He chose a White Woman

[gwd-scouter]

This thread has been all over the place - back to Sarah Palin. I watched a focus group of undecided voters on CSPAN yesterday. The questions at the end were about Sarah Palin the whether the choice of her for VP made any impact on the undecideds. The majority who had been leaning toward voting for McCain said that choosing her caused them to change their minds. The reason given was McCain's age and her inexperience to be "a heart beat away" from the presidency. Another was McCain's apparent change of heart about his most important criteria for his pick having to be someone with experience who could step into the role of commander in chief should something happen to him.

 

The folks that liked the pick gave the reason that she was fresh and new and would bring change to the white house - the same reason they gave for possibly voting for Obama.

 

A couple of women in the group voiced concern over her being a mother of five children including one with Down syndrome. When it was suggested that she has managed to be a caring mother AND a governor, I had to think that being VPOTUS will be infinitely more demanding than governor of Alaska. Of course, men with families have been doing the job without anyone commenting about them neglecting their children.

 

I also enjoy listening to the Washington Journal on CSPAN and the comments made by the callers. Since the announcement and Palin's comments at the rally where she mentioned breaking the glass ceiling with Hillary's 18 million cracks, it seems she angered those Hillary voters that said they were voting for McCain. Many of the comments were along the lines of 'how dare she compare herself to Hillary' and 'McCain picking this inexperienced woman thinking he would draw our votes is insulting'.

 

Whether or not Palin is a good choice remains to be seen. Only two months to go to the election.

[Ohio_Scouter]

OK, Basementdweller,

 

I couldn't find this policy on the national BSA website or on the local Tecumseh Council--where these Scouts live--or on my Council's website, either. So, I'll grant you that this may be a local policy in at least 4 BSA councils, but I'm not yet convinced that it's a national BSA policy. Thanks for trying to research it, though.

[NJCubScouter]

In the interests of fairness, the other side of the story from what I referred to above is here: http://tinyurl.com/6h2vsa and here: http://tinyurl.com/5zk62b. (I used tinyurl to conceal the subject matter for those who prefer not to read about it. As I said before, everybody has their clothes on, but it is a rather "personal" rumor that is most likely not true, so I'm letting you all decide whether to read it or not.)

 

The first link is somewhat non-committal on the subject, although at the bottom it has a link to a complete photo that is cropped in the "Daily Kos" version. When viewed in total, I think the photo supports the view that the rumor is NOT true, though I can't say why without repeating the rumor. The second link directly tries to debunk the rumor.

 

I found a few other things on the Internet about this (mostly anti-rumor), but you all have Google, so my research here is done. It's all kind of trivial anyway, in my opinion, but as I said in the first post, it is at least mildly intriguing for at least a few minutes.

 

Ironically, one of the photos in the "follow up" page on the Daily Kos site (not the one I linked to above, but it is linked from there) has a photo of some of the characters in this drama at the McCain-Palin announcement on Friday... with one of the Scouts and the Scouter (apparently) right behind them. But I'm not going there again, either.

 

(Edited to fix typos and clarify.)(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I had to think that being VPOTUS will be infinitely more demanding than governor of Alaska

 

I wouldn't think so; the VP doesn't have much to do, really.

 

Old joke:

 

An old woman had two grown sons. One ran off to join the crew of a tramp steamer; the other one became vice-president of the United States.

 

Neither was ever heard from again.

[TheScout]

For once I 100% agree with Merlyn. It must be true.

[NJCubScouter]

Well, it isn't often possible to conclusively disprove an Internet rumor, but I guess Governor Palin did it.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080901/pl_nm/usa_politics_palin_dc_3

 

As they say on that commercial, I didn't see that one coming.

[hops_scout]

Her "lack of experience" keeps getting brought up. Sure, I think she could defnitely use some more experience, but why is her experience not enough but Obama's experience is okay because he's "like Lincoln?"

 

Either you're inexperienced or you're not. There can't be two different definitions that one person uses.

[Lisabob]

Hops I think that's a pretty fair question actually, and here's my answer (for what it is worth).

