run” anything either. So please explain why McCain’s experience counts for something and Obama’s does not.
As for Palin’s executive experience, it is two years in something the population of a county in msot states. If she were running for county commissioner, I’d agree she’s qualified. But since she has not run anything larger than a county and has zero experience with issue of foriegn policy, the idea that she is qualifed to be a heartbneat away from the presidency strikes me as absurd.
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From Alaska resident Dave Noon, over at Lawyers Guns & Money, “[Palin is] Bobby Jindal without the exorcisms.”
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heh. saw that, doug, and linked it just minutes ago.
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This was my favorite from a list of fun facts about Sarah Palin:
“When each of her children reach the age of 13, they are dropped alone into the Alaskan wilderness with only a knife and compass. When they finally make it back home, she gives them freshly-baked cookies, hot chocolate, and their own copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.”
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Palin’s lack of experience is going to make Obama look like a seasoned veteran.
I was very surprised to see the Obama campaign take that tactic in their press release — “Your VP candidate has no more experience than the top of our ticket” isn’t quite the zinger they thought it was. Argue all you want about executive branch experience versus not, being a US Senator with no legislative accomplishments versus being a mayor, etc., in the end you’re struggling to establish that your presidential pick is as qualified as the other ticket’s VP pick. I think a slightly more gracious, while still critical, response would have served the campaign much better.
I’m more convinced that this is a great pick by the Republicans after seeing the response at Jezebel, a women’s blog for Obama. The commenters there are basically wild with fear…
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You have no credibility, Siobahn. Zero. You have established today that you make things up, that you ignore evidence, and that you then change the subject. I’m done reading your posts and I suggest that you find a blog where the uninformed and those who don’t care about evidence are at home — say, the GOP web site.
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Sioban,
If you take the time to read the other statement, put out under the names of Obama and Biden themselves, as opposed to a campaign operative, you will notice a certain graciousness.
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“You have no credibility, Siobahn. Zero. You have established today that you make things up, that you ignore evidence, and that you then change the subject. I’m done reading your posts and I suggest that you find a blog where the uninformed and those who don’t care about evidence are at home — say, the GOP web site.”
Laura?
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long time reader of this blog – first time poster. I don’t think Siobhan’s comments are uninformed – from my perspective its basically a wash. Senators (state and national) only real experience is learning to love the sound of their own voice. Mayors and governors, even of small states, at least have to run an administration.
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welcome, pete. I would argue that a state senator from a big state with a strong system has more experience handling intricate legislation than a governor from a small state with a weak system. But that’s really neither here nor there. My main problem with Palin are her politics, rather than her lack of experience.
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Thanks,Laura. I agree wholeheartedly on the opposition to her politics. Unfortunately, trying to quantify legislative accomplishments in the Illinois political machine is difficult.
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Pistol Pete: read the whole thread. Shiobhan made an assertion that there had been a convention-week decline in public support for Obama. Sheer assertion. I asked for evidence–you know, some facts to support one’s empirical claim. She provided none. I then provided one poll showing Obama gained in the beginning oteh week. Still no retraction or correction or clarification from Shiobahn.
I think that facts matter. I also think that people who don’t think that they matter are worthy of scorn. Making stuff up should be called out. And so I have done that.
There’s a reason the Dems have been talking about science. The GOP has rejected science. And Shibahn’s assertions without facts are no better.
The executive/leglsiative issue is not the same kind of issue. There is legitimate debate about the relative value of each kind of experience. But I await the explanation why legislative experience makes McCain but does nothing for Obama.
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“And Shibahn’s assertions without facts are no better.”
Who knew there were so many ways to spell Siobhan?
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“UPDATE: It’s official. Reactions from the blogosphere: here, here, … ”
Who knew the blogosphere consists of one blog.
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Um. Watching kids here. Doing the best I can.
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I simply don’t understand any attack on Obama from the left, when our alternatives are McCain/Palin, and especially from anyone who supported Hillary (who is a Democratic Leadership Council democrat). I’ve heard this refrain that we can’t know what Obama would do when faced with difficult, possibly politically damaging choices. We know what McCain, Biden, and Clinton did when faced with that choice, on the war. They all voted in favor of the war. That attack is simply non-sticky.
There’s just simply no question that on progressive issues the Obama/Biden team will stand left of McCain/Palin. They might not go as far left as I would hope, but what we saw at the convention was a resurgence of the progressive democrats, and a diminishing of the DLC. Might be dangerous in the general election, but a progressive can only keep fingers crossed.
