What do we learn about McCain from this Palin pick? Is all this hoopla good for him?
51 thoughts on “What about McCain?”
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Apt. 11d 
1) he’s impulsive, but we knew that already. I don’t want an impulsive president right now, ’cause I think that’s what’s gotten us into a lot of trouble.
2) i do not think the hoopla is good (the hoopla until Monday was, but since monday, ick.)
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It’s all good news for McCain. It always is…
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Oh, and, I think he went against his heart, as the NY times article argued — that he wanted Ridge or Lieberman, but was thwarted from that plan by the staunchly pro-life wing of his party, who vote that issue in isolation of others. I think he thought he’d convince them, until the last minute, because he didn’t understand how that issue could be so important to them, since it’s unimportant to him (unimportant, mind you, he’s definitely not pro-choice.) But, when he couldn’t he went with someone for them, someone he thought he’d like.
In doing so he fell into the trap Kinsley complained about last election in Slate(about democrats and how they pick candidates)
The fiasco reminds me that one really should stick to one’s own principles, or give up the job.
“Your judgment about other people’s judgment, let alone other people’s judgment about other people’s judgment, is inherently less certain and more subject to breezes of false or true insight and information than your judgment about your own judgment.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2095009/
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In the middle of the “rumors” thread, a couple of the Rs tried to argue that choosing Palin spoke well of McCain’s judgement. They might reprise here, if asked nicely (or perhaps baited properly).
I’m thrilled with the way the choice has played out so far. I should go back and read a little more Nixonland just to remind myself that it’s not certain McCain will be crushed in two months’ time.
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“I should go back and read a little more Nixonland just to remind myself that it’s not certain McCain will be crushed in two months’ time.”
yes, please do. I started out appalled at the original nutty rumors, to just flabbergasted at what the truth actually was, and now, I am amused at watching the whole thing. It’s fun to be able to see someone (at Daily Kos) writing “Meanwhile, Obama doing everything right.” 1) perfect convention. 2) Mind your own business 3) Bring everything back to what matters. Usually, it’s them who have everything perfectly choreographed, while we flail.
But, I don’t think it’s going to significantly change the political landscape in the voting booth in November. We’re fighting the same battle that we were, against the war, for effective government, for an ideology that supports children an the weak.
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“It’s all good news for McCain. It always is…”
No way, Doug. It’s good for Mitt Romney.
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While it shows that McCain impulsively blew this decision, we should keep one thing in mind, something that Laura the political scientist can expand upon: VP picks don’t make much difference in November. It’s still about McCain v. Obama. Perhaps we should be talking about Iran….or, for you domestic policy types, the continuing financial crisis…
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I find it interesting that when I flipped over to Fox tonight, their top story was “Levi Johnston will attend convention with Bristol Palin.” I mean, they really want us to focus on this don’t they?
My second interesting- while Levi and Bristol are attending the convention- Bush is not, only appearing by satellite. McCain is distancing himself, I’d say. Also the tribute to Ronald Regan seemed to want to evoke comparisons between the two “mavericks”, McCain and Regan. Not Bush and McCain.
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I don’t think Palin will help McCain, but I also don’t think this will hurt McCain. This weekend, I was flipping through the alumni newsletter from my high school and saw that the daughter of someone I went to school with (who was a year behind me) had just graduated. At the time, this news just made me feel old. But as the Palin thing started, I couldn’t help but think about how many of the people I knew as children already had nearly grown children of their own while I’m just getting acquainted with Montessori. This made me feel old and very atypical (which is a slight improvement). How I feel is neither here nor there, but it does make me wonder how the Democrats can make much hay out of this. There must be a very large number of boring middle-aged couples who get nervous when the kids ask about mom and dad’s wedding date.
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“There must be a very large number of boring middle-aged couples who get nervous when the kids ask about mom and dad’s wedding date.”
