My Advice For Governor Palin. Seriously.
Governor, if I may, I’d like to suggest how you move your political career and your life. You need to find a way to channel your skills and energy into somethin g hat is worthwhile. Looking to 2012 isn’t building your brand, it is trying desperately to hold on to what was lost.
For the next few years, sit in IEP meetings with you son’s teachers. Visit the classrooms of special needs children throughout this country. Sit down with the parents, teachers and administrators that work with these children everyday. Plan for how your son will be fed and clothed and sheltered if you and your husband died suddenly. Plan where and how your son will live semi-independently when he is 18 years old.
Take that knowledge and lash it to your formidable personal presence and make a change for these kids and adults. Find the solutions to real problems for real people. And when you stand up again on a stage with a half dozen other candidates vying for your party’s candidacy, you can call yourself an education expert. You can point to the organizations that you have helped, the legislation that you pushed through and the families that you have supported.
It is a recipe for success.
I put the chance of this happening at less than 1%.
Pretty good advice, LG, but I don’t think Palin or her supporters will agree. Her supporters think Palin is perfect as she is, and to some extent so does Palin.
I think her strategy over the next few years will be crammin’ Palin. She’ll learn what she has to learn to get by, and by that I mean memorize names, SC cases, newspaper names, etc. I don’t expect depth on the issues.
I also think she believes she helped McCain, that without her his loss would have been greater. And she may be right on this point. She did bring out the base, and as long as she focuses on them she will ignore the moderates and Independents that ran screaming from the voting booth.
That said, Palin with substance could be quite formidable indeed.
I think it’s good advice and I think pandora’s right that a groomed (crammed) Palin will be a more formidable candidate than a lot of people think. Four years is a really long time in politics and by 2012 I doubt people will remember Palin as dumb but as former VP candidate and current governor of Alaska.
I’m not sure Palin is really open to good advice though. She seems to have the combination of low intellectual curiosity and oversized ego that might just doom her. We’ll see.
Whether or not she wants to run for President, she is going to learn way more about special needs kids than she expects as Trig stops being a baby and starts having other needs than diaper changes and bottles.
She’d also be wise to get the hell out of the spotlight. This sudden love affair with the media is doing her no favors. She has nothing new to add. What she’s doing now is far more suitable to a My Space page.
lg,
She must have a lot of help with her children already, but the child’s needs will grow a lot as he gets older.
pandora,
I think you’re absolutely right that she should lay low for a while, but she has a huge ego and can’t see this apparently. She’s just embarrassing herself now and making it harder to rehab her reputation for later. What I don’t get is why the media is still so interested in her. Have we ever seen so much interest for a losing VP candidate ever?
I don’t want her anywhere near my children or their teachers.
Anonone,
If you’re serious, then that’s just about the dumbest comment I’ve ever read.
Governor Palin’s best move toward 2012 is simply to be the best governor she can be. If she’s a successful governor, going into 2012 with five+ years of experience as governor, she’ll have a résumé that will be hard to beat.
Really, Mike? You want your kids learning that men walked with dinosaurs? You want prayer back in school? You want a person who had to go to 5 different colleges to get a degree teaching your kids? You want somebody who can’t name a single thing that she reads forming educational policy?
I am glad you’re not teaching.
Very good post, liberalgeek. It would be interesting to see how someone so skeptical about the value of government, operates with a child who needs such intensive educational services.
But, since she has a lot of money, she may just be able to pay people to educate the child.
Anonone,
You’re a nasty, stupid fool. Your mind is as narrow as that of Sarah Palin. I was a teacher for one year, you dumb fuck. I worked with numerous CHRISTIAN, Adam and Eve lovin’ folks who DIDN’T teach men walking with dinosaurs. They taught the curriculum that was given out to them. For you to sit here and insinuate that Sarah Palin wouldn’t play it straight is just stupid and proves that you’re suffering from a severe case of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Get the fuck over yourself, douchebag.