Someone wrote on another board that if you wanted to vote for three X chromosomes, then, it might be OK to vote for Palin, but that if you wanted to vote for Hillary, that voting for Palin is a deep betrayal of everything Hillary stands for.
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“I like that she seems to be a fairly progressive republican, aside from the hyper Christianity and pro-life stuff.”
So, really, what does that mean? On what grounds can one call Palin a progressive? She’s pro-life; she supports drilling in the Alaskan wilderness (a position McCain disagrees with), and she’s a small government conservative who is known for budget cutting in her small town, and has been the one governor who has benefited from exploding oil prices, and so is managing a budget of plenty, rather than one where everything is being cut to the bone.
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Will she call for full funding of IDEA?
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Sam, certainly, the Obama campaign did the split reaction, analogous to what McCain did — did you expect otherwise?
I still don’t think that makes the campaign’s reaction a road they want to go down.
Laura?
Wouldn’t that be awesome, though? I’d be mad impressed with Laura if that were true.
You’ve given me a great idea for to get rid of commenters I don’t like on my blog — adopt the persona of an utterly unhinged ideologue named WKRPinCinn.
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SO, compare their positions:
http://www.issues2000.org/Joe_Biden.htm
http://www.issues2000.org/Sarah_Palin.htm
http://www.issues2000.org/Barack_Obama.htm
http://www.issues2000.org/John_McCain.htm
Palin’s section is amazingly sparse (mind you, ’cause she was not a national player until today). She has no position on family’s & children, on foreign policy, on immigration, or on jobs. Her energy position involves opening ANWR (nothing else). Her health care position involves “greater flexibility in regulations”.
I would not expect her position on IDEA to be any different from McCain’s, but look forward to hearing her opinions.
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“Wouldn’t that be awesome, though? I’d be mad impressed with Laura if that were true.” Huh? What does that mean? Oh, now I got it. Sorry, I’m super slow this evening. Steve gave me one of his too-alternative-for-you beers and I didn’t get it at first.
OK, guys. Everyone needs to settle down a bit. A little smackdown is fair game in the blogosphere, but I can’t sit in front of this computer for hours. Don’t make me stop this car, kids…
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“Palin’s position [is] that women who are victims of rape and incest should be required to bring their pregnancies to term.”
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“In October 2005, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the denial of benefits to the same-sex partners of public employees. While Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and, as governor signed a bill providing benefits to same-sex partners of public employees into law, she reportedly supported a ballot initiative that would have forced the Alaskan government to deny benefits to same-sex couples.”
(A further explanation of her willingness to support benefits for same sex couples. She supported a 1998 state ballot initiative writing into the Alaskan constitution a ban on same-sex marriage, which passed)
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Man, is that for real, Amy? I’m…torn between thinking that if Palin does that, it almost has to be so ironic that it’s cool, and being fucking terrified that she’s utterly serious. If it’s the latter, why stop there? She should have her kids staked out on a fire ant nest for a day to make sure they can endure pain, and so on.
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Sorry, that was too brief. What I meant by “Laura?” was “Hey, Laura! Is this what you want going on on your blog?”
I think I have seen a guy troll on his own blog, though. It’s a personal finance blogger, and his personal life produces exactly one crisis a week, just enough to keep the drama level high on his blog: a wrecked car, his wife’s secret credit card accounts, a large loan to his trucker cousin (ultimately spent on strippers), various broke relatives, severe economies at home, mutinous children, health crises, etc. He’s also got a Greek chorus of critical commentors, several of which are probably him. I’m trying to stop reading the blog because I just don’t trust the guy.
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No, I regret to say that that was only from a list of fictional “fun facts.” Didn’t want to start any rumors.
Speaking of rumors, I wonder how that “abuse of power” thing is going to turn out.
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Oh Amy! That is so clever! I guess you’ve never seen a typo before. Having just see the poll results for Obama’s bump *before* last night, I’m still waiting for some evidence from Siobhan-who-makes-stuff-up.
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Timothy, you know that your east coast liberal, non-gun-toting, never killed a moose background came out in full force if you didn’t realize that Amy was tricking you (as my son would say).
Next, can we take you snipe hunting :-).
I need to admit that I’m also a liberal (but from the left coast), non-gun toting, and have never shot anything. But, I did realize that Amy was joking.