One of my cousins belatedly put two and two together when she learned her parents’ wedding date and discovered that she herself had attended the event in utero.
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I was born 7 months after my parents’ marriage. However, they were deliberately trying. I’m a draft dodger baby. (My dad got a 3A when my mom was 3 months pregnant with me, just like Dick Cheney.)
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Yeah, but four months is a little bit more obvious, isn’t it? Why haven’t they gotten married yet, if that’s the plan? Basically, I’m wondering what does happen in the communities you guys are talking about (or the strange other world described in the TIME article about Wasilla, where, like in urban Detroit, teen pregnancy is no big deal, because there are much worse things that can happen).
In those communities, when a girl gets pregnant, when do you arrange the wedding? Is it OK to wait until after the baby is born (the Douglass & Zeta-Jones) or do you have to do it before? Does it matter how long before?
I’m not really being snarky — I actually want to understand the customs.
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bj,
I don’t have a huge number of case studies on hand, but one of the neighbor girls back home had her wedding when she was in her teens and massively pregnant with twins. The marriage was not a raging success, but the husband eventually died in a boating accident, so she wound up a widow in her very early twenties.
I think the traditional stealthy shot-gun wedding is no longer widely practiced. There’s much less of a push toward a quick wedding. And that’s not such a bad thing, particularly when the kids are so awfully young. (Among Catholics in the US, the rules on the books require priests to wait for a couple to have their baby before celebrating a wedding–being pregnant at the time of the wedding is a cause for annulment, since the couple might be under pressure to marry.)
Looking back 60 years, one of my small town great-aunts got pregnant at college. I don’t know the exact sequence of events, but she came back home to her parents and had her baby (the little girl was the apple of her mom’s eye), married a guy in town, raised a large family, and was a pillar of the church. She baked yeast rolls for a local restaurant in her kitchen and I still remember the smell. She died 60ish, much too young.
One more thing: while BP and her fiance may be emotionally too immature to have a good marriage, I expect that in the Alaskan economic environment, it’s quite possible for them to be financially self-sufficient.
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BJ, it was assumed that everyone (or at least every girl) wanted marriage and children, so it wasn’t altering the course of your life so much as speeding it up a bit.
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Good news for Romney, Amy? Er, how exactly?
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Doug,
That’s a (I confess only mildly amusing) joke against Hugh Hewitt, who during the primary was always talking about how whatever happened was good for Mitt Romney.
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BJ,
And to add to what MH said, in my hometown, the parents-to-be had probably been “going out” since they were 14 anyway. I’m very curious if those lengthy pre-marriages are still the norm at my high school, or whether the hook-up culture has taken over.
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I think the story’s getting interest because it strikes a chord with many average americans. In 2002, the pregnancy rate for teens (15-19) was 7.5 %. (I’m drawing from the Guttmacher report, http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf.) Each year, teenagers and their parents face this problem, and however families choose to react to it, I don’t think Americans are prone to pointing fingers.
I also think the commenters on this blog seem to have a horror of illegitimate conception which is increasingly not shared by the American populace. From the Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/includes/teen_births_2006.pdf): “In 2006, more than 4 in 5 births to teenagers were nonmarital. Nearly 60 percent of births to women aged 20-24 years and nearly 3 in 10 births to women aged 25-29 years were to unmarried women.”
The upper middle class narrative of staying in school, getting a degree, going to grad school, working to get ahead, marrying at 30, and having children even later, is admirably productive, but it isn’t the life trajectory most Americans choose. I think Obama supporters think they are helping him by attacking Palin’s family, but as far as I can see these attacks are creating huge voter sympathy for the Palins, especially for a couple of teenagers who did not seek media attention.
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OMG. The commenters on this blog do not swoon at the thought of teenage pregnancy. Certainly, there’s no swooning going by the author of this blog. Obama supporters are not attacking Palin’s family. Give me a break! I am actually getting highly annoyed here. I’ve got to go into class in a minute. When I’m back later and I’m going to get some new discussion going on, because I can’t deal with this one.
