How should Palin address her family situation Part Deux

Great Debates
1

In general, I don’t think a candidate’s family situation should be of concern in an election. To me, normally “It’s a private family matter, and won’t affect my performance in office” suffices for any family question. However, on the face of it, Gov. Palin’s decision to run for VP seems to show remarkably poor judgment. Everyone in America now knows that her daughter is knocked up, and that she’s going to have a shotgun wedding. More importantly, there is the issue of her 4 month old with Down’s syndrome. Is Palin going to be able to, for example, go on a two week whirl wind tour of former USSR states on a weeks notice? How is that going to impact the health of her child.

I guess the biggest question in my mind is why now for her? I don’t expect her to give up the Gov. job or put her career completely on hold, but there’s no reason she has to take the next step now. In even 4 years she would be in a much better position both personally and professionally. It would make so much more sense for her to delay making a run at the VP, or even the big job.

Questions for debate: Does accepting the VP slot show poor judgement on her part, and should the McCain campaign say anything to address it?

2

Would you ask that question if she were a man, and had a wife to take care of the kids? As for her teenage daughter, well, she’s getting married and will have a husband. There should be no issue for Palin.

3

Probably. Nice sly dig at me though.

Uh hu. I’m sure everything is peachy keen in her daughter’s life.

4

Do you really believe this? A 17 year old girl who (I assume) currently lives at home is going to marry her boyfriend and have a baby, and they will in no way need support of any kind, particularly the kind of support that involves actual time and presence, from her mother?

Being VPOTUS (or, god forbid, POTUS) is something that takes enormous amounts of time. So is having a young baby with Down’s syndrome. So is (in the vast majority of cases in this day and age) being the mother of a daughter living at home who has just gotten married and had a baby but is still in high school.

Is that a legitimate campaign issue? Normally, candidates’ families are off limits for political discussion. Did Obama’s daughter get in a fight at school today and use a naughty word, or get a bad grade last semester? Shouldn’t be any of anyone’s business but the Obamas’. But at a certain point an issue would so strongly affect the candidate’s ability to do the job that I think it becomes something that should be openly acknowledged and discussed. Are Palin’s issues over that line? Honestly, I think so, but I also acknowledge I may not be objective about it.

That said, if someone honestly asks such questions, a response of “How DARE you discuss her family! Would you be asking such questions if she were a MAN?” isn’t particularly helpful or productive, except perhaps in the most cynical political sense.
(And the question shouldn’t be “would you ask such a question if she were a man”, which, worst case, simply exposes someone as minorly hypocritical, but “SHOULD you ask such a question if she were a man”. And the answer is, yes. However, it’s much more likely, even in this day and age, that if a male candidate had a similar family situation, that candidate would also have a stay-at-home-wife who was taking the bulk of the responsibility for dealing with that situation.)

5

I would ask if it reflects negatively on her decision making skills, and the question and answer are not gender based. She had a serious medical condition that could affect her and her child’s health, yet she chose to make a journey no Doctor would approve of and at the end of which was arguably medical care that was of poorer quality than she could get where she went. Do I think that is a campaign issue? Hell yes.

Her teenage daughter is not her fault, it happens all the time, and I respect anybody who is caring for a child with Down’s symdrome. But I do question anybody who would place their career over their family in the same situation as hers is in. She has an infant that is going to require more attention than she can realize, and she takes on the second most time consuming job in the world?

6

As a matter of fact, a LOT of people asked very much the same question of John Edwards when he revealed that his wife had inoperable cancer. Many, MANY people felt he had no business traipsing around the country running for President, let alone being the President, with such trying and time-consuming family issues to tend to.

7

I’d like to avoid going down the sexism road for this thread if you all don’t mind.

8

Moreover, who would choose to expose their family in such way during this time. Obama is taking the high road, will the National Enquirer do the same? As I said before, this is a move of either someone incredibly naive, or a stone cold bitch to expose her daughter in this fashion.

9

Moreover, who would choose to expose their family in such way during this time. Obama is taking the high road, will the National Enquirer do the same? As I said before, this is a move of either someone incredibly naive, or a stone cold bitch to expose her daughter in this fashion.

10

Politically and personally, the best thing to do is to leave it alone. If she keeps bringing it up, she’s just feeding the machine. People will feel justified in talking about it because she is talking about it. If she leaves it alone and people keep talking, she can counter attack anyone who brings it up, keeping the high road. If she leaves it alone and nobody talks about it, she’s got her privacy back.