 

Palin has something like 12 years of experience in politics. 6 of those come from being a city council member of a town of between 5-8000 people. 4 come from being Mayor of the same town. Not quite 2 come from serving as governor of Alaska. She has also worked as a sports journalist, has a communications/journalism degree with a political science minor. She has been a union member and a PTA member.

 

Obama has an undergraduate degree in political science and a law degree. He worked as a "community organizer" in Chicago for 3 years, which means he became well acquainted with the problems and issues facing blue-collar, middle class and lower middle class workers. He was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He taught Constitutional law and worked as a civil rights attorney after finishing law school. He has 8 years of legislative experience in the Illinois senate and not quite 2 years in the US Senate.

 

Obama's US Senate experience and Palin's gubernatorial experience are the same length. I think it is reasonable to point out that Palin, unlike Obama, actually has executive experience. However, I also think that Obama is far more likely to have been exposed to more and bigger national and international issues in his time as a US Senator, than Palin would have been as Governor of Alaska. Further, Obama has been campaigning for about 18 months now and has been under intense national (and international) scrutiny that whole time, forcing him to clarify and further develop his understanding and views on issues. In that sense, the grueling Democratic primary battle was probably good for Obama. In contrast, Palin has not had that experience to force her to come to grips with the myriad problems the next President and VP will have to tackle.

 

In comparison, I'm comfortable giving more weight to Obama's experience and I suspect he probably understands political issues on a deeper level that Palin does. Local government experience in small town Alaska is good and I'm not knocking her for serving her community in that way. But the order of magnitude is rather different than being a state senator for 8 years, or even being involved in city politics in one of the nation's biggest cities (Chicago). I'm uncomfortable with the notion that someone could go from being mayor of a tiny outpost town to potentially president, in just 2 years.

 

Palin might, in fact, be one of the "up and coming" stars of the Republican party and maybe if she doesn't win this time, by 2012 she might have a lot more credentials. But for now I think she's far less prepared than Obama. As recently as about 15 months ago she said she wasn't prepared to comment on the surge or the Iraq war, and 6 months ago on a national news show she asked the reporter what exactly the VP does. Even supposing McCain is blessed with good health for the next 4 or 8 years - given her lack of depth right now, I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which McCain and his advisers would seriously consult with or seek advice from, Sarah Palin. Even more to the point, she is not ready to do anything serious on the international stage. Can you imagine her up against Vladimir Putin, or the leadership of China? If elected right now, I fear she'll be considered a lightweight in Washington and internationally, no matter her intentions.

 

 

[TheScout]

What is a community organizer anyway?

[Ohio_Scouter]

Yeah, I guess that just proves that you can't believe everything you read on Internet forums and blogs.

[croushorn]

Lisa If Palin were the Republican nominee for President your comparisons would be dead on.

 

>>forcing him to clarify and further develop his understanding and views on issues.

[scoutldr]

I think Scouters are "community organizers".

 

Birth certificates are public records and are hard to fake, why hasn't anyone produced one?

 

[Lisabob]

ursus, in a way she is (as is Biden of course).

 

VPs are the bench warmers, mostly held in reserve in case something happens to the first stringer. In McCain's case, given his age and past health issues, this seems more important than usual to a lot of people. As for me, I sure hope that the bench is deep and ready to play if called upon.

 

Joe Biden would not be my first choice for president, but at least I believe he has enough experience to draw upon that he wouldn't be in way over his head if something happened and he had to step into the job. I do not have that confidence in Sarah Palin. This is setting aside ideological concerns for the moment.

 

 

[croushorn]

>> Well, it isn't often possible to conclusively disprove an Internet rumor, but I guess Governor Palin did it.

[BulldogBlitz]

" Further, Obama has been campaigning for about 18 months now and has been under intense national (and international) scrutiny that whole time, forcing him to clarify and further develop his understanding and views on issues. In that sense, the grueling Democratic primary battle was probably good for Obama."

 

obama has been campaigning 18 months of his tenure. does he actually do his job... or just vote "present"? and he's been under this "intense national scrutiny" and still hasn't clarified his stand on anything. if anything, he's had to gravitate back towards the middle.