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But stranger, the Palins are the ones who brought the couple of teenagers into the public eye.
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“Obama supporters are not attacking Palin’s family.”
Just a couple days ago, some people were speculating that Trig was the incestuously conceived child of BP and some other member of the family. I think those people were attacking Palin’s family.
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Incest? That’s a new one…and you, Amy, are its source.
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Near as I can tell, Obama supporters would like to talk about Palin as a VP, not a mother, the right keeps bringing it back to her family. Even on this thread.
The question was, what does this say about McCain? It says that he is willing to grandstand with a sensationalized candidate to win an election, damning the country or what he really wants (Lieberman). It’s win an election at all costs. This would be like Obama picked Nader or Kucinich to please the far left, no matter if he thought they were a good potential president or not.
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Sam,
Actually, no. The folks over at Ace of Spades have been collating stuff over at Kos and that sort of place, and the incest theory had a number of backers. It was a really weird weekend.
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Sam,
Up until about five minutes ago, Andrew Sullivan was demanding SP’s obstetrical records to prove that her baby was really hers. There’s been a lot of craziness going round.
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I figured they hadn’t gotten married yet because they’d lose their health insurance.
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Sam,
I don’t like violating Laura’s call to end the thread, but you did call me a liar, without taking a few minutes to do the most elementary web research. Google “Bristol Palin” incest if you really think that I came up with that on my own.
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John Scalzi:
“4. However, let’s not pretend that if, say, Joe Biden’s daughter were teenage, unmarried and pregnant at the moment, that the right wing noise machine would not be shitting itself blind with glee at the fact, proclaiming with gravity about how these are just the sort of terrible consequences that liberal beliefs lead to and intoning solemnly behind barely stifed grins about how it actually is relevant to the election and should be discussed, publicly and at length, over and over and over again.
“5. While Miss Palin’s pregnancy is (or should be, anyway) out of bounds as a subject for discussion, things that are up for continuing discussion include: Gov. Palin’s positions on abstinence-only education, women’s control of their bodies, birth control, Roe v. Wade, whether medical professionals can refuse on religious grounds to give treatment to women, and all other manner of topics relating to sex, women’s bodies, and choice. If Gov. Palin and the McCain campaign try to use Miss Palin’s pregnancy like they use Senator McCain’s former POW status — i.e., a cheap and easy trope to trot out in order to avoid answering reasonable questions — that’s well worth calling them on.
“Which is to say: Yes, Governor Palin, your daughter is pregnant, and I respect her choice (as well as the fact that she has a choice) to have her child, and her right to privacy while she deals with the choices she’s made. Her choices, however, do not excuse you from having to explain your own, at least as they regard how they will affect the choices other women will be able to make about their own bodies, should you get into office.”
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Amy,
I will leave the trawling of the blog underworld to you. Let’s just say the “incest” meme never rose up to a level that even my obsessive reading discovered. I imagine, if you are so inclined, that you could find equally disgusting tidbits about Obama among Freepers and their ilk. Or perhaps it has all been collated into that great literary masterpiece that sits upon the top of the NYT bestseller list, testament to the power of the right wing smear machine. But what’s the use. There are crazies on both sides. Why descend to the Ace of Spades, which greeted me with this pleasant statement when I followed your advice:
“You. Are. A Fucking. Retarded. Douchetool of an Obama Ball-gargling Cunt of a Hack of a Fake-ass journalistic dick.”
Nice. What is it that they say: stay classy.
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Regarding Scalzi —
Point 4 is speculation. Go ahead and do it, but I don’t see how it supports the intrusion into KP’s privacy.
If Gov. Palin and the McCain campaign try to use Miss Palin’s pregnancy like they use Senator McCain’s former POW status — i.e., a cheap and easy trope to trot out in order to avoid answering reasonable questions — that’s well worth calling them on.
