Palin

Also, what did you think of the actual convention itself? It's dominated our bar talk here. After talking it over with Tane, it seems like the purpose of Palin isn't to gain the Hillary voters. That's what it seemed like at first, but not strategic to think women just vote for vaginas. It seems more like they're going for victimization and shock. It's a seemingly radical move to put up the first non wait male for executive office for the republicans. It's about time, but it's not a milestone. It's not like they suddenly consider women equal because of this. But she's an attractive newcomer meant to offset the escaped Madame Tussaud like candidate, John McCain. Her speech got almost as many viewers as Obama and brought donations pouring in for the republicans. She's meant to offset Obama. She's getting as much attention as he is because she's attractive, likable, and conservatives can hold on to her non-issue views: abortion, abstinence, etc.

She really doesn't have any business being in charge of any sort of office. She barely posseses credentials to run a small business. She's aparently corrupt, believes in banning books, demands fierce loyalty, woefully mismanages funds and money, and lacks any meaningful directions for "change". Can you imagine her negotiating with Medvedev? Being an envoy to Pakistan? It's neocon puppets dream, she'll smile and do what she's told because she doens't have any opinions herself.

They're already laying her up as the victim. Talking heads and members of the McCaine staff have complained about the media and Obama slandering her because she's a woman when they complained about the same things when Hillary was in the running. "Blah blah Hillary can't be a victim, this is not a boys world, she needs to be tough" and now "Quit picking on her and being mean, not fair". Recently Palin was asked what criticism had Obama and Biden said that she objected to as unfair and distasteful. She couldn't name anything. They're playing up the non-event. It's like when the band Negativland called a bunch of Minnesota television stations after some kid killed himself and said that they had nothing to do with it and their music doesn't advocate suicide. All the news stations ran the story even though the kid never even listened to their music. They made a denial and played the victim out of a non-event that became an event. Personally, I feel that if they keep doing this, it'll crash and burn on them. McCaine is the POW who needs 37 houses because he was tortured. I just hate how he claims to be the everyman blue collar guy when his wife wore a 300,000 dollar outfit to his acceptance speech. That's more than the average person makes in almost a decade. He suffered a lot, but he's moved beyond that. If he's still agonizing from that, then I don't want him serving because he may have PTSD. So my hope is that they run the victimization card into the ground so that it becomes powerless and people are sick of it.

Though Tane did mention a dangerous situation. When Hillary was running for Senate, the key moment when she basically won was during one of the debates. Her male opponent made a strong point and when and slammed some papers in front of her. Lots of people found that to be threatening and empathized with her. So the Biden debate could make her all the more lovable even if he's more eloquent.

Then there's the idea that republicans have run this country for almost three decades, controlling congress and/or the executive branch and things are in the shitter. The Bushes and Reagan gave us deficits.

*I apologize if any of this reads wrong. I originally wrote it as an email.*