President Palin?

A quotation from Senator John McCain after September 11:

I believe voters elect their leaders based on their experience and judgment — their ability to make hard calls, for instance, on matters of war and peace. It’s important to get them right.

By selecting Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential choice, he has obviously decided that experience is unnecessary and that his judgment is highly questionable.

The 72 year old McCain spent five and 1/2 excruciating years as a POW in Vietnam, has had melanoma and undergoes a skin examination every three months, followed by a biopsy. As 71 year old, I can attest that, no matter how healthy you are and act at that age, you just don’t feel the way you felt twenty or thirty years ago. If that does not lead to the conclusion that you must select someone capable of being President in the event of your own incapacity, you have seriously abdicated the position of being wise enough to be President.

His choice to be the next President of the US has been the Governor of Alaska for the past one and 1/2 years (hot on the heels of being the mayor of a 7,000 person town 45 minutes outside Anchorage, Alaska), who lacks familiarity with the issues of the other 49 states and at best is learning how to govern her own state.. Alaska’s major interest in Washington is to use it as a source of earmarked funds that equal the most per capita transfers from the Federal Treasury compared to any other state in the Union, obtained by two corrupt politicians currently under indictment. She is a fervent foe of abortion, stem cell research, and same-sex marriage. She believes in ‘intelligent design’ and thinks it (that is, creationism) should be taught as a theory equivalent to evolution.

She has not, by her own admission, had time to concentrate on foreign issues. Cindy McCain in an interview today argued that Alaska is the closest state to Russia and that should be considered when evaluating her national security expertise! Unfortunately for this national-affairs-by-proximity argument, Maine is closer to Iraq than is Alaska so the Republicans erred by not selecting Olympia Snowe.

The question is why and the answer is simple. This was a political decision meant to burnish McCain’s reputation as a risk taker and dice thrower. It is an attempt to garner the disaffected Clinton voters who have yet to embrace Obama. And it solidifies the conservative base, which has not been enthusiastic about McCain.

A man named Sam Clinton, with Hilary Clinton’s credentials, would have been a serious candidate for the Presidency, and certainly the Vice Presidency. A man named Sam Palin, with Sarah Palin’s credentials, would never have gotten a moment’s interest from McCain.

The Republican’s are attempting to equate Palin’s lack of experience with Obama’s. But the difference is stark. He is Harvard Law School graduate, who spent years in Chicago organizing poor people, became an Illinois state legislator, and has been a US Senator for four years. He has just run a strategically brilliant 19 month political campaign and defeated the strongest political organization in the Democratic Party. He was nominated by the votes of over 18 million US Citizens across the country.

Palin was selected by McCain and four of his closest associates. They didn’t even bother to leak her name in advance to allow her to be vetted. This is one case where leaking has a public value as it provides some assurance that you have not made a serious mistake.

McCain has put a hoped for political advantage ahead of a concern for the well-being of the country. Along with his rejection of his previous positions that did not agree with George Bush and the right wing, to his now full throated adoption of their policy, in his first major decision after winning the Republican nomination he has chosen an unqualified person to be his replacement if he does not finish his term. It is a reckless act, and if he is elected, we can expect John McCain to repeat that behavior throughout his administration.

One of Palin’s supporters suggested that she promise not to become President if she has to succeed McCain, but instead name a Vice President who will take over the President’s duties, while she reverts back to the VP job. Sounds like a good idea.

According to Andrew Sullivan today:

The latest Rasmussen Poll found that among the critical undecided voters, the Palin pick made only 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain; and it made 31 percent less likely to vote for him. 49 percent said it would have no impact, and 15 percent remained unsure. More to the point: among the undecided, 59 percent said Palin was unready to be president. Only 6 percent said she was. If the first criterion for any job is whether you're ready for it, this is a pretty major indictment of the first act of McCain's presidential leadership.
One other striking finding. If McCain thought he could present Palin as a moderate, he was wrong. A whopping 69 percent view her as conservative (37 percent as very conservative), and only 13 percent see her as moderate.
From this first snap-shot (and unsettled) impression, Palin has helped McCain among Republicans, left Democrats unfazed, but moved the undecideds against him quite sharply.

The Campaign Starts

The first two quiet nights of the 2008 Democratic Convention, highlighted by effective speeches by Teddy Kennedy, Michelle Obama, and Hilary Clinton, changed gears on the third evening with rousing performances by John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden. Clinton erased the bitterness he had created in his campaign for his wife with a reasoned and passionate description of why the Republicans should be defeated in November. And those themes were reiterated by Kerry and Biden. Following are excerpts from the three speeches:

Bill Clinton
Our nation is in trouble on two fronts: The American dream is under siege at home, and America's leadership in the world has been weakened.

Middle-class and low-income Americans are hurting, with incomes declining; job losses, poverty and inequality rising; mortgage foreclosures and credit card debt increasing; health care coverage disappearing; and a big spike in the cost of food, utilities, and gasoline.

Our position in the world has been weakened by too much unilateralism and too little cooperation; a perilous dependence on imported oil; a refusal to lead on global warming; a growing indebtedness and a dependence on foreign lenders; a severely burdened military; a backsliding on global nonproliferation and arms control agreements; and a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe.

Clearly, the job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream and restore America's standing in the world.

Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.

He has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose. He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful president needs. His policies on the economy, taxes, health care and energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives. He has shown a clear grasp of our foreign policy and national security challenges, and a firm commitment to repair our badly strained military. His family heritage and life experiences have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and to restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world. The long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park.

With Joe Biden's experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama's proven understanding, insight, and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need.

But first we have to elect him.

The choice is clear. The Republicans will nominate a good man who served our country heroically and suffered terribly in Vietnam. He loves our country every bit as much as we all do. As a senator, he has shown his independence on several issues. But on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 1/2 million falling into poverty — and millions more losing their health insurance.

Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy. More Band-Aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.

They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let's send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.


John Kerry
I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you're against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what's more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same "Rove" tactics and the same "Rove" staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth. Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right.

When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after 9/11 and proclaimed, "Next up, Baghdad!", Barack Obama saw, even then, "an occupation of "undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences" that would "only fan the flames of the Middle East." Well, guess what? Mission accomplished.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? When Barack Obama promised to honor the best traditions of both parties and talk to our enemies, John McCain scoffed. George Bush called it "the soft comfort of appeasement." But today, Bush's diplomats are doing exactly what Obama said: talking with Iran.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? When we called for a timetable to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, John McCain called it "cut and run." But today, even President Bush has seen the light. He and Prime Minister Maliki agree on guess what? A timetable.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? The McCain-Bush Republicans have been wrong again and again and again. And they know they will lose on the issues. So, the candidate who once promised a "contest of ideas," now has nothing left but personal attacks. How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission, question the troops. How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself. How desperate to tell the son of a single mother who chose community service over money and privilege that he doesn't put America first.


Joe Biden
John McCain is my friend. We've known each other for three decades. We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.

But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example,

John thinks that during the Bush years "we've made great progress economically." I think it's been abysmal.

And in the Senate, John sided with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Give me a break. When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that's not change; that's more of the same.

Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history — a half-trillion dollars in the last five years — he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That's not change; that's more of the same.

Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That's not change; that's more of the same.

He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that's not change; that's more of the same.

And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that's not change; that's more of the same.

The choice in this election is clear. These times require more than a good soldier; they require a wise leader, a leader who can deliver change — the change everybody knows we need.