What would a Palin administration be like?

Great Debates
#1

If McCain gets elected and croaks Palin’s in the saddle. What is a Palin administration going to be like?

I predict like GWB in drag and on steroids. She is populist through and through. It will all be politics straight from the gut. As a bonus Palin has shown a marked proclivity for maintaining a Nixon style “enemies list” personal vendettas with those who disagree with her.

The more I see of Palin the more the worried I become. We need deliberate and sophisticated people in charge for at least little while.

#2

It would be like her administration as Governor. She might try to sell off any donated White House furniture. As for her “list”, I suspect the Travel Office personnel will fair better. She already has more CEO experience then any of the other candidates so it shouldn’t be as big a transition for her.

#3

I would bitterly mourn the loss of a great American, John McCain, more with each passing day.

#4

Based on her Alaska administration, the cabinet would be filled with her high school classmates. Todd would be sent to negotiate with Congress. She’d start an enemy’s list with the haters - anyone telling her she was wrong. Judging by her mayoral experience, the deficit would soar. She’d spend most of her time being educated on the basics, but would be so convinced that God wanted her to be president.

In other words, she’d have the paranoia of Richard Nixon and the cluelessness of Dubya, but without the advisers who at least had experience. The first thing I’d want to see is an inquest to see if McCain’s death was natural.

#5

CEO? Fiorina doesn’t think she’s so hot.

#6

Do you really want to go down that road? Biden’s opinion of the junior Senator from IL was anything but glowing.

#7

Gee, maybe it would have an approval rating of 80%.

And actually cut spending.

And she probably wouldn’t shoot anyone in the face unless she was actually intending to.

#8

Or more likely she could appoint some brainless bible-thumpers to key positions and the SCOTUS and destroy the rights of Americans to not ride the Jesus train.

But I guess if she knows how to shoot it’s okay.

#9

Palin would inherit most of her staff from McCain. From the look of her she’d appoint a few cronies to prominent positions. Likely they’d be largely ceremonial and Evangelical/Fundamentalists to supplicate her base.

Observe that at this stage it would take a succession of miracles to put Palin in that office. In deference to divine intercession, she would be unlikely to rock the boat. In summary: Very much like the McCain administration.

Similarly, say she is elected outright: The GOP is currently fracturing as a coalition and if that miracle occurred, she’d stick with the winning team.

#10

Nope. The federal government is not in a position to abolish individual taxes and mail out checks to buy votes.

(As I’ve noted before, this is why experience in Alaska is to experience in normal governance as expertise at playing FPS video games is to experience in actual combat.)

#11

I think it would be a lot like Andrew Jackson.

#12

The No-Fly list will double or triple in size.

People we know personally will start disappearing.

#13

Didn’t she leave Wasilla in debt after severely mismanaging things, like the new athletic facility? Is that the kind of thing you are for now, Sam?

ETA: The Troopergate thing shows us that we would get the same kind of abuses of power as Bush’s administration, as well as the same refusal to allow any sort of check or balance.

So, debt, mismanagement, cronyism, abuse of power, obstruction, and a complete lack of intelligence on any sort of issues. In other words, we’d get a Republican administration.

#14

Want a serious answer? It would look the same as an Obama administration with a hostile Congress. They may want different things but underneath the pretty words is a politician. Nothing in the power list that says Palin could make Americans ride “the Jesus train” as far as I am aware the President only nominates Supreme Court justices but they require the Senate to approve before they’re seated.

* May veto laws
* May refuse to spend money allocated for certain purposes
* Wages war (has operational command of the military)
* Makes decrees or declarations (for example, declaring a state of emergency) and promulgates lawful regulations and executive orders
* Often appoints judges
* Has power to grant pardons to convicted criminals

Or are you thinking that Congress will try passing the buck like they’ve been known to do?

#15

Hmmm, I seem to recall a dramatic curtailing of stem cell research under the Jesus train of the Bush administration. I’m quite sure that a great deal of Jesusing of the government can be done by someone intent on doing so.

Besides, you can’t point to rules, Constitutional powers or checks and balances to predict what a modern day Republican administration can or can’t do.

#16

Or the same congress that swept to power in 2006 on the End Iraq War now mantra right? Who approves the spending for the war again…Um so why are we still there? Checks and Balances work if all parties use the powers the law allows.

#17

Oh, I agree that the Democrats have failed to live up to their mandate to check the abuses of the Bush administration, or to use their slim majority to overcome Republican obstruction in the Senate.

#18

I said about bias in another thread and someone said it was a new “code word” that Republicans use. But it’s not, so many people in here and IRL are so headstrong they don’t want to blame the party they support. When in reality the problems we face today are not because one party or the other, they are because both parties are the same. They don’t want to risk losing an election so they won’t actually do anything drastic, no matter if it needs to be done or not! They prefer status quo, which is sad because even if I do not approve of something, I would respect the parties more if they pushed it through rather than use it for election soundbites.

#19

I would say I hope they get a big majority the next election. But that would be wrong, I actually pity the next President and Congressional members because they are inheriting a broken economy hell a broken system. And like every good spin the problems will be pinned onto them.

We have a problem when both the president and congress have such low approval in the polls, the people are fed up. But yet nothing is changing.

#20

In all honesty, do you really believe that neither party has done anything “drastic” in the last, oh, 8 years?