Mike,
You’re such a pleasant soul. Perhaps you should learn how to discuss things without resorting to name calling and profanity. I am so glad that you left the teaching profession because you’re obviously not qualified to set any kind of example for young people in rationale thinking.
By the way, did any of those teachers try to get books banned at local libraries like Palin? Is that playin’ it straight? Do you have a fetish for dumb right wing extremist women like Palin and O’Donnell? Is that it?
For some reason I expected more of an intelligent response from you, but I realize that anybody that puts Duminique on their blog isn’t playing with all their marbles. I guess she satisfies your fetish.
The judgment that passes through your fingers onto this blog (with an anonymous moniker, no less) is truly galling. I call you out with nastiness specifically because you’ve chosen to remain anonymous. Notice how I’m generally QUITE civil with people who put their names on their posts. I can pass judgment on you because you’re a coward, essentially. You, on the other hand, and your attempt to paint me as some miscreant unfit to teach is offensive. Don’t judge me and don’t you dare tell me I’m unqualified to teach. I rarely toot my own horn, but if there’s one thing I know I can do, it’s working with special needs students.
As for Dominique, again, quit your bitching. She puts her name to paper and isn’t afraid of the criticism that comes from it. You could learn a thing or two.
So, to keep it somewhat short: Fuck you, anonymous fucking coward troll.
Let me clarify: I appreciate anonymous commentary. In fact, the blogosphere would be nothing without it. However, anonone offers nothing more than unpleasant ad hominems against those with whom he disagrees. Why debate policy with Republicans when anonone can lob a simple ad hominem against Sarah Palin? Why engage me in debate when anonone can lob an ad hominem attacking my qualifications to teach children in a classroom?
Tool.
Such vitriol. Most of the people that post on this blog are anonymous. Who is Kavips? Who is Duminique? Pandora? Cassandra_m? Maybe you know who they are, but I don’t. Your bazaar objections and nastiness “specifically because [I’ve] chosen to remain anonymous” in a sea of anonymity are just that: bazaar. You wouldn’t know who I was even if you knew my name, so what difference does it make?
I don’t need to paint you as “some miscreant unfit to teach.” People can read your posts and judge for themselves.
“unpleasant ad hominems against those with whom he disagrees”
All a reader has to do is read the posts from each of us in this thread to decide who uses “unpleasant ad hominems.”
Just count the profanities in my posts versus yours (zero in mine, BTW).
Bazaar, Mike, bazaar.
Dominique is not anonymous. Cassandra is not anonymous. Pandora is not anonymous. Kavips is anonymous, but he doesn’t hide behind bullshit attacks on character like those you’ve provided here.
BTW, profanities do not equal ad hominems. You have no right calling into question my character as a qualified educator. Because I tag my name on all my bullshit. You, on the other hand, are a coward because you spread your character-questioning under the convenient guise of anonymity.
Being anonymous is cool. I’ve no problem with it. But don’t expect not to be called out because of it.
Mike, your character is evident by your own posts. Your profanity, name calling, and high schoolish “calling out” speaks for itself. I don’t think it enhances your reputation as an educator to spew profanities at people you disagree with. Is that the example you want your students to follow?
Most of the people who post on this blog are anonymous to most of the other posters and readers of this blog, and are known only by their pseudonyms. I don’t understand why you have such a problem with my anonymity – but that is your problem, not mine.
I entered this thread by writing that I did not want Palin anywhere near my kids or their teachers. She is clearly an ignorant theocratic right-wing shill. People who want to ban books in public libraries and can’t name a single thing that they read don’t belong in teaching or education policy-making.
You wrote that you thought that my comment was “just about the dumbest comment I’ve ever read.” Coming from someone who publishes Duminique on their blog, I’ll take that as a complement.
Mike, if Palin is the type of person you want to formulate educational policy, give her all your support. But don’t expect everyone to agree with you. And don’t expect everyone to clap at your profane and childish name-calling.
Fine, but realize the asininity coming from your fingers is the same as the conservative fools who claim Barack Obama is going to lead us down the path of socialism. It’s the fear card. “Oh, I don’t want her teaching my kids!!” Boo!