McCain campaign confirms: SARAH PALIN!
- Posted by Beth on August 29th, 2008 filed in 2008 election, John McCain, Politics Sarah Palin · VP watch
YAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMG!
They’re about to go on in a few minutes so I’ll shut up now. :D :D :D :D :D
(pic from Southern Appeal, not the campaign)
Edit to add: Carl Cameron needs to quit calling her Susan Palin. LOL
Update: My friend and fellow McCain supporter Steve Maloney has been pushing for Sarah Palin for months now - more about Sarah Palin here. By the way, did you know her son’s in the Army? I just learned that today. :)
Update 2: More about her at the Draft Sarah Palin for VP and the Palin for VP blogs!
Lincoln says:
I am PSYCHED! Go McCain!!!!
kerry says:
WOOHOO!!!!!!!
Larry says:
Beth, my wife was wondering why asked her to get an autographed picture of the Gov last week. Her friend’s husband is press secretary in the gov’s office. I have been watching her for about five, or six months now. She has one thing that none of the rest do, executive experience.
Chris says:
I’m officially off the sidelines. Pailn is a GREAT pick. It’s about time the republicans started going with some fresh faces. This is as good as Jindal or Steele! OUTSTANDING!
Chris says:
This whole election dynmaic just shifted massively to McCain. This is a brilliant pick. Incredible. Dang I’m excited by this pick!
Have I mentioned I’m happy with this pick?
The Skurvey Dawg says:
My mom called me at work at the top of the hour to see if I’d heard the news. She said she wet her pants! And she doesn’t get that excited!
I told everyone I know weeks ago that Palin should be at the top of McCain’s list. Waytogo John! I can already here the Ob.. whazzizname buzz deflating.
Beth says:
Skurvey Dawg, I love your mom! I’m every bit as excited as she is!
CHRIS!!!! I’m doing a Snoopy dance! Larry, you called it!
Aarons CC says:
Check your comments log… I bet I was for Palin earlier. She can get the union-GOP vote and the teacher vote (her father was a teacher and her mother was a school secretary). She walks the walk as a real reformer like nobody in memory. She attacked the “Bridge to Nowhere” scam.
McCain’s VP candidate has more experience than the Dem’s POTUS candidate. She deals with oil and a Russian neighbor, which is a hell of a lot more foreign policy credentials than Obama.
How hard will the MSM spin this down? I’m betting yet ANOTHER set of Obama covers on Time and Newsweek (old news about Obama’s accepting the nomination) but putting Palin in a little corner.
Will Oprah, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer even ALLOW her to address women from their forums?
Kudos to the entire McCain VP candidate staffs (Romney, Pawlenty, et al) for keeping the lid on this and NOT letting it slip.
Pulled the wind out of Obama’s sails.
And she’s hot. Sources indicate that women think her husband is hot, too.
raz0r says:
I am so psyched. Wife asked me this morning if I thought Cindy McCain would make a good First Lady. Told her she’d make a great First Lady because she doesn’t talk about doing, she does. Told the wife about the McCain’s adopted daughter, the org she set up, and her trip to Georgia.
I hear about Sarah Palin this AM and dared to get my hopes up. Wife calls me and asks if this is a good thing. I am just short of yelling yes into the phone. Palin is another one who doesn’t talk, she does.
I’ve been telling the libs at work that their team picked the wrong person to go to bat for them.
Team McCain stole all of Barry’s thunder from his coronation. Johnny Mac has knocked this one out the park.
It is a greeeat day.
BTW, Beth. Glad to see you’re still among the living. You do the Snoopy Dance, I’ll do this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfPg5LjGYz8
raz0r says:
Larry,
Not sure I’d say McCain lacks executive experience. He was an officer in the Navy after all. That has to account for something.
Scott Allan says:
It’s a high fly deep to center…way back… way back… GONE! HOMERUN!!
Lord Bitememan says:
Start saving up for the good champagne, it’s victory party time!
