The Atlantic - Latest Comments in McCain VP Thread

Re: McCain VP Thread

Fred — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:07:17 -0000

Chet,

You parade your ignorance (again), so I'm going to have to "son" you.

"How is she going to be able to perform her duties as Chairman Pro Temp of the Senate with absolutely zero relevant experience?"

First, the position you are referring to is President pro tem of the Senate (short for President pro tempore), not "Chairman Pro Temp", and second, that position is filled by a sitting Senator, not by the Vice President. In most cases, the actual role of that job is delegated to junior Senators anyway. The main (and rare) role of the Vice President, in his or her position as President of the Senate, is to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Chet — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:09:24 -0000

As for the criticisms of how long Palin's been governor, at least she has been a governor.

Of Alaska. For about ten minutes.

Has she ever even been to Washington DC? Has she ever been a legislator? How is she going to be able to perform her duties as Chairman Pro Temp of the Senate with absolutely zero relevant experience?

Re: McCain VP Thread

Fred — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:17:48 -0000

"The biggest organization the Obama campaign has run? The Obama campaign."

Sorry, David Axelrod has been running that. He specializes in African American candidates who appeal to whites. See, for example Deval Patrick, the man whose campaign for MA governor Axelrod ran.

Obama has been running his own campaign like W ran his.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Whitey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:31:02 -0000

The biggest organization the Obama campaign has run? The Obama campaign. A far larger operation than McCain has ever found himself at the head of (that includes both the Navy and the McCain campaign).

Re: McCain VP Thread

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:14:02 -0000

"Referring to yourself by your three initials is 76 percent worse than doing so in the third person, which by itself merits a night in jail. "

Point taken. Never again.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Fred — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:42:31 -0000

"Yeah, I'm curious to see if she'll ever actually appear on the campaign trail."

She already has been up on the podium with McCain, but since she is only 16, they don't let her talk to the press. Meghan is a grown woman.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Persia — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:33:18 -0000

And McCain himself has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter.

Yeah, I'm curious to see if she'll ever actually appear on the campaign trail. Meghan has her own blog, though!

Re: McCain VP Thread

Mike — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:28:06 -0000

Referring to yourself by your three initials is 76 percent worse than doing so in the third person, which by itself merits a night in jail.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Fred — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:58:10 -0000

"All the positives listed by Fred may look good on paper, in the same way Lieberman looked good on paper to Gore."

What? Lieberman basically had one thing going for him: he was a moral scold signaling Gore's break from the tawdriness of Clinton's extracurricular activities. No one was fired up about Lieberman.

As for the criticisms of how long Palin's been governor, at least she has been a governor. What's the biggest organization Obama's run? Anyone?

Re: McCain VP Thread

SeanH — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:54:07 -0000

"(By the way, does anyone else find that checking the "Remember personal info?" box has no effect?)"

Yeah, it's like that for everyone on all the Atlantic blogs for some reason.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Jen R — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:35:37 -0000

Doesn't matter, they are always fired up for the Republicans since the Democratic candidate is always pro-choice.

They're a difference between "not voting for the other guy" and "being fired up". I foresee *much* more fundraising, volunteering, and overall enthusiasm now.

(By the way, does anyone else find that checking the "Remember personal info?" box has no effect?)

Re: McCain VP Thread

Joel — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:30:59 -0000

I'm only disappointed that its not Lieberman or Romney. But McCain isn't that dumb. Checked the box marked, "none of the above".

Re: McCain VP Thread

MikeCee — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:26:47 -0000

This pick will get a lot of previously unconvinced pro-lifers fired up for McCain.

Really good point Jen R. I think this also brings the SCOTUS issue and roe v wade into the discussion and it has seemed like Dems didnt want to go there.

Listening to McCain's intro now, it makes more sense...she is a union memember wife of a union member, this pick was as much about cleaning up his I dont know how many houses I have while wearing $500 shoes as it is about Obama. Joey Biden cancells that working class bit out I think.

Re: McCain VP Thread

JordanT — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:26:19 -0000

This pick will get a lot of previously unconvinced pro-lifers fired up for McCain.

Doesn't matter, they are always fired up for the Republicans since the Democratic candidate is always pro-choice. McCain could be caught sleeping with a young boy, and the hardline pro-lifers would still vote for him. To them it's the only issue that matters. The only thing McCain could have done to screw that up would have been to pick a pro-choice VP candidate.

Re: McCain VP Thread

SeanH — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:22:06 -0000

Biden won't even need to risk being aggressive in the debates. He'll just need to trot out his policy chops and let her come off as a lightweight on her own.

Seems like a dumb, dumb pick the more I think about it. In my opinion Obama's inexperience is the biggest drum McCain has to beat and he just conceded that whole argument. The mayor of Indianapolis has more constituents than Palin. She's only been a governor three whole weeks longer than Saddam's been dead.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Deborah — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:19:03 -0000

This knocked out the celebrity attack, too, so I'll give some credit for switching tactics. And I'm glad to see that one (and the liberal "McCain is too a celebrity" comeback) laid to rest.

I predict they'll stick with the attack of "but do we know him?" which was never leveled at the far more unreadable Edwards but seems to never lose traction against a black candidate.