11

Politically and personally, the best thing to do is to leave it alone. If she keeps bringing it up, she’s just feeding the machine. People will feel justified in talking about it because she is talking about it. If she leaves it alone and people keep talking, she can counter attack anyone who brings it up, keeping the high road. If she leaves it alone and nobody talks about it, she’s got her privacy back.

The absolute worst thing she can do is attempt to make political hay out of it. It will cost her family privacy in what is guaranteed to be a bit of a rough patch, and it opens her up to charges of using her family for political gain. Not exactly strong family values.

I understand why she released it. Would’ve come out anyways. Now she just has to leave it alone.

12

Politically and personally, the best thing to do is to leave it alone. If she keeps bringing it up, she’s just feeding the machine. People will feel justified in talking about it because she is talking about it. If she leaves it alone and people keep talking, she can counter attack anyone who brings it up, keeping the high road. If she leaves it alone and nobody talks about it, she’s got her privacy back.

The absolute worst thing she can do is attempt to make political hay out of it. It will cost her family privacy in what is guaranteed to be a bit of a rough patch, and it opens her up to charges of using her family for political gain. Not exactly strong family values.

I understand why she released it. Would’ve come out anyways. Now she just has to leave it alone.

13

John, yes. Yes it would. Being in a family with a severely handicapped child requires a lot of painful and stressful effort from both parents.

A new baby is one thing. A new baby with special needs is another. Especially that sort.

14

John, yes. Yes it would. Being in a family with a severely handicapped child requires a lot of painful and stressful effort from both parents.

A new baby is one thing. A new baby with special needs is another. Especially that sort.

15

As I mentioned in the “Who is Sarah Palin” thread, one blogger thinks that this might actually be an ADVANTAGE for McCain, by highlighting the Culture War, one of the only (possibly only, this blogger thinks) issues on which McCain can decisively win.

Interesting perspective, anyway.

16

Ms. Palin has a husband who intends to be a stay at home dad.
If you feel that a father is incapable of caring for his own child just as well as the mother can, sorry, but you are being sexist.
Not all women want to be stay at home mommies.
Not all working mothers are bad moms.

I think it is a sign of just how backwards society still is that people are asking these questions of a female candidate when they don’t even think of them about male candidates.
Why is Obama so insistent on running for president now, when he hasn’t even served out one Senate term?
Is it really fair to his little girls to make them grow up under the glaring scrutiny of the media? Maybe to be a good daddy he should take some time off from his own ego and ambitions to pay more attention to them.

17

I think I love you Lavenderviolet. The double standard here is such bullshit. Oh, I forgot, the Democrats are the party of enlightenment, my mistake.

18

Like I said, I want to avoid the sexism debate here. Feel free to picture Gov. Palin with a penis, and then answer the questions I posed in the OP.

19

So then why did George Herbert Walker Bush run as VP back in 1980. He obviously had a severely mentally handicapped child that he should have been taking care of, unfortunately the severely mentally handicapped child became our 43rd president. This deserves a :rolleyes:, and then a “I’m serious”.

As for Sarah Palin. I think if she was a man, it would be a non-issue, he/she would have a wife to take care of that. She has a husband, he can take care of that, but OOOOH he had a DUI 20 years ago, who hasn’t, well, 11 years ago, but whos counting.

As for the job being time consuming, not really, she gets to sit around with her thumb firmly lodged in her ass or Bill Clintons, her choice and wait for the president to die, that is her primary job, and to cruise on over to capital hill when there is a tie.

As for her personal decision to accept the nominee, its the opportunity of a lifetime. How many of you people here have been asked to run as VP??? If your family supported you, why the hell wouldn’t you???

I think it was a brilliant move by McCain. Now all the attention is on piddly stuff. Not all of McCains crappy policies, and of course that is what the Democrats will latch onto, since they are masters of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

And the Republicans will go on ignoring Biden(and there is lot to bash him on, and they seem to have stayed quiet), and bash Obama on policy, stuff that actually matters. Then the party of funding and encouraging unwed and unwanted babies will bash Palin for having a pregnant daughter, they will look like idiots once again, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, once again.

20

You’re right about all of this, of course. But, if I’m remembering correctly, Mr. Palin works a job where he works a week on and a week off. Is he planning to quit his job to be a full time, stay at home dad for his special needs son? Or will their pregnant teenage daughter be raising this child, as well as her own?

We can say what we want about working mothers and what they are capable of, but realistically, VP is a little more than a regular full time job. Even then, though, this isn’t a regular parent child relationship anyway- this is an extraordinary circumstance. Did I think the same thing about Edwards when his wife was once again diagnosed with cancer? Of course. He has two young children and his wife is dying, for cryin’ out loud.