# Help me demonstrate that Sarah Palin is worthy of being President **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 26, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572 "2010-08-26T19:30:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/41 "2010-08-26T21:48:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It’s like I’ve walked into a shoe store and asked for some blue shoes. Half the clerks are showing me every shoe that isn’t blue, the other half are showing me blue socks. To extend your analogy, you’ve asked for a pair of blue shoes to attend a cocktail party, and the clerks are telling you that there are no blue cocktail party shoes, and perhaps you’d be interested in this nice pair of glittery black pumps? I know it’s not what you asked for, but my offering is the closest I could come up with for something that shows some amount of competence: she left a dead-end job and got a much better gig. It’s not much, but it’s the best I could do given that we’re talking about “Sarah!”. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/42 "2010-08-26T22:30:02Z")
Hey, lay off his blue suede shoes! ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/43 "2010-08-26T22:50:35Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, she’d be the best-_looking_ president… So,…would nice hooters be a presidential qualification? Nah, probably not. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/44 "2010-08-26T22:54:22Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > …you simply have to be able to convince a majority of voters in the US to vote for you. > -XT Actually, as George W. Bush\* demonstrated, you don’t necessarily have to do that either. \*Also, Rutherford B. Hayes & Benjamin Harrison ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/45 "2010-08-26T22:54:55Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > > Well, she’d be the best-_looking_ president… > > So,…would nice hooters be a presidential qualification? Nah, probably not. Didn’t hurt Taft. 'course, those was man-boobs. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/46 "2010-08-26T23:52:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > She has to be at least as smart as Dubya. Unproven. No, really, I was calling W “George Bush’s idiot son” in 2000, & I don’t think she’s actually _more competent a statesman than he is,_ even if she has more brain cells or something & would therefore be “smarter.” I just don’t see much evidence of it. Yes, she was able to become governor of Alaska without being George Bush’s son, but Alaska is very sparsely populated; maybe it’s a fluke in a low-population state. And like W, she may be good at getting elected but not at doing the job. I know, that’s not what this thread is for. … OK, I can support Sarah Palin for President if it pops the woman-in-the-White-House cherry(not a porn title)–even though I worry she will somehow be used as evidence for female inferiority,– **if in fact** this causes great numbers of Yank citizens to give up on the republic & leads to the downfall of the United States of America. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan, & Minnesota can join Canada, and they’ll be happier that way. California & Texas can become independent states. The Christian Republic of Dixie can finally splinter off to continue its evolution into something like Draka. The rest of the country can be restructured under UN mandate, except for a small section of the Rocky Mountains which will have a succession of governments drowned by Grover Norquist in his bathtub over and over again. EVERYBODY WINS! ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/47 "2010-08-27T00:18:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, she’d be the best-_looking_ president… No. [John Tyler](http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/ig/Images-of-US-Presidents/John-Tyler.htm) (granted, I think this is pencil, not a photograph) [Franklin Pierce](http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/ig/Images-of-US-Presidents/Franklin-Pierce.htm) [Barry Obama](http://0.tqn.com/d/americanhistory/1/7/I/B/b_obama.jpg) [Sarah Palin](http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/6609) She’d be the most feminine–wait, no. [John Adams](http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/ig/Images-of-US-Presidents/John-Adams.htm) (granted, pastels or something, not a photograph) Best combination of femininity & looks. Maybe. Compare this curiously intense (granted, an etching, not a photograph) image of [James Madison](http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/ig/Images-of-US-Presidents/James-Madison.htm) She edges him there, he’s still too masculine. So we have a winner for best appropriately femme looks. But Madison’s still more attractive. And he was a runt. > [@](#): > > I assume the “beltway outsider” stance has some merit; certainly it’s invoked often enough in American politics. It really doesn’t have much. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/48 "2010-08-27T00:34:48Z")
These days, every time Sarah Palin opens her mouth it drives me crazy. She sounds like a blithering idiot. However, if you want to see another side of her, including people’s perceptions of her, you have to go back to before the last election, before she was picked as VP. She did not come across as an idiot then, and she was capable of formulating paragraphs without shrieking or calling out to ‘Mama Grizzlies’. For example, listen to this interview with [Larry Kudlow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ys4HGbiONY). Now, I’m sure most of you won’t agree with her, but in this interview you can tell that she has pretty good command of the facts, and that she’s pretty fast on her feet in answering questions. Her vocabulary seems to be much larger than what she exhibits now. Here’s another interview on [Charlie Rose](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSlc4XGGnk&feature=related) before she was a national figure, and again, she carries herself in a completely different manner than she does now. Here’s a video showing some of her performance during the [2006 Alaska Governor’s Debate](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaJkWUBP3s) - a debate that she was widely considered to have won, against a long-term political professional and an academic challenger. The video I was looking for, a four-part interview with Palin by C-SPAN in 2007 in which she answers questions unscripted from the interviewer and live phone audience, appears to have fallen down the memory hole. It’s no longer on YouTube, and a search for it on the C-Span video archive returns no results. Before Palin became a national political lightning rod, the coverage of her was much more even-handed, and even [Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/2007/10/09/now-this-is-woman-s-work.html) wrote good things about her, in an article that used Palin and Janet Napolitano as examples of women who were successful governors. As I said, I’m not defending Palin - everything she says these days makes me want to jam needles in my ears. But she wasn’t always like that. I’m guessing the ‘new’ Palin is a combination of a careful media strategy coupled with fear of being caught saying anything wrong. So instead she speaks in vapid platitudes. She may also be a victim of her own ego with all this ‘mama grizzly’ crap. But I have to say, if you’re looking for examples of her qualifications, don’t we have to apply the ‘Obama test’? Remember, when his executive experience was questioned, the argument was that he was qualified to be president because he was running such a masterful campaign. By that criterion, I don’t see how Palin is unqualified. She has turned herself from a failed VP candidate and ex-governor into possibly the most powerful politician in the country outside of the White House. She’s making millions of dollars, her endorsements win elections for people she picks, and she’s got 20% of the country in her back pocket. She’s made other presidential challengers like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich look like second-class candidates, even though both of them could run rings around her when it comes to brains and policy knowledge. Whatever it is she’s doing, it works. Whether her gift is timing, image, message, or whatever, she appears to have some kind of savvy that allows her to continually over-achieve compared to the predictions of her enemies. Those are legitimate skills for a President. Whether they are sufficient skills is another matter, but certainly they should be be counted as qualifications. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/49 "2010-08-27T01:58:30Z")
