Criteria for the Palin Pick
Written by Daniel on August 30, 2008 – 1:18 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Let’s start from the premise that the McCain Campaign decided it needed a woman vice presidential nominee, to reach out to Hillary voters, to be a “game-changer,” to be “historic,” etc. If you start from that premise, and then you say that you’re looking at current and former governors and senators (I’ll also include cabinet officers for fun).
Your list looks something like this:
Governors: Christine Todd Whitman (NJ), Judy Martz (Montana), Linda Lingle (Hawaii), Jodi Rell (Connecticut), Sarah Palin (Alaska)
Senators: Lisa Murkowski (AK), Elizabeth Dole (NC), Sue Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX)
Cabinet: Condi Rice (State), Ann Veneman (Agriculture), Gale Norton (Interior), Elaine Chao (Labor - but not US born), Mary Peters (Transportation), Margaret Spellings (Education), Lynn Martin (Labor - Bush 41), Barbara Franklin (Commerce - Bush 41), Ann McLaughlin Korologos (Labor - Reagan), Margaret Mary Heckler (Reagan - HHS).
Okay, Whitman, Lingle, Rell, Murkowski, Collins, Snowe, Hutchinson, Martin, are all out for being pro-choice to some degree or another (C.f. The Corner). Rice, Peters, and Spellings currently serve in Bush’s cabinet, so are subject to more “third term” attacks. Elizabeth Dole has troubles of her own in N.C. this year. Gale Norton would be very interesting, especially being from Colorado, but has Abrahamoff issues.
Martz served one term in Montana and had some pretty bad approval ratings, so much so that she didn’t seek reelection. Veneman is currently head of the UN’s UNICEF program, so she’s out (not to mention she was already floated as a VP - for Obama!). Korologos is on the board of Fannie Mae - not a popular political cause at the moment. Heckler is 77.
So if you’re criteria are woman, governor/senator/secretary, and pro-life, you’re serious options are Governor Sarah Palin or a Bush 41 commerce secretary turned PBS commentator (and I’m not even sure how she feels about abortion - nothing from Google either way). Not a hard call.
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Posted in 2008 Election Coverage |
August 30th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I’m excited about the country getting to know Gov. Sara Palin. She has more executive experience than everyone else on both tickets….. put together. Alaska is a complex state which borders 2 foreign countries. It is by far the largest state in the union, with 200+ Indian tribes and reservations, and 1/3 of the shoreline of the entire country. Alaska is also, importantly, America’s oil and natural gas capital. Her management has made her the most popular governor in the country…with good reason.
Daniel mentioned beating an incumbent republican governor. She also took on powerful senator Ted Stevens axing the bridge to nowhere calling it (like most Americans) wasteful spending. She vetoed over 300 pork spending proposals. She is the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. How ever much military experience that is, it is more than Obama and Biden. She crosses party lines working with, appointing and removing both democrats and republicans. She even EBAYed the state’s jet. What an environmentally and financially responsible thing to do. Gov. Sara Palin is the right choice for VP. It doesn’t matter that she is smart, beautiful, and not a white male. Though who here wouldn’t want to see the glass ceiling shatter? She is the quintessential reformer and is better prepared for day one than either member of the other ticket. When the rest of the country stops looking at her as “a woman candidate” and see who she is, she will be as respected and admired as she is in her home state.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
That’s exactly the problem, Daniel. He picked her because she was a woman. It’s a decision based on running for president not actually being president. He had only met her once before. He doesn’t even know her. McCain can’t say with a straight face that she was the best choice for the job.
And since Nathan brings up the Bride to Nowhere, I’d direct you to this New Republic piece on what she actually said about it: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/08/29/did-palin-really-fight-the-bridge-to-nowhere.aspx
“Anchorage Daily News on October 22, 2006, during the race for the governor’s seat (via Nexis):
5. Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?
Palin: Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now–while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
She didn’t actually oppose it until a year later, after it had become a national laughing stock and congress already cut it from the bill.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Frankly, as a woman, I’m insulted. I’m insulted that McCain thinks that possession of a vagina is a resumé point for a vice-president, and I’m even more insulted that pretty much any woman will do to tie up the female vote.
