We hate her, but the only people we fear are the morons who think she ought to be POTUS.
She represents much of what is wrong with America today: she’s vapid, stupid, entitled and lazy. Those aren’t insults, they’re accurate descriptions. If this trend becomes the norm, we have much to fear; but as for being afraid of Palin herself, sorry to disappoint.
What Palin doesn’t know could fill oceans.
The problem is that those last two qualities are incompatible. The reason she has such charisma is that she is unencumbered by intellectual substance. Her speeches are all “home-spun wisdom” and simple platitudes which is the way most of her audience views the world, so when she speaks it makes sense to them and they feel as though she is speaking for them. Including a more nuanced view of the world or thinking through what the actual consequences of her simple ideas would be would just act to turn off the audience.
Palin is a gibbering monkey who has learned the sounds of a few English words. She doesn’t know what they mean, but she likes how people pay attention to her when she says them.
I think you are wrong. The rumors are that McCain wanted Lieberman, and the PTB didn’t like that. But that’s altogether different than saying the foisted Palin on him. It was ultimately his decision, and it’s just silly to imply that he was a powerless pawn at the mercy of his overlords.
I agree with John here. McCain is wholly responsible for that choice, and for foisting that pest on American politics.
“It was ultimately his decision…”
Hmmm, I wonder. Was his decision “I want Governor Palin,” or did his guys come to him and spell out all the ways she was an appealing choice and he said, “Okay, fine”?
Either way, McCain’s responsibility. Either he didn’t vet her enough, which is bad, or he thought she was a great choice, which is bad. We’ll never know for sure which.
It was his way of being mavericky.
I think She would’ve come in one form or another anyway. I saw her on several “Presidential contenders” etc. lists before most people had heard of her, when she was just Governor of some state that most people aren’t sure is really a state or Canada or something. I also remember it emphasizing how moderate/not crazy she was, :eek:
Perhaps, but it was McCain who did it.
Quit trying to blame that cow on us. David Frum is more than enough.
Either he chose her, which is bad, or he let someone else choose her, which from someone running to be a leader, is totally fucking unacceptable.
I’m not so sure. She was in trouble while in the governor’s office, and more and more people on both sides of the fence were looking askance. The legislature was both annoyed and frustrated with her in about equal parts. Her nominations for key positions were being rejected out of hand, one of whom she nominated twice for the same position of Attorney General (part of the laziness I mentioned above). She was also being investigated for a few things, and I believe lawsuits would have eventually been forthcoming over her husband’s accessing personnel records of State employees.
Had not everyone been temporarily stunned by McCain’s selection of her as a running mate, these things would have come to fruition fairly quickly and damaged any national ambitions she might have had. That said, she might have been able to unseat Lisa Murkowski or Mark Begich in the Senate, although either of them would have turned her into shredded underwear in a debate. There were (and are) still enough idiots like my brother up there who would have voted for her (and even still would), based solely on the basis of her looks. The fact that she was on any presidential contenders lists means nothing. Any serious opponent in either party would quickly make her look like the willfully ignorant and aggressively stupid person that she is.
Yeah, but nobody cared about her popularity at home. It’s not like political strategists lie awake at night figuring out how to win Alaska’s 4/15ths of an electoral vote.
You really, really, believe that Democrats fear her?
Really?
How in the world did she ever get elected in the first place? Was she the only candidate for governor that year? Geez
Apparently she had powerful supporters.
I think most people really didn’t know anything about her except what she and her campaign told them: young, pretty, wife and mother, Alaska politicians are corrupt and she’s a breath of fresh air, she’s a woman taking on the good old boy network, she’s tough and no-nonsense, down-to-earth, yadda yadda.
Some supporter of hers whom she later threw under the bus wrote a book that basically said “we didn’t know how dysfunctional and corrupt she was” and “she got a lot worse when she became governor.”