The problem is, those are good skills for winning elections. Some who have those skills (the two Roosevelts come to mind) are able to govern passably, even while being lightning-rods, as well as use their celebrity to get into office. Others, well…star power isn’t everything. Abraham Lincoln saw a good chunk of the country secede between his nomination & his inauguration, & it took spilling rivers of blood to put it back together. Jimmy Carter pretty much invented the “Washington outsider” trope, & then spent his term being put in his place by Congress. And, while this is hardly a common opinion, I’m not sure dying & putting LBJ in the White House wasn’t the best thing JFK did in office. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/50 "2010-08-27T02:17:32Z")
I would use GWB’s speeches. If he can do it, anybody can. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Facts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@The\_Facts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Facts)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/51 "2010-08-27T02:38:47Z")
I’m betting she gave McCain a hummer. Only reason she’s a national figure. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/52 "2010-08-27T02:54:21Z")
**TWEEEET!** This thread was an attempt to solicit genuine evidence against the standard SDMB theme that Ms. Palin is stupid or incompetent. To that end, posts that are serious efforts to dispute claims for her qualities are legitimate; posts that are simply snide or silly are not. Stick to the OP. One may, of course, disagree with any presented evidence, (this is the debate forum), but for the rest of this thread, leave the jokes and silly stuff out. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/53 "2010-08-27T04:32:33Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > **TWEEEET!** > > This thread was an attempt to solicit genuine evidence against the standard SDMB theme that Ms. Palin is stupid or incompetent. To that end, posts that are serious efforts to dispute claims for her qualities are legitimate; posts that are simply snide or silly are not. > > Stick to the OP. One may, of course, disagree with any presented evidence, (this is the debate forum), but for the rest of this thread, leave the jokes and silly stuff out. > > [/Moderating] Thank you. Slight clarification, though-in this particular thread, I am narrowing the scope of the search to her speeches and papers. I am _not_ saying that she does or does not show her competency via other methods. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/54 "2010-08-27T04:35:04Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > For example, listen to this interview with [Larry Kudlow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ys4HGbiONY). Now, I’m sure most of you won’t agree with her, but in this interview you can tell that she has pretty good command of the facts, and that she’s pretty fast on her feet in answering questions. Her vocabulary seems to be much larger than what she exhibits now. > > Here’s another interview on [Charlie Rose](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSlc4XGGnk&feature=related) before she was a national figure, and again, she carries herself in a completely different manner than she does now. > > Here’s a video showing some of her performance during the [2006 Alaska Governor’s Debate](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaJkWUBP3s) - a debate that she was widely considered to have won, against a long-term political professional and an academic challenger. Thank you, **Sam Stone**. These are examples of what I am looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/55 "2010-08-27T05:18:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I am looking for speeches she has made and papers that she has given that show her to be intellectual and well-reasoned. She knows how to balance a budget and that doesn’t require a speech. And she’s certainly capable of continuing the military strategies of [del]Bush[/del] Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/56 "2010-08-27T06:27:46Z")
I can’t give links to any speeches, but it appears that 20 of the 30 candidates she endorsed [have won](http://www.slate.com/id/2265060/). Presumably she made speeches on their behalves, which were evidently successful. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/57 "2010-08-27T11:19:59Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > I am looking for speeches she has made and papers that she has given that show her to be intellectual and well-reasoned. > > She knows how to balance a budget and that doesn’t require a speech. And she’s certainly capable of continuing the military strategies of [del]Bush[/del] Obama. And that would be an excellent point to make…in a thread dedicated to that subject. ---
**Author:** ![Gestalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90ced4/32.png) [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/58 "2010-08-27T14:18:49Z")
In general do politicians often write “papers”? Outside of academia, in politics I associate that with opinion editors and columnists and bloggers and such. Pundits and professional commentators, not professional policy-makers. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/59 "2010-08-27T17:03:23Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The video I was looking for, a four-part interview with Palin by C-SPAN in 2007 in which she answers questions unscripted from the interviewer and live phone audience, appears to have fallen down the memory hole. It’s no longer on YouTube, and a search for it on the C-Span video archive returns no results. Is [this](http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/203214-2) it? It’s from Feb. of 2008 instead of 2007, but it sounds like what you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572/60 "2010-08-27T17:31:20Z")
Somebody mentioned her inaugural address as governor on the preceding page, but I can’t find a full transcript. Little help? > [@Quartz](#): > > I can’t give links to any speeches, but it appears that 20 of the 30 candidates she endorsed [have won](http://www.slate.com/id/2265060/). Presumably she made speeches on their behalves, which were evidently successful. 20 of the 30 _primary_ candidates she has endorsed have won. I don’t think any have actually won elections, yet. In any case, it’s arguably not her endorsement that is helping them win, but her PAC money. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-demonstrate-that-sarah-palin-is-worthy-of-being-president/551572.md?page=4)