Leave Sarah Palin Alone!
I’m serious. Leave her alone. I know she’s a liberal bloggers dream and the posts write themselves, but we (myself included) need to back off. This election is about McCain. By focusing on Palin we are taking the attention away from the top of the ticket. And I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what the McCain Campaign wants.
Sarah Palin provides red meat for the Right and the Left. She will either help or hurt the ticket, but she won’t make or break it. Ultimately, that’s McCain’s responsibility. In the end this election will be about McCain vs. Obama. Palin is a distraction; a distraction -in my opinion – that McCain desperately needed.
We need to focus on McCain. If we write about Palin (which I’m sure I’ll do again since she’s the gift that keeps on giving) we must tie our arguments against her to McCain. Just like we link McCain to Bush. Sarah Palin won’t speak to the press? Blame McCain. Sarah Palin’s views on sex ed and women’s reproductive rights are extreme? Well, McCain must agree with those positions. Sarah Palin isn’t prepared to stand a heartbeat away from the Presidency? Whose fault is that?
So I plan on leaving Palin alone, and focus on the issues. You know, issues? Those pesky things missing from the Republican Convention.
Tags: 2008 Presidential, John McCain, Sarah Palin
From a strategy perspective, Greenwald disagrees.
Link
I agree with pandora’s post. Details on Palin are a distraction that Democrats should avoid.
The focus should be on priorities (healthcare, education, ending the occupation, reducing the class divide through fair taxation, etc) of the tickets and the parties. The differences were stark from the conventions (Obama: we can fix healthcare in this way, if we work together–McCain: did you remember that I was a POW, Palin: aren’t I cute?)
Good thread topic.
Why is it that Democrats always want to take the highroad when, time and again, it has been proven that shit does not work against lying cheating Republicans?
We deserve to lose.
Guess I’m arguing more for linking her to McCain’s judgement, then letting her stand on her own. Palin is McCain’s choice. He shouldn’t get a pass when it comes to her issues. I’m all for hanging her around his neck like an albatross.
Pandora, you are absolutely right. The entire Palin thing is a red herring and we need to get back to the real issue –John McCain is a Bush clone and needs to lose, badly.
Mention her as an example of McCain’s dangerously flawed judgement, and then move on to his “experience,” which consists of spending decades perfecting his mistakes, which are illustrated in his support for all of George Bush’s failed policies.
I predict Pandora can’t go a week without trying to pile drive Mrs. Palin.
It’s not in your nature, Pandora!
Embrace your angry left…..
Yosemite, you’re probably correct. It’s hard to not notice or comment on a train wreck. However, when I do comment I’ll be sure to point out that McCain is the one driving the train.
Just as long as you know the track ends in the west wing.
And Obama is a just a hobo trying to jump on board!!!
Well, it has only taken you all… what… a week? to figure this out for yourselves, despite repeated people pointing it out to you. I guess it is good that now you want to focus on the issues, but your (collective “you”) actions over the past week certainly give lie to your words…
Check the scoreboard. 301/224
The Electoral Vote keeps moving in Obama’s direction. so as much as I know (like Gen Greenwald) that negative campaigning works – I also know that the Obama team has its act together in a way that the Gore and Kerry teams didn’t.
Palin is an example of McCain’s judgment — and an example of how superficial his idea of change is. A GOPer with her own issues with the Culture of Corruption and a mass of lies about her record is likely SOP for the GOP base right now, but there is no reason for the rest of us to not point out the ethics and truth issues as why McCain is more of the same.
There isn’t much reason for the Obama team to be out there attacking her and helping her get more attention — they have to focus in on the corrupted brand as symbolized by BushCo (and as fulfilled by Palin).
The National Enquirer stuff doesn’t need much blog space, tho. Although I note that if that kind of thing happened to the Dem candidate there would be no compunctions against promoting it as fact, as fair and and necessary to the conversation. And none of our critics on this kind of thing would blink an eye.