I think he’s miscalculated. I think women are smarter than that. She’s not VP material - in another ten years, with significant experience under her belt, she might be, but right now she just isn’t. He picked her because she’s female and pro-life, and that’s not enough of a qualification to ignore her lack of appropriate education and experience.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Uh-oh, who’s little Trig’s real mommy?
http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2008/08/who-is-the-mother-of-trig-paxon-van-palin
August 30th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
From the Anchorage paper:
http://www.adn.com/front/story/336402.html
August 30th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I read GOP3 regularly and have learned a lot, from and about, both sides of the isle. In this case I disagree with both.
I disagree with Daniel on the reasoning that brought McCain to the choice to Gov. Palin. If McCain simply wanted a woman who was going to get the Hillary vote he would have picked a pro-choice(ish) woman, not disqualified them. A pick like that would have attracted liberal women. Instead, he decided on someone with accomplishments. Yes, yes, fire up the base, but we keep hearing how the vast majority of Hillary supports are going to support Barack. Those are the same reasons republicans are going to vote for McCain.
I also disagree with Evan‘s reasoning about why Gov. Palin stopped the bridge. We don’t know anything about what brought her to the right decision when it did. All we know is that she did the right thing. The article that Evan sites says that she buckled under the lack of congressional support, but it also said the money was already there. So what lack of support? Her approval ratings have always been very high. She had nothing to loose from letting it go forward. But she did risk the wrath of a powerful senator (among others) to stop the bridge.
I don’t expect everyone to give credit where credit is due, but it’s important to give people the opportunity to know something about Gov. Palin and who she is. Regardless, it is an exciting race.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
According to her quote, it seems as if the $398 million that got re-directed to the general fund after the bridge earmark had been cut was not enough to finish the project:
“Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island.”
That seems to spell it out pretty clearly that after supporting the bridge while running for Governor she turned against it a year later after Congress had “little interest in spending any more money.”
In any event, this “thanks, but no thanks” line is clearly an exaggeration of what happened since she was in full support of the bridge in October of 2006.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
EDIT: I have some figures wrong in that post and can’t find the correct ones right now.
But regardless of the particulars, my last point stands. Very much a “for it before I was against it” situation.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Ricky Bobby, who cares? If it’s true, and she did take the baby as her own to protect her daughter, what the hell is so wrong about that? And if it’s false, then what the hell is your problem to spread rumors like that about a seventeen-year-old girl?
There are plenty of legitimate problems with Sarah Palin to point out without smearing her family. What it the heck is your problem?
August 30th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Right on Kat.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
It’s clear that she would not spend money she was responsible for on that project. Good for her. What figures are wrong and if you don’t have the right ones, how do you know? If it’s not central to Palin not spending money she was responsible for then it’s a moot point anyway.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
In case it was’nt clear. I did not know there was a year delay till Gov. Palin axed the bridge. The delay is disapointing.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:20 pm
At least you’re admitting that her “thanks but no thanks” rhetoric is not an accurate description of what happened.
The figures aren’t accurate in that I can’t find for certain how much the federal gov’t initially allocated for the bridge and how much was available after they pulled funding. I’m finding several different figures.
But it’s my understanding that initially, when Palin supported the bridge, the congressional delegation had secured like 75% funding. Later on that got cut to around only 40% and that’s when Palin said:
“Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island.”
It seems pretty clear to me that she didn’t oppose the bridge from any ethical standpoint but only conceded that it wasn’t going to happen after the funding was reduced.
http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/511471.html
September 1st, 2008 at 10:36 am
There’s nothing to admit. I am not an advocate for her but a fan. You are an advocate against her. I’m sorry but that R after her name is not enough to dam her. Neither are two legitimate firings, one we don’t have a decision on yet or being late on a bridge.
If you weighted what you think she has done wrong with even half of what she has done right (several of which has been listed) the balance would be in her favor. I don’t expect that of you but I started commenting because people like you would not give her a fair judgment and people who really want to know about Gov. Palin deserve more than your dismissals and lopsided judgments. You serve a purpose though. You caught her being late on the bridge. Still, there would need to be much more for a reasonable person to discount her.