It's too early to say how she'll come across after a few "getting to know her" weeks, but I'll echo the advice not to knock her for her gender. Dems pay way too much attention to identity politics as it is. Let Wasserman-Schultz lead the attack, get Hillary and Claire in there....I think this will work well for Dems, but it was a pretty good pick from a poor field.

Re: McCain VP Thread

randomliberal — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:18:39 -0000

People talking about how this could handicap Joe Biden, please stop. The VP candidate's job on the campaign trail is to go after the other side's presidential candidate. How often does a VP candidate seriously go after another VP candidate? I'd wager a guess that it happens once: at the VP debate. What's more, nobody gives a shit about the VP debate. Lloyd Benson kicked the shit out of Dan Quayle 20 years ago, but that seemed to matter very little in the eventual outcome of the election. The Obama/Biden campaign can simply put out a fact sheet on Palin, and run out a surrogate everytime she says something dumb, and they will run little risk of being or sounding sexist.

This isn't a tough problem to overcome.

Re: McCain VP Thread

NT — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:17:58 -0000

Watching the networks, it's amazing how little any of the commentators actually know about her. Unknowns are very scary.

Quite the counterstroke to the historic convention this week.

Re: McCain VP Thread

DougEFresh — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:16:12 -0000

Blue Moon said" You underestimate Palin at your own peril. The first hint of a sexist attack on her risks re-energizing the dissapointed Hillary supporters.

This realization hit me after reading that it was official, perhaps one of the reasons is to inoculate Republicans against charges of racism. Sooner or later, some jackass on the right is going to make a sequel to "The Lost Michelle Obama Tapes" that TNC posted about recently. McCain will be called upon to condemn this, and I am sure he will. But he may parry by tossing back an allegation of sexism (real or imagined) back at democrats, forcing them to do the same.

I see this pick as high risk/medium reward. It doesn't totally remove the experience arguement, but it severely weakens it.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Jen R — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:10:35 -0000

This pick will get a lot of previously unconvinced pro-lifers fired up for McCain. Don't underestimate the narrative power of Sarah Palin refusing to have an abortion when her child was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

It takes away McCain's ability to directly attack Obama on lack of experience, but I'm not sure how much it matters because that meme is already out there. Yes, McCain picked one of the greenest politicians possible to be the person to take over the presidency if he becomes incapacitated (which is more likely for him than for most presidents). I still think that a lot of people will be able to cast their ballots for him, tell themselves that it's because Obama is too inexperienced, and never even have a moment of cognitive dissonance.

Putting Biden and Palin head-to-head in a debate turns the "change" message upside down. Palin will look refreshing in comparison.

Palin is young (relatively speaking), cute, and white -- exactly the kind of person the mainstream media want to fall in love with. And they'll start now, blunting the impact of Obama's speech and the convention. *Maybe* they'll look into the ethics charges (I don't know anything about them, myself) but it's at least as likely that they'll let themselves be charmed by Palin and gloss over the whole thing.

It's probably the smartest move McCain could have made, and it makes me extremely nervous.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Monisha — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:08:27 -0000

I hate the argument that Palin's status as a woman and as a newcomer should force Biden to hold back. Given the state of sexism in our society, it's probably true that Biden has less leeway to personally attack Palin than a male opponent w/o looking like a villain. But, calling on the depth of his knowledge and experience, he can and should defeat her soundly in any policy debate. Engaging a woman in a robust policy debate is not sexist; refraining from doing so is.

Re: McCain VP Thread

PhillyG — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:01:26 -0000

Blue Moon:

I know they feel the same way about Obama - but how does this reinforce anything in McCain's message? I mean McCain just spent the better part of 6 months shouting at the top of his lungs the importance of experience to being President, hell, Hillary Clinton did the same thing too - now if you're a Republican how do you look at that ticket and say "Yup, McCain's right about experience," if you're a Clinton voter who is thus far dissuaded from voting for Obama how do you look at Palin and say "She's just like Clinton only without the experience, story, issues, and talent."

It just smacks of desperation to me.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Pronk — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:58:22 -0000

Kudos to Palin for being a governor, but she's only been doing it for a year and eight months. Obama may be somewhat lacking in experience, but he's had an opportunity to prove himself by holding his own against experienced people like Hillary, Biden, Dodd, Richardson in numerous debates and by manning an extremely well-run campaign.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Tinare — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:58:07 -0000

Okay, so now the Republicans will have the gull to claim that Obama doesn't have enough experience when they pick a former Miss Alaska contestant as their VP pick to an old man with a history of cancer? I'm sorry, but an VP pick to McCain had better be ready to be President day one. This is an unserious pick for political show and not for governing in serious times.

Re: McCain VP Thread

Neal — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:54:39 -0000

Another perfcet example of executive decision by focus group. All the positives listed by Fred may look good on paper, in the same way Lieberman looked good on paper to Gore. That doesn't change the fact that the most important duty of the Vice President is to be able to take the reigns of the executive branch in an emergency situation. Even Biden's critics admit he can do this. Can Palin? The Democrats should, and will, relentlessly ask this question over the next two months - to great effect.