I just watched Sarah Palin's stump speech in Missouri today on C-Span and had a few quick impressions. She's very attractive, no one can deny this. She's fun to watch, she's got spark and zest. McCain stands by watching like a proud father, a little grin of triumph on his face. A friend compares her to Annie Oakley from the old western shows. She's got that kind of star appeal. The crowd shouts Sarah, Sarah. At last McCain is bridging the charisma gap that Obama's had over him for so long. And it's girlish. You see the high school beauty queen. People cry "you go girl" when she says she wants to end "self-dealing" in government. She obviously has some intelligence. The ethics and lobbyists and oil company stuff doesn't come out of nowhere.
All my other impressions are negative. Her world view is a small town worldview.
I love a smalltown worldview, not in the White House. She speaks of people pulling together to combat Gustav's impact, she speaks repeatedly of prayer and heart. Simple words. She speaks of "fundamentals," of "heroic kindness," of charity, and volunteers. There's a religious undercurrent to her words, words like grief and crisis come naturally to her. Her view of government is simple and western. Government has basic obligations, the people have much larger ones. She speaks of governing with "a servant's heart."
It's scary how non-intellectual she is, how foreign ideas are to her. She doesn't voice one real idea in her whole speech. The one idea she seems to have, about the importance of taking risks, is framed in a way that scares me. "A ship in harbor is safe. But that's not why the ship is built." It's a big crowdpleasing line, but how does it apply to government? It doesn't. She is a woman of action, I don't think she knows how to think, has ever had an idea.I wonder if McCain knows how to think, that he would choose someone so intellectually unsophisticated as his top political appointment.
She has such great populist appeal, and she's so unthoughtful, it's easy to see her becoming a demagogue. She asks the audience to join a cause with her, to elect "a great man." That feels vaguely proto-fascist. By November 5, we will begin forgetting about her forever. This I pray.
Karl Marx had "ideas." The neocon intellectuals all had the "idea" of the Iraq invasion for years.
The world would be better off if these people did not act on their ideas.
Palin's ideas, or lack of ideas, are far less scary than most in DC.
THE PERFECT STORM: "A ship in harbor is safe. But that's not why the ship is built."
A reminder.
Most of the world lives in small towns.
Small town people will like Palin.
So to the many – hyphens that America is now seperated into we can add small town- Americans.
Maybe McCain has hit on a new voter niche, the small town voter.
So, she is not an Israel-first whore like Biden. That's a good thing in my opinion. One asshole on the ticket is enough.
Obama is a whore. McCain is a whore. Biden is a whore. Palin is a whore. The only question is, which electable whore is going to deliver us safely to the future, in which a non-whore might be elected?
Karl Marx had "ideas." The neocon intellectuals all had the "idea" of the Iraq invasion for years.
The world would be better off if these people did not act on their ideas.
Patrick,
Maybe so. Then again, where would "the world's only superpower" be without "communist China" buying T-bills?
(…) and she's so unthoughtful, it's easy to see her becoming a demagogue.
Phil,
She's an earnest, blood-'o-Jesus fundie. Demagoguery?
Maybe the greater danger is she'd gain power and act honestly upon her deranged medievalist worldview!
"Maybe the greater danger is she'd gain power and act honestly upon her deranged medievalist worldview!"
Of course the alternative is Joe Biden who, were he to gain power, would go out and act on his deranged inside-the-beltway, plagiarize as-you-go worldview.
Obama/Biden is worthy of confidence.
McCain/Palin is not.
Small town people will reason, "Palin is like me in ways. We're both NOT presidential material."
She's only a veep pick. What's the big deal? My reading of Phil is that any national politician who isn't obsessed with ruling the world is an unpolished yokel with a parochial view, and decidedly unhip.
Is Palin a good speaker? I haven't listened to her. But I never come away from a political speech impressed. Is there a such thing as a great political orator? I've never heard one. Some speechwriters are better than others, and some people read and speak better in front of crowds than others. And? I've heard better speakers than Obama at business meetings, and I wouldn't gove them a nod for president.
As a WASP female from small town USA, I am disgusted by McCain's (or should I say the GOP campaign strategists') choice. They chose her not for what she can bring to the White House, but what she could bring to the ticket. It is a ploy – pure and simple. Imagine the market studies these folks went through to find the "perfect" antidote to the Obama/Biden ticket.
Sure, this is politics as usual. The Obama Campaign surely went through similar maneuvers in selecting their Veep. But in my mind, the easy choice for Obama would have been Clinton as it would have guaranteed the support from the disenfranchised Hillary supporters. Did he chose Biden because he couldn't choose Hillary given the ugly campaign? Maybe. Or maybe they found the better candidate – one Obama and his team could work with, and one that won't leave people worried about who'll be in the Oval Office should Obama die.
So – it's just the Veep – not the President. Well, I remember thinking way back in 2000 Thank God Bush has Dick Cheney as his VP – someone with real experience and intelligence. Look how that turned out!
The McCain campaign now has the paw prints of Karl Rove all over it. It is proof more than ever that a vote for McCain means eight more years of the Reaganesque Republican Party – and I have had more than enough thank you very much.
Hey, "American":
Half of the world population lives in cities.
Eight percent of the US population does.
So, your assertion that "[m]ost of the world lives in small towns" is wrong.
You made a statement not supported by the facts; that tells me you will vote Republican.
Correction: EIGHTY percent of the US population is urban.
Regarding Karl Marx, he created some great tools for analyzing and understanding society and the economy.
Let's give him some credit.
Karl Rove: Why isn't that psycopath in prison yet?
I don't care so much about her intellectuality–she seems to have a formed world view, and it's better than Biden's, say. If she doesn't get post-modernism or Wittgenstein, fuggedabadit.
I'm more concerned about how much history she knows. If she doesn't know history, she could be putty in the hands of the likes of Scheunemann.
Its NECESSARY to question to be able to govern.
Palin as vice president is significant.
As poor a president George Bush 1, Dan Quayle would have been a far far worse one.
I'm a small town American. Phil is now a small town American.
We come in all stripes, not only the caricature.
1) I heard Rove was pushing for Mitt Romney. Palin may look like Bush to some people — an outsider with evangelical convictions and no Washington experience — but that no more means Rove's pawprints are on the pick than that (the late) Lee Atwater's are.
2) Turns out the Palins are Pentacostals. Sarah's parents were Catholic when they joined the a church affiliated with the Assemblies of God. I guess that's a sign of how much the country has changed. People who might have been mainstream Protestants or Catholics in years gone by are now Evangelicals or Fundamentalists or Pentacostals. It also looks like that doesn't have much affect on people's behavior. Joining stricter churches doesn't mean avoiding some very common sins.
3) I like that she's not part of the Establishment. I'd like for her to surprise people with competence and mastery of the issues, but that's probably too much to ask for.