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Post by Anders on Oct 14, 2008 7:40:55 GMT -8
I think they're far more likely to blame McCain than Palin. I suspect they're not very enthusiastic to vote for him, and a lot more of them would stay home if it wasn't for the very real chance that he'll die in office.
As to the vetting, going through a presidential campaign is about the toughest vetting you can get and despite all the crazy in her background she's still popular. Secessionist husband, pregnant unwed teenage daughter, attempted book banning, petty powerplays against anyone who's crossed her, lying about the Bridge to Nowhere - despite all that, they still like her.
It's possible they'll want to push her into Congress in the midterms (if that's possible), partly for the reasons Jesse states but also to give her at least the appearance of some real government experience. Two years won't be enough that she can't still claim to be an outsider, and if her battles in Congress are picked well she could gain a lot of popularity.
She may not be the automatic pick in 2012, but I definitely think she'll be in the running.
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Post by jbhelfrich on Oct 14, 2008 7:44:46 GMT -8
Please. Please let them bring her back on.
The Republican party that we know and loathe these days is a coalition of three distinct groups: the Fundamentalist christians, the small government fiscal conservatives, and the corporate raiders.
This alliance has been uneasy for a while now; it's only worked as long as it did because the three groups didn't overlap much in their primary goals, and to a certain extent because the latter two groups seemed happy to pay lip service to the fundamentalists without quite giving them anything significant. But the fundies are the most vocal group, and they've been getting, for lack of a better word, uppity.
That's the group that Palin energizes the most, and frankly, they're the smallest portion of the party. She scares the other two parts of the party silly.
She'll never get the nomination, because she won't be able to compete with the money the rest of the party can raise: see this most recent primary, when Huckabee stayed in second place as the rest of the party backed candidate after candidate who self destructed before McCain won by being the last one standing (who wasn't an insane bible-thumper, that is.)
If she did manage to get the nomination, it would finish the job of breaking the Republican party. We should be so lucky.
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Post by Anders on Oct 14, 2008 9:27:00 GMT -8
I'm afraid I don't believe the talk about the GOP breaking up. It won't happen as long as one part of the coalition can make it without another, and that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
As long as the US stays an effective two-party state neither group has better allies, and separately they're screwed.
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Post by jbhelfrich on Oct 14, 2008 10:14:17 GMT -8
The US admittedly, has always been functionally a two party state.
Of course, the first two were Madison's Federalist Party, and Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party. (The latter would later splinter, with one faction eventually becoming the modern Democratic party.)
So changes in the US party structure are rare, but they do happen.
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Post by jarddavis on Oct 14, 2008 10:31:42 GMT -8
If she did manage to get the nomination, it would finish the job of breaking the Republican party. We should be so lucky. The problem with that line of reasoning? This is the party that for years has said "Drugs are Bad!" Then we found out about Limbaugh and Shrub's past addictions, and one of them is still on the air, and the other is going to retire as a two term President that has bad numbers and yet both still have a huge amount of people saying "Gosh, he's great..." As a face and a talking head, Palin overrides the standard reaction of "How can someone that stupid be seriously ready for the Presidency.... oh, waitaminnit... shrub..." She's got Charisma that people of middle America respond to. Overlook her at your peril. She could be seriously dangerous in four years. |
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Post by jbhelfrich on Oct 14, 2008 11:08:03 GMT -8
People said the same thing about Huckabee a few years ago, Jard. But he was marginalized.
The woman is already a laughing stock in large segments of society. No matter how much she's loved by some, she's got too much public awareness now to easily rehabilitate her persona. (And from a meta point of view, saying that she could only helps her do that. Don't fall into the all to common Democratic habit of proclaiming the sky is falling.)
Bush used the passage of time to turn attention away from his record, and Rush appeal has always been to a niche audience that is used to turning their brains off in favor of whatever he says.
And the same people saying Bush is great are the same people screaming for Sarah Palin from what I've seen. They're the people so brainwashed that they think that Muslim sleeper candidate Barack Obama is going to get elected and invoke the super secret liberal version of Shaira law. The fact that this equals about 20% of the population horrifies me, but they're not going to be winning any national elections.