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Siobhan,
C’mon, do some digging. Fox News, which obviously wants to boost Palin as much as possible and hurt Obama, reports that the Obama campaign was caught off guard by the announcement and fumbled around. It was not a calculated “split reaction” as you suggest. It was a senior staffer freelancing and then being pulled into line by Obama himself. Obama will treat her with respect but will also argue that she is ideologically wrong for the job. It’s her politics…
http://bourbonroom.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/08/29/obamas-plane-palin-problem/
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you know, after reading about this scary lady, I take back the “progressive republican” statement. I liked that she canned the “bridge to nowhere” and apparently has noted that she has “gay friends” but I fell prey to the wikipedia entry. She may not be as scary as say, Cheney…but she’s not harmless either. I think this will prove a good choice for McCain at the beginning but in about 2 weeks, it’ll be over.
Also: I heard her on the radio and she has a really annoying voice. So does McCain. At this point I’ll vote for anyone I can bear to look and listen to for the length of a state of the union speech.
I do happen to like the fact that she doesn’t let 5 kids slow her down. Wonder if the first dude is doing full time child care now or how many nannies she has. Fewer than Angelina!
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“I do happen to like the fact that she doesn’t let 5 kids slow her down. Wonder if the first dude is doing full time child care now or how many nannies she has. Fewer than Angelina!”
Me too, but I really want to know *how* she does it. It’s quite possible that the first dude + relatives (she’s fairly young, so grandmothers, sisters, aunts could step in). That’s absolutely fine with me, but I do want to know how she does it.
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I have chased snipe with great aplomb on a number of occasions.
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To be accurate, she attended three colleges, before graduating:
“Palin began her college career at Hawaii Pacific University. Wanting to reconnect with her family’s roots, she transferred to North Idaho College, then finished her journalism degree at the University of Idaho.”
University of Idaho magazine, Winter 2008
The “beauty queen” stint brought a college scholarship, which probably helped the teacher’s daughter pay for college.
It’s fair to indulge one’s elitism by sneering at Palin’s educational career, but do you realize how snobby and out of touch it sounds?
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Unbelievable pick. If I was a Republican I would be pissed.
Sarah Palin: The Real Dope (pun intended)
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Hey, Amy P, do you have an email address that you share? I had a quick question for you…
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As a somewhat “bitter” libertarian/conservative graduate of a Texas state school who tires of the bashing from left-leaning elitists, my reaction to Palin is overwhelmingly positive. I suspect there might be many others like me residing in disdained flyover country (even if only in spirit) who have become energized about her nomination.
Also, it does seem that an attack on her lack of experience serves to focus the spotlight back on Obama’s thin resume.
The Insta-wife describes Palin’s appeal very nicely.
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Siobhan,
I don’t have any suitable email yet. Let me get back to you later.
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“I do happen to like the fact that she doesn’t let 5 kids slow her down. Wonder if the first dude is doing full time child care now or how many nannies she has.”
I wan to know if it’s greater than or less than McCain’s number of houses. Or whether, in the spirit of post-modern Republicanism, it’s quantum indeterminate, as befits a candidate for the fourth branch of govrnment.
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Doug,
A lot of people had 6 houses in 2005-6. I grant you that only the genuinely rich still have them all today.
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Today’s vocabulary word is “kuspuk.”
The blogger over at
http://tundramedicinedreams.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-is-kuspuk.html
says that a kuspuk is:
“A kuspuk is the traditional Yupik overshirt type garment worn by both men and women. Men tend to wear them primarily for ceremonial occasions, but for women they are everyday wear. Loose-fitting, they are extremely comfortable.
Basically, a kuspuk is a long-sleeved hooded slip-over shirt with a large pocket in the front, like a hooded sweatshirt without a banded bottom.”
Todd Palin is of Yupik ancestry, apparently. I was just looking at a photo on HuffPost of Sarah Palin in the grocery store in a bright pink garment which an Ace of Spades commentor IDed as a kuspuk.
Who says the US is bland and homogenized?
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Look, and you can buy a kuspuk at http://www.kozykuspuk.com (looks kind of like an anorak).
(Todd Palin’s great-grandmother was Yupik, for anyone else who has been wondering what the connection is)
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Siobhan,
I can be reached via
http://www.contactify.com/402a8
I’ve also now got a link over at xantippesblog.blogspot.com at the bottom of the “about me” box.
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