Stix says:
Great choice. She will bring in the PUMAs and Reagan Democrats.
She has some political fights that produced a probe, but will amount to nothing. It will be well behind her by Nov
I like how it took the air out of Zuesbama’s coronation last night.
PaulW says:
Hi, my name is PaulW, and I’ll be your Devil’s Advocate for this thread.
My primary concern about choosing Palin, which also was a concern I had with Gov. Jindal, is her lack of comparative political experience at a national level. One of the best arguments the Republicans had against Obama was his relative inexperience (4 years as a U.S. Senator). The thing about the Vice President pick is that the VP has to fulfill the same expectations you’d want in a President: if the Republicans were touting experience via McCain, how can they tout it also with Palin?
Sure, you’re not going to get a Veep candidate with an equal track record to the Presidential candidate, but something comparable, for example if Palin had a few years in a Cabinet post, or a term or two as a Congresswoman as well as the governorship. Being mayor of a small Alaskan town is about the same as Obama’s time as a state-level experience: it’s like Class AA rookie baseball compared to the big leagues.
I’m saying that by going with Palin, the Republicans lose an effective argument against Obama on the merits of experience. I know everyone’s gushing over Palin as a pick, and I love her track record as a reformer, but this pick isn’t the home run everyone else on this thread is thinking…
Janette says:
It’s a brilliant pick. BRILLIANT. I like the man a little bit better for it.You know how much it kills me to say that.
Not sayin’ I’m voting for him just saying he added a plus to his column. Again, killing me.
Lord Bitememan says:
Paul, there’s a big difference here. Palin’s experience in office only matters if McCain DIES. Obama’s inexperience will be put DIRECTLY into the presidency. This is an important distinction. Democrats cannot attack Palin’s inexperience. If she’s inexperienced, then so is Obama. All they do in attacking her experience is discredit their own freshman senator candidate. And, last time I checked, John McCain is still on the top of this ticket, which means this is still the McCain-Obama race, as much as they might like it to be a Palin-Obama race.
So, unless we plan on John McCain dying, this pick does nothing to undercut McCain’s experience argument.
Lord Bitememan says:
Incidently, it also bears mention that Edwards had only a single term in the Senate when he was selected as Kerry’s running mate. Geraldine Ferraro had only served 2 full terms in the house and was in the midst of her third term when she was selected (that’s less than a full term in the Senate). Spiro Agnew was a freshman governor of Maryland when Nixon selected him. Nixon had been in Congress less than 6 years before Eisenhower tapped him as VP (though this consisted of a couple years in the House, a couple in the Senate). So, it’s not like it’s unprecedented to take a somewhat thin-resume on VP choices.
Philo T Phlegm says:
McCain is certainly a crafty old boy. BRILLIANT CHOICE!!! Finding Sarah Palin was the equivalent of finding a rare buried treasure. She’s smart, beautiful, gutsy, and is the perfect choice to give the GOP a much needed burst of electrifying energy. McCain just about guaranteed himself a 4 year residency in the White House come this November. As for “Obomba,” he can go back to hanging out with his “mentor”, Reverand Wrong, and watching his morose looking wife get fatter.
PaulW says:
Yeah, Lord, but were any of them any good?
Agnew turned out to have corruption scandals in his background, and was forced to resign. Ferraro did nothing for Mondale, and had corruption scandals as well. Edwards… you might notice a trend here. I can still remember people joking - and Republicans among them - that Quayle was Bush’s way of ensuring no one would assassinate him.
With the 20th Century, the United States rose as an international power, and with that the need to have a Vice President with experience became a necessity (although I admit in most ways a President’s Cabinet is of greater importance in the long run). Before the 20th Century, all you needed in the Veep was a ticket balancer. But not anymore.
The thing is, I want the person getting tabbed for the Vice Presidency to have as close a level of experience as I’d expect out of the President. Palin may not top the ticket the way Obama does for the Dems, but to me that belief that the Veep has to be as Ready for Day One as the Prez, well, that’s key for me.