More speculation. I have not seen where the campaign has used the pregnancy as “trope”. If the questions continue to be framed in the context of KP’s pregnancy, then it seems perfectly legitimate for the campaign to decline engaging in that dialogue.
“Since your own teenage daughter is pregnant, how does your support of abstinence only education make sense?” I don’t consider that a reasonable question, and I suspect many other voters would agree with me.
I’m coming to the conclusion that part of the reason Obama supporters, including the media, are becoming more irrational is because this Palin thing caught them by surprise.
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Sam,
Gosh, that wasn’t what turned up when I googled “Bristol Palin” incest. Are you sure you did it right?
In any case, you said that I came up with the incest accusations all by myself. You wrote “That’s a new one…and you, Amy, are its source,” in effect calling me a liar. That’s the second or third time that that has happened in the past few days on this blog, and I don’t much like it, particularly not when I have the goods, and you didn’t bother to check first. Are you going to take it back, or not?
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Amy, Sam’s right. You can’t lift up rotten logs and bitch about the bugs you’ll find there. Let’s talk about mainstream discourse on the Palin pregnancy, and there’s plenty to bitch/discuss about there without bringing in incest stuff that is clearly out of the realm of sanity.
Laura, I vote we talk about school residency issues. 😉 Oh, ok, maybe not.
Here’s a topic: the increasing emphasis on “civility” in higher ed? It’s one of our university objectives to develop some sort of civility code. And no, no one is talking about racism/sexism/classism/etc. in classroom discussions. People are talking about things like cell phones, e-mail etiquette, sidebar convos in the classroom, proper clothing, etc. Is this the kind of thing that requires a “civility code”?
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it tells us that McCain is a reckless gambler who can’t even manage due diligence.
He’d give us another 4 years of governing from the gut. Oh whoopee.
I’d like a president who thinks with his brain, not his digestive organs. Call me old-fashioned.
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Amy,
I did not call you a liar. I simply pointed out that you have introduced the incest theme into the discussion here. Before that it had been known only to those who really dig deep down into the muck. So, I will revise: you are not its source but merely its facilitator.
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Sam,
That’s slightly better.
Wendy,
Good idea. Another possible topic is that study on how popularity affects future life. Or, something on beginning of the school year, specifically homework. My 1st grader is supposed to do 15 minutes of reading a night, although some reading-aloud or audiobook listening is allowed. Last night we also had a short mathy activity, but it was a bit too easy for the third week of the school year. I’m more pleased by an in-class assignment my daughter brought home with a map of North America, where the written instructions ask the kids to color Greenland brown, the US green, Canada pink, and Mexico red. I sure didn’t know where Greenland was on the map when I was six years old. There’s also the question of extracurriculars. We did only religious ed at our parish one night a week last year, but this year she’s also signed up for ballet and I need to schedule some physical therapy (she’s is in the 16th percentile for cordination and balance, apparently). I’d like her to finally learn to swim this year, too, but religious ed once a week, ballet once a week, and physical therapy a couple times a week are starting to sound like too much. The ballet teacher is supposed to be really tough, and really fascistical about the girls’ hair. On the other hand, the ballet would probably reinforce the physical therapy, and it’s offered on-site at the school. Choices, choices…Oh, and then there’s the subject of school lunch. We don’t have federal hot lunch at our private school, so it’s mostly either fast food or my very unimaginative home lunches, although they did add a Pan-Asian vendor to the mix. How do people feel about the hot lunch at school?
As someone said upthread, I’m a master at changing the subject. Tex, you were mentioned in that context too–do you have any alternative topics?
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When I was in first grade, I used to sit in the back of the room and read the dictionary. I was pretty boring until I learned to hold my beer.
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Oh, tell me about the ECs. We’ve alternately bulked up and then cut back through the years. I dislike my kids having some scheduled activity 4 or more days of the week. With my daughter starting middle school, the after-school club choices have expanded and she’s very interested. She already does piano, Girl Scouts (every other week), soccer (twice a week) and Kumon. We’ll add one club, and that may be too much for me. We’ll see how it goes.
