The good news is with a little Resolve I was able to get the vomit stains out of the couch after sitting through a few moments of the RNC this past week. I only saw a few minutes at a time but I did learn that John McCain was a POW, that 9/11 happened, and that Sarah Palin hunts moose. These are all critical things to think about when choosing a president. Palin’s speech was so inspiring for the first time in my life I gave money to a political candidate.
We’ve seen this movie before. A fundie governor with little experience from an oil state? She, like poster boy Bush in 2000 is the narrative the Republicans want. In fact I would bet some would like to see McCain step down. He’s old and busted, plus in the past he hasn’t really shown his commitment to the important issues like abortion, abortion or abortion. Many of the conservative christians felt he was too liberal. But the republican machine made a deal with McCain after they ruined him when he ran in 2000. If he was a good soldier, he’d get a shot after Bush. So they held their noses and supported him this year. Remember a year ago among candidates on the Republican side “none of the above” was the most popular in the polls. Palin is an effort to fire up the base and it is working. Favorite joke on of the week (after the Jesus was a community organizer) is “If you think Palin is a reformer candidate: I’ve got a bridge in Alaska to sell you.”
One of the things that Bush had going for him in 2000 was the conservative “outrage” over those horrible Clinton years. Bush promised to bring honor and dignity to the White House. And he ran on the idea of “change”. Gore couldn’t get the swing voters because he was too closely tied to Clinton. Had he had Clinton go on the campaign trail with him, he probably would have gotten a better turnout and make that clusterfuck in Florida not happen.
This year, Bush and McCain are at their distance. And for the first time in recent history the sitting president did not speak live in front of his party convention. Oh, sure there was Gustav. Bullshit. He went to sunny Austin and San Antonio Texas for photo-ops and then back to DC. You mean he couldn’t have bumped Giuliani or Thompson later in the week and appear live instead of on video? If Bush was was popular today, they’d find room for him in the schedule and McCain wouldn’t be trying to co-opt Obama’s message of change. It would be what Bush ran on in 2004: don’t change horsemen mid apocalypse don’t change horses midstream.
What also makes me sick is the hypocrisy and “do as I say, not as I do” on social issues. Had Obama announced that his 17y.o. daughter was pregnant the same people standing behind Palin today would go off the rails over it. Irresponsible parenting! Sex before marriage is a sin! Abstinence only! It would be 100% of their message. The Daily Show has had a great round up of this hypocrisy about this. Strangely Palin gets a pass on her parenting skills because she didn’t terminate her last kid and that the daughter and her redneck boyfriend are going to get married. So it is all OK. And we’re supposed to lay off the kid because it is a private family matter. Of course it is. But it became a public matter when Palin issued a press release saying the kid was pregnant. They didn’t need to disclose it. And they didn’t need to trot out the boyfriend onto a photo op at the MSP airport to meet McCain. Or show him in a suit at the convention. But they did. And now it is sexist even to ask about Palin’s experience in government and calling bullshit on her record. Again, the Daily Show is doing the work the real news should.









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