Governor Palin – a UFO
We live in a dangerous world. Our leaders must be thoughtful, careful, calculated. John McCain has proven himself to be reactionary. Republican or Democrat, we must be proactive in our approach to the world. Reactionary government is something one expects from a totalitarian dictatorship walking the line of collapse. The dictator fears only one thing – his own demise. His fear leads to scare tactics, to oppression, to reactionary judgment, to poor decisions based on 
one factor – sustaining his power base. All decisions are rooted in a fear of failure, and all responsive tactics follow. His power base is more important than his constituents, more important than his country, more important than historical legacy. We have witnessed that mentality the past seven years in the Bush Administration.
John McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate has rocked the GOP.
American politicians attempt to exude confidence, smiling and waving in partisan audiences. We in American have evolved our politics into two dominant political parties. Success is defined in terms of party acceptance. The talking heads of the proliferating media rail at the need to ‘strengthen the base’ of the party. With great irony the party leaders recognize the pragmatic solution is found in rallying the ideologues. Demonizing the opposition party has become the pragmatic application of ideology.
McCain has provided embarrassment to the Republican Party. The Republican leadership is forced to follow the pragmatic rule of defending the Party. They are compelled by loyalty to defend McCain’s decision. This writer cringes at the feeble attempts.
This writer is a qualified supporter of Barack Obama. We often find our self in difficult political water – we are socially liberal and economically conservative – so there is rarely a candidate with whom we totally agree. It is with sadness that we watch the GOP leadership trying to support McCain’s choice of Vice President while remaining true to their own personal integrity. The really great leaders of the GOP are forced into the awkward position of defending a choice they do not agree with.
Governor Palin is an Unidentified Flying Object skirting the political horizon.
Governor Palin may prove to be up to the challenge – but the decision to put her on the ticket was not based on her qualifications – rather it was a totally politically expedient move. This was a decision based on fear, not on careful, thoughtful, calculation.
We do not need four more years of reactionary government.
What great sadness.
Comment by June on 31 August 2008:
Explain why selecting a VP pick who has been a governor of a State is a problem? She has executive experience and has been fighting wasteful spending and corruption across political lines for years now. I’m not seeing that this is a problem especially since McCain is fully qualified to be president. Now with Obama, I don’t see him as qualified to be president…honestly he has no executive experience and has done little in the senate except for run for President.
Comment by Mary on 31 August 2008:
The American people are going to get what they deserve. Take my statement anyway you wish. Sometimes it takes a lot to push people into protecting their government from being destroyed. Whe we get our guts full of the greed, lies, cheating, from both sides of the aisle we may be forces to come together to stop all of it. In the meantime keep biting and devouring each other and the outcome will be self-destruction Galatians 5: 14,15
Comment by Capt America on 3 September 2008:
Gov. Palin may not be the most qualified candidate, and I am sure the author of this article would likely say not at all qualified, but doesn’t it make sense to choose a VP the candidates did not run against. Watching all the debates all they do is talk about how unqualified, unjust or immoral the opposing candidate is or was toward America. Then turn around and say this is a great person, who is fully qualified to be my VP. Senator McCain has not previously defamed his choice for VP. This is suppose to be America the land of opportunity. Is this country not known for making dreams happen, climbing from the bottom to the top? If not then why would anybody want to come here. I mean it just seems absurd that a small town girl may dream to become more than what the author states as a “barefoot, pregnant, hillbilly woman.” Seems hypocritical to me, seeing the support given to the young, Dem. Nominee running for President of the free world.
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Comment by Blue Dog on 4 September 2008:
I’m just going to focus on this for the moment:
“This writer is a qualified supporter of Barack Obama. We often find our self in difficult political water – we are socially liberal and economically conservative – so there is rarely a candidate with whom we totally agree. It is with sadness that we watch the GOP leadership trying to support McCain’s choice of Vice President while remaining true to their own personal integrity. The really great leaders of the GOP are forced into the awkward position of defending a choice they do not agree with.”
No where in our society are you going to find a candidate that matches your needs, your desires, your wants unless you run for office yourself. And even then, you will find that you cannot create the changes to obtain the results you want since you are limited by the voters, the Congress, and the responsibilities of the President itself. Bush couldn’t do it. Clinton couldn’t do it. Even Reagan and Washington couldn’t do it. So I wouldn’t worry about finding a candidate that you “agree with.” However, what your wants and desires are isn’t what the Presidential race is all about.
What you should be looking for in a President is not someone who shares your views, but someone who is capable of running an operation while overseeing the middle management (Congress and Federal Departments). Their job is to make the hard choices, especially when they are not popular. In the views of Republicans and McCain supporters, Obama hasn’t been around long enough to make those hard decisions or to manage an operation, or at least not to the level of McCain (or Palin for that matter).
This is why Obama had only two real choices when he selected his VP: Hillary or Biden. Both picks slap in the face of his primary campaign message of bringing change to old Washington, since both candidates are poster-children of old Washington. But it was a contradicition he had to make in order to shore up the weaknesses in his campaign, giving him ‘depth’ and experience on national and international issues.
McCain’s weaknesses were not on experience, but were youth and “conservative credentials.” The mere fact that McCain won the nomination is a contradiction to many views of the Republican cores values, so picking Palin was a way to soften his image. So it isn’t that the GOP was placed into an awkward position of having to defend Palin, but rather they sighed in relief by not having to defend both McCain and someone else who isn’t inline with the core beliefs, such as Joe Lieberman.
So, to conclude, I don’t think the GOP has anything to worry about when it comes to Palin’s ability to stand on her own and to champion the values of Conservatives while supporting McCain in the #2 position of VP. And by the numerous cheers of genuine joy last night following Palin’s speech, her party has accepted her on the national scene, and as a result, are now accepting McCain truly as their nominee; removing many of the doubts and concerns that were floating around him.
Keep up the good work!