The chimera

Before John McCain asked Sarah Palin to be his running-mate, they'd met once in February and had one subsequent phone conversation (last Sunday). Bullied by social conservatives who vetoed his favored choices, McCain offered Palin the job on Wednesday Thursday. Palin is the least vetted vice presidential candidate in history, but we're quickly learning plenty about this inexperienced pol. Sisyphus has an illuminating post at 43SB outlining her ties to the corrupt Ted Stevens machine, her extremist views, and her utter lack of national experience. And MoveOn.org has sent this email to its millions of members, detailing - among other things - what Alaskan progressives think of her.

Says one: "Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position." Read it all here, and share these facts and opinions with the swing voters you know.

Comments

[Fairy]

Remember this is the State which has the House of Representatives in which Tom Loertscher said in committee during discussions about Day Care Regulations, "How do we keep moms at home?"

Does this mean that if you have nannys and enough money you can have someone else take care of your little darlings because then you are elevated to the "social status" in which it is okay to be in any job which will take you away from your children.

How could Idaho Republicans sanction a young mother of school age children and a handicapped baby, who will be needing "their very own mother's" care, going off to the grind of campaigning and office holding all over the place. SHOCKING, and if we need to stay home how can it be Ms Palin need not!!!

[ReggieH]

erm. . .cough, cough. . .[whistles inconspiculously and touches finger to nose as if to say "keep it under your nose"].

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-69834

[Bubblehead]

Wow, Julie... haven't you always said that Daily Kos and non-BinkyBoy/morialekafa Idaho Dems are nothing like Democratic Underground? It looks like ReggieH up there and this DKos diary are kind of disproving your point: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/30/121350/137/486/580223

[Julie in Boise]

Fascinating. I take a break for BSU halftime, and what do I find here at RSR?

Bubblehead, I won't pass judgment on this story except to say that the Kos diary in particular presents a pretty compelling case, especially in the photos of Sarah and her daughter. I guess time will tell, but I am feeling some pretty strong Tom Eagleton vibes here. Will Palin last 18 days?

Let's see how this plays out.

[Julie in Boise]

Bubblehead, in my fellow Kossacks' defense, I'll also add that plenty of people on that diary are questioning its veracity. And others are voicing truths like these:

"This is a HUGE DISTRACTION from things that really matter, like a 72 y.o. nominee picking a completely inadequate veep."

[Bubblehead]

Wow... Gov. Palin gave birth in a hospital. With lots of doctors and nurses present. Can a reasonable person assume that you think that so many people would be happy to be involved in a conspiracy? That there's not one Democrat on the hospital staff who would be willing to go public? Do you think most Democrats would say that a teenage girl having a "pooch" is proof that she's pregnant? Or should all teenage girls look like anorexic models to not be publicly accused of being pregnant?

I'm sorry, but this will give Democrats a bad name if it goes any further. (I know! I bet KKKarl Rove planted the photos and posted the diary to make Democrats look bad! Right after he planted the explosives in the World Trade Center and set off the bomb in the Pentagon!)

[Julie in Boise]

Fairy, you raise a fascinating question as well. I have a cousin, an avid fundamentalist, who raised five kids (now all grown) and worked as a nurse most of the time. Her husband is a union elevator contractor, so they probably could have scrimped on his one salary if they were really hard-core about it. But I like this cousin because, even though we disagree on theology, she seems to have a reasonably open mind. (For example, when her eldest daughter decided to have two kids out of wedlock with a Jewish guy, they didn't disown her.)

There seem to be two kinds of fundamentalist families. Some are reasonably egalitarian, with husbands who "let" their wives work. (I almost choked when I attended the wedding of one of my cousin's other kids and the couple actually included the "honor and obey" line in their wedding vows. But in that couple, the wife is actually the main breadwinner.)

Then there are those (like Loertscher) who believe that a woman's role is to have as many children as God wishes her to have, period, and that she needs nothing else to be fulfilled in her life.

I'm guessing that the Palins are in the slightly more egalitarian camp.

[Julie in Boise]

Again, Bubblehead, plenty of Kossacks are raising the same cautionary words that you are. So please don't go all smug and superior on me.

I think Sarah Palin ought to release her medical records and be done with it. If there's any truth to this story, it will come out. I frankly believe it is a distraction from the original points of my post: that she is the least-vetted, least-qualified VP candidate in history, and that the social cons bullied McCain into picking her.

[Julie in Boise]

Here's a Kos diary on the point that Fairy brought up. Apparently many fundamentalists don't think Palin is a good pick at all since she really oughta be home raising her kids:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/31/1469/85335/817/580901

[Sisyphus]

"Again, Bubblehead, plenty of Kossacks are raising the same cautionary words that you are. So please don't go all smug and superior on me."--what Julie said. Please remember Bubbles that blogs are a pretty good forum for vetting. Since you are a McCain supporter why don't you tell us why she's a good pick.