I agree she’s a distraction. I think she has been an asset to McCain’s campaign so far because she certainly brought an energy that wasn’t there before, although I don’t she is going to flip any states (red states flirting with Obama would have probably gone McCain’s way anyway). She’s definitely a star of the future in the Republican party if she doesn’t get derailed from her scandals.
She’s a reflection of McCain’s judgment and I think her presence will help deflate his “Republican maverick” image a bit. We need to stop increasing her importance, though. With all the attention she’s gotten, now her every word is being hanged on and that isn’t good for us.
Another pet peeve of mine – can we get Democrats to stop saying what a great guy McCain is? Republicans never say that about Obama – in fact, Inhofe was questioning Obama’s love of country just yesterday.
Check out this headline:
McCain-Palin becoming Palin-McCain?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080907/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_palin;_ylt=AgV5S749CtiS2DA8L8p2oMqs0NUE
I don’t think that is good for McCain. She certainly overshadowed him at the convention. Just watching the delegates reaction to her speech vs. McCain’s definitely showed this.
Two things: the Palin pick does reflect on McCain’s ececutive decision-making. Also, as Sam Harris points out, statistically speaking, Big John has a reasonable chance of kicking the bucket.
By the way – I just got chills when I heard the “Meet the Press” theme music and Tom Brokaw said “Live from Wilmington, Delaware”.
The Electoral Vote scoreboard you link on this page is ridiculously slanted liberal. If you emailed the author after interviewed 10 people in the slums of Dallas, he would switch Texas to Obama. The guy is a partisan hack, like you.
Try some real surveys:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
And Rasmussen’s last electoral tracking shows Bareback Obama with only 10 votes ahead, and neither at 270.
TICKETY TOCK, M.F. !!!!
Yosemite – That is typical of the kinds of “facts” I see cited by some folks here.
She’s the “new Hitler” for Pink State Bubba Heads looking for their next Butch candidate. Very dangerous, even into Book Burnings and Wars from God.
I agree with pandora’s post. Details on Palin are a distraction that Democrats should avoid.
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Oh puhlease! what an unconsidered position. As Biden so aptly said today on MTP: don’t personalize this election.
Make that your guide people.
I just posted a list of the library books Palin wanted to ban via Frieda. There is plenty that MUST MUST MUST come out about who is asking for the keys to the whitehouse.
Don’t shirk your duties; just don’t make it personal.
“Try some real surveys”
Or try them all:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php
Plenty more at that site, including electoral tracking.
Pandora,
Telling a liberal to leave Sarah Palin alone on principle, is like telling a middle aged couple, still deeply in love, not to make out after the kids are gone…
yeah, right.
(Although I’ll confess…. the principals you mention are noble….) but still….xoxoxo
LOL! And we can have our Palin fix as long as we identify who the dealer is!
Mike W and Yosemite – you are a dolt. Why don’t you look at the methodology that electoral-vote.com uses? It uses all of the polls that come out and summarizes them. Check it out and you will see.
That banned book list has been going around the internet for years. Don’t tell me you fell for that old con.
As to the high road ,Daily Kos already took the low road and gained her 37 million viewers on her speech.
It does not summarize them. It uses the most recent, no matter how obscure. They flip states like hotcakes whenever the slightest fart in the wind makes it smell blue.
No, it does not summarize them. It uses the most recent, no matter how obscure. They flip states like hotcakes whenever the slightest fart in the wind makes it smell blue.
LG – What about the media matters citation used earlier to “prove” conservative bias in the media? That’s one of the more laughable things I’ve seen someone here post.
Had McCain taken the advice of some in his party and selected the oafish Tom Ridge as a running mate, he would have gone a long way in alienating the base and assured a narrow Obama victory.
Instead, he created an antidote to infectious Obamamania.
Hey, he tends to piss off the GOP establishment from time to time and he did just that with Palin. A great move on his part IMO.