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Post by paulpogue on Oct 14, 2008 14:37:39 GMT -8
People said the same thing about Huckabee a few years ago, Jard. But he was marginalized. To be fair, though, Huckabee was always extremely dangerous, for almost exactly the same reasons as Palin. He wasn't so much marginalized as he was outmaneuvered by Romney, who then imploded to open the way for McCain. Huckabee is unparalleled in his ability to SEEM completely sane while at the same time spouting inanities of the humans-coexisted-with-dinosaurs level. Romney, at least, LOOKED like a crazy person. |
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Post by jessebaker on Oct 14, 2008 19:48:16 GMT -8
Which brings us another point against Palin ever running again for VP/President; she was chosen for her sex, as a cynical move to try and split the Democrats via running a woman in order to get Hillary supporters who might be pissed that Hillary didn't get VP.
Trust me, had Obama picked Hillary as Vice-President, we would have gotten Romney or Huckabee and Palin would be just another no-name Republican no one knew anything about.
As it stands, it would not suprise me if Huckabee AND Romney BOTH joined forces come 2012 with one as President and the other as VP. Both were the conservative darlings of the Republican primaries and both probably would be more appealing/sellable to the public than a combination of Palin, Newt, Rudy, or Jeb Bush.
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Post by Anders on Oct 14, 2008 21:44:02 GMT -8
Why does it matter why she was chosen? All they will care about is whether she can win, and right now, she's popular. If the can keep that or recapture it in 2012, why not put her up there?
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Post by K-Box on Oct 15, 2008 5:26:16 GMT -8
Why does it matter why she was chosen? All they will care about is whether she can win, and right now, she's popular. Actually, according to pretty much every single national poll, the wild swing of voters AWAY from McCain is, according to polled voters themselves, directly attributable to three things: 1) the economy, 2) the McCain campaign's attacks on Obama, and 3) McCain's selection of Palin for VP. Indeed, the latest CBS/ New York Times poll, which gives Obama a 14-point lead over McCain, cites swing voters as saying that Palin is one of their top two reasons for switching from McCain, with the other, according to those voters, being the McCain campaign's attacks on Obama - and guess who's leading the charge on those? Polls likewise show that, among all voters, Democrat and Republican alike, Palin's favorable-to-unfavorable ratio is now even worse than McCain's, which is dire enough on its own. Not only are pretty much all non-Republican voters telling pollsters that Palin is one of their main reasons for not voting for McCain, but record numbers of conservatives are defecting from the Republican Party to support Obama, and are naming Palin as one of their biggest reasons for doing so. So, please, let's not perpetuate the myth that Palin is "popular," because while she's popular among the Republican base, pretty much everyone else thinks she's stupid and, thanks to her leading the charge against Obama, mean as well. And seeming mean is even worse for Palin, because they'll forgive a dumb president, but they won't unforgive an unlikable one. |
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Post by Anders on Oct 15, 2008 7:51:23 GMT -8
Then I stand happily corrected.  |
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Post by jessebaker on Oct 15, 2008 8:17:50 GMT -8
And speaking of "October Suprises", I'm wondering why the media types are shying away from proclaiming the economic crash and burn/bail-out scheme to be this election's "October Suprise"?
Given the massive media hype/coverage of the bail-out and the craziness surrounding the economy and the mortage crisis threatening banks and such, you'd think they would be annointing it the "October Suprise" since it exposed McCain's utter weakness regarding the economy, effectively giving Obama's strength more value over his perceived weakness/McCain's perceived strength (IE defense).
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Post by Anders on Oct 15, 2008 8:30:56 GMT -8
I thought the October Surprise was a name given to something unveiled by one of the campaigns, not events outside their control?
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Post by jbhelfrich on Oct 15, 2008 9:51:53 GMT -8
To be fair, though, Huckabee was always extremely dangerous, for almost exactly the same reasons as Palin. He wasn't so much marginalized as he was outmaneuvered by Romney, who then imploded to open the way for McCain. Romney was able to do this because he had the financial and logistical backing of the non-christianist wings of the party, who underestimated just how bad the Mormon thing would hurt him in today's environment. By the time they figured it out, it was too late to rehabilitate Giuliani, and Thompson was (almost literally) DOA. Hence, McCain, who doesn't have any great love in the fundie movement, but could be convinced to nominate a VP who did. (The choice of Palin was probably a compromise between McCain and his handlers; my nightmare scenario, honestly, was Huckabee as VP. That would be the scenario that Jard is afraid of with Palin.) |
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Post by jarddavis on Oct 16, 2008 6:27:32 GMT -8
Bush used the passage of time to turn attention away from his record, and Rush appeal has always been to a niche audience that is used to turning their brains off in favor of whatever he says. Kind of my point exactly. This is why she's dangerous. People made jokes about Reagan as well. Didn't hurt him. He laughed along with them and difused the situation. If Palin goes on SNL, and does the same thing with Tina Fey, which it looks like she may do... |
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