Hot school lunches are generally high carb with very little fresh produce. In middle & high school, they add French fries. What does my high schooler usually eat when I don’t pack his lunch? Some combination of French fries, pizza, muffin and chocolate chip cookies. I’ve given up.
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I vote for homework. Laura’s discussed that before, but we can do it again, and maybe let our blood cool a little bit.
I do think the content of this thread shows how different people’s worlds are. I too find the wagon drawing frustrating (as TimothyBurke mentioned on the previous thread). But, if we’re not really going to be able to discuss the different cultural worlds (really, I had no idea that catholic priests were not supposed to marry pregnant girls, that that is against the rules?). Honestly, a 17 year old, unexpectedly pregnant daughter who plans on becoming a mother is completely out of my frame of reference (though, admittedly, so is an 18 year old boy who joins the army), while Ph.Ds are a dime a dozen.
That’s why I think answering how something like this affects how *other* people think is not something I even pretend to think I can do.
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Tex,
Your kid is doing pretty good. When I was in high school, there was a longish stint when I was converting my lunch money into cherry lifesavers and a grape juice box. And you know what happens to fresh fruit or veggies in kids’ lunches…
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The topic of the next blog post is good commenting behavior.
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Booooo! We wanna talk about HOMEWORK! Not ourselves!
*sticks out tongue at blog owner and demonstrates bad commenting behavior*
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Although the other possibility is to discuss the issue with very heavy handed commenter editing on Laura’s part. But, I think she doesn’t have the time to do it.
I do agree that conservatives often try to change the subject/avoid discussion, contributing to my complete lack of understanding of what their philosophical underpinnings of their views are. I have a very examined philosophy, based on extensive discussion with others. I think hard about my first reactions to new information (like a mom leaving her special needs infant with others primarily in charge of their care). I like pushing myself to understand why I believe what I do. In order to do that, one needs to listen to why others believe what they do. I am interested in ways of having civil discourse with people I disagree with (and will always disagree with).
That’s awfully hard to do when instead of discussing what’s said by people here, one chooses to argue against something someone else has said. Perhaps with some ground rules about how to source information?
All difficult things to do, but since blogging and political discourse is actually one of Laura’s fields of study, perhaps not out of the realm of possibility?
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Hey, Laura, we managed to simulpost again. I think there must be some deep fundamental significance to that. 🙂
Here’s my Yay! so that you can weigh it against Wendy’s boo.
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bj,
To fill the picture out a bit, in the US, there’s supposed to be a six month marriage prep thing before a Catholic church wedding. That has the side benefit of preventing face-saving quickie weddings/divorces. Some people do the wedding prep as a single massive touchy-feely weekend retreat, which in my opinion defeats the whole purpose of the thing (plus men seem to almost universally hate it). I really liked the wedding prep that we did in Pittsburgh (at St. Bede’s, MH). There was a big questionnaire which my husband-to-be and I filled out separately, and then we spent several long sessions going through the differences in our answers, facilitated by the pastor. It was an excellent exercise (particularly in view of the fact that I was pretty young, and we had known each other about three months before getting engaged). Looking back, I did need some more detailed lessons in fiscal responsibility, but we did reasonably well up until we moved to suburban Maryland, were paying 50% of take-home in rent, started a family, and lost my (small) income. The 2008 me would like to fly back in time to the 2001 me and inform her that that ratio is not feasible, to explain to her what exactly a budget is and how it works, and that the downpayment fairy is not going to bring her a house downpayment, but that’s all water under the bridge, and I don’t know how well that would have fitted into the marriage prep curriculum. (The pastor did suggest trying to live on one income and saving the other.)