Lord Bitememan says:
Were any of them an good? Yes, a couple were. Say what you will about Dick Nixon, Eisenhower picked the man who would eventually reshape American politics into a generation of Republican presidential dominance. Ferraro may not have done much for Mondale, but Mondale didn’t do much for Mondale either (I somehow think the “I will raise your taxes” line was of a bit more importance than Ms. Ferraro’s scandals in framing people’s re-election of Reagan). Ferraro subsequently served as a US ambassador to the UN Committee on Human Rights and as an advisor on a presidential campaign.
I can certainly point to running mates who were far worse who came to the ticket with far more experience too. The oft mentioned Dan Quayle actually had two terms in the house and was in the first years of his second term in the Senate when he was tapped. Thomas Eagleton had been a state attorney general for four years, lieutenant governor of Missouri for four, and a senator for four years when McGovern picked him. . . only to subsequently drop him. Bob Dole had served 4 terms in the House and was in his second Senate term when Ford selected him as running mate. Then Dole uttered the infamous line about Democratic wars and Detroit. So, experienced candidates can certainly drag down and damage a ticket as well.
With regards to the need for a seasoned Vice President, I say this: It has been 34 years since a Vice President assumed the presidency through succession, and I don’t anticipate corruption and resignation on McCain’s part, it has been 45 years since a president died in office, and I don’t anticipate McCain’s assasination, it has been 63 years since a president died of natural causes in office, and I don’t anticipate McCain running for a fourth term. The liklihood of a Vice Presidential succession is very small. People live a lot longer now, they take better care of themselves, President have great access to medical care and they’ve finally mastered the concept of not giving an innaugural address in the rain. Nixon was 81 when he died. Gerald Ford was 93, as was Reagan. Jimmy Carter is 84 and still alive, same with George H. W. Bush. W and Bill Clinton both still live despite the booze, blow, and high fat foods implicit in both their lifestyles. So, I don’t buy this notion that Palin is teetering on the brink of becoming president should McCain win the election.
That said, who said she isn’t qualified? The voters of Alaska certainly thought so, and in a year where Republican is a tainted brand this woman enjoys 80% support among her constituents. She’s fought government corruption, she has executive experience, what more do we need? There’s always the foreign policy issue, but if foreign policy experience were 1, more important than domestic policy issues and 2, not obtainable on the job then we would elect our presidents from the diplomatic corps, not from the population of governors and senators from whom we normally take it. It’s dubious how much foreign policy experience George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter got from their time as governors. Some were hit, some were miss on foreign policy, but once they got to Washington they got advisors, they learned on the job, they took in input from the mechanisms of government designed to refine foreign policy. One has to wonder to what extent the foreign policy of any president derives from their own experience. Nixon had a brilliant foreign policy. . . but how much of that was Kissinger? The fact is the President has only one or two real assets going in, their judgement, and their convictions. We know McCain’s judgement and his convictions. Palin has demonstrated firm convictions through her actions. Her judgement, from everything I’ve read, is sound enough for the job.
Archer S says:
I don’t think she really helps him. I don’t see Clinton supporters running to our ticket either. What is the main benefit really for McCain that she is more of a “true” Republican than him? Hmmm, ok. I just hope he does well in the debates. Every time I see McCain speak I cringe. I am not worried about his health, but his sharpness at times.
raz0r says:
Archer,
bwaahahaha. Have you seen the One speak without his teleprompter?
Speak? No, not quite right. Fumble? Yeah, that’s pretty close.
Have you seen Barry fumble? I’ve seen toddlers who only know two or three words and they’re more coherent.
What else explains Barry’s chicken attitude about townhall debates? Barry knows he is out gunned. He talks big, but can’t back it up. He says he’ll debate, but has yet to follow through.
Public discourse is not something McCain has to worry about.