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Oh, and what might conservatives believe this says about McCain. I said I wouldn’t try to do it (i.e. guess what other people who live in a completely different world than me think), but I’ll give it a shot, if only to get people to contribute their own ideas.
1) that he cares about what they care about, even if he’s not a believer himself. Notably, I think this might show that he realizes the importance and strength of the anti-abortion forces in the Republican party, and he understands their importance, and doesn’t care enough about pro-choice views to oppose that subgroup.
2) that he’s willing to take chances, and understands that people’s lives are messy, and not everyone who has something to contribute has groomed themselves for that position from preschool (as opposed, say, to Mitt Romney).
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The family stuff is being driven by the McCain campaign. They just released a video of McCain himself meeting Levi at the airport (I saw it over at TPM). This is their story line. They want us to focus on this because, as a top campaign staffer said: it is not about issues. They are not trying to protect the privacy of the kids; they are putting the kids front and center. Totally shameless….
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In defense of the 2001 me, living on a single junior faculty salary, we had about $1,000 a month to cover all family expenses beyond rent and utilities. Unfortunately, my pre-child years in grad school had left me with a $100 a week book habit, an espresso habit, and a taste for ethnic restaurants, to which as a new mother I added a love of baby gadgets and pretty baby clothes. I’m clean and sober now consumer-spending wise (and we’re considerably better off), but what a shift it is to go from spending money and not thinking anything at all about it to carefully planning out when I’m going to finally buy “Stuff White People Like” and some new socks and clawing enough money out of the budget to be able to buy a house in two years.
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bj,
Not bad at all. Up until the last minute, conservatives were chewing on their fingernails, sure that McCain was going to give them a big poke in the eye and choose Lieberman or some “moderate” Republican. Not knowing what his VP was going to be, I didn’t feel the urge to give to the campaign until this weekend, when we finally paypaled in a donation. A lot of other people did the same thing, apparently. (There’s also some sort of deadline coming up, but I don’t know the ins-and-outs of the campaign finance process.)
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bj,
As far as worldviews go, an important part of the puzzle is that “hypocrisy” is not the end-all-be-all for conservatives. It’s not the only sin, and indeed in some circumstances, it’s the right thing to do. Example: deep down in your heart, you’re secretly and incurably racist. However, you exert yourself to hide this fact from everyone you know, and nearly succeed. I’d argue that this is far preferable to un-hypocritically sharing your racist views with your kids, your colleagues, and anyone within hearing range. It would be best if nobody were racist, but a society of quiet and hypocritical racists is arguably a nicer place to live (and more susceptible to positive change) than one populated with Archy Bunkers. As another example, we had a long-term houseguest a couple years back who was much loved by my older child. Well into the visit, I discovered that our visitor was going outside and around the corner of our building to smoke. For the sake of my visitor herself, I wish she weren’t a smoker, but I was pleased that she wasn’t openly smoking or talking about smoking in front of my 4-year-old daughter. To break this down, a lot of misdeeds have two separate consequences. First, an act may be bad in itself. Secondly, being open about that act may lead others to follow your bad example. Hence, it is often better to be a hypocrite than to draw others into bad behavior. (In traditional Catholic thought, this leading others into sin is technically called “scandal.”)
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Yes, and #1 is why the Hillary supporter who was supporting what Hillary actually believes shouldn’t think in a million years that the anti-abortion/”family values” wing of the republican party won’t be important in a McCain administration. My take is that this signals that he will give the “family values” portfolio to them or a representative if he were to gain power.
Good reason for many of us to send our donations to Obama (which I did just the other day). I think I’m still not maxed out, but I reserve some wiggle room so that I can donate when something ticks me off).
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Yeah, Sam. I just read something on the Feminists for Life website that went on and on about the girl’s decision to keep the baby. If one side uses the Palins’ personal story for political gain, then the other side has every right to do as well. I wish that neither side would go there. I’m done with it. I may actually have to watch the RNC tonight to get something new for the gristmill.
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