Sarah Palin is the female W. October 6
In my previous life as a political pollster, two things never ceased to amaze me: 1) the slimy new lows to which politics can sink (especially those of the Republican party), and 2) how the American people continue to fall for this stuff. It is truly incredible how easy it is to get American voters to vote against their own (and the country’s) best interests by repackaging the same lies, biases, and fears and selling them to people every four years.
Case in point: Sarah Palin. I know the shine’s been taken off of her a bit, but the level of support she still gets astounds me. There’s any number of reasons why, as she’s one of the most hypocritical and loathsome people I’ve ever seen come on to the national political stage. But the one I can’t get over, and can’t believe more people don’t see, is that Sarah Palin IS George W. Bush with a vagina.
The similarities between the two are not just striking, they are terrifying, and I’ll name 3 of them that scare me most:
1) Their undeserved, cocky swagger. Neither one of these people have accomplished anything worthwhile before tricking a bunch of backwards rednecks into making them a governor. W lived off his family’s money and ran several businesses into the ground, while Palin played the flute in a bikini and was mayor of a town of 12 people. Some qualifications.
2) How proud they are of lacking intellectually curiosity. It’s one thing not to know something; it’s totally another thing to not know it, be PROUD not to know it, and never want to know it. Palin and Bush both share an uncanny lack of intellect or curiosity; to them, knowing things or asking questions makes you one of those liberal elites. And it’s not just that I disagree with them. I disagree with Dick Cheney, but I think the man is knowledgeable (he just doesn’t use it for good). Sarah Palin, on the other hand, a former JOURNALISM major, doesn’t apparently read the newspaper. Any newspaper. Not even the conservative ones. Why would she want to know about the world outside of Alaska? Judging by how she speaks, it doesn’t matter - the rest of the world needs to learn how things are done in Alaska and adapt accordingly. (Come to think of it, I seem to recall a former Texas governor with the same view of his state…)
3) Empty, angry, fear-mongoring rhetoric. I’ll give the two of them this - they sure know how to find the lowest common denominator and exploit the hell out of it. These guys would make George Washington sound like a commie liberal terrorist if he were alive today and running against them. Sarah Palin has more baseless, patently untrue, and vile one-liners than any candidate I’ve ever seen. And about 40% of the country is right there swallowing it hook line and sinker.
I could go on for days, and these are just three things that I’ve noticed.
This is not, however, a condemnation of all Republicans. There are some very thoughtful, capable, and truly good ones out there, and pretty sure that these people cringe when they hear Palin and Bush speak too. These two truly represent not only the worst of their party, but the worst the country has to offer. After 8 years and Bush’s 12% approval rating, though, it appears that for a lot of Americans, nothing has changed.
Jonz Oct 7
Its been awhile since I suggested a song for you guys to cover, but I think you will like this one: http://www.last.fm/music/Icehouse/_/Electric+Blue
Bayes Oct 8
The main difference between Sarah Palin and W , in my opinion, the likeability factor. To me, W is likeable person who got dealt a horrible hand with 9/11 and did not approach things with the necessary candor to ensure the trust of the American public. His approval rating is abysmal, hovering somewhere around 22%, yet I believe 10-15% of that is simply bandwagon hatred and the collective sheep ideology of the public to go along with blaming him for everything. Palin, on the other hand, is completely unlikable, outright lies (whereas I do not believe W is a liar, just a master of omission and vagueness), and does not in any way lean towards the somewhat centrist policies of W in the past 2-3 years. As far as experience, W had sufficient experience to be President and enjoyed a large degree of success as the gov. of Texas. Palin is a complete joke and is dangerous, as seen by her appalling tolerance of ignorance and her incitement of vulgar remarks by backward rednecks during her week on the stump. For her to not denounce “kill him, treason, and terrorist” yells from the crowd just shows that those remarks are what she was going for. Bottom line, as hard as it may be to swallow, Palin isn’t even in the same league as W in terms of integrity and intent.
Bayes Oct 9
A little follow up that I thought might generate some discussion:
I quote the following from an article I read today on yahoo news:
“To an important degree, however, race is still the elephant in the polling booth, experts say, and according to a recent Stanford University poll, Obama could lose six points on election day due to his color.”
Racism Today: Think about the company you’re voting with when you cast your vote for McCain/Palin. Do you want to be associated with such blatantly and overtly racist citizens? 6% of the voting population, according to this study, will not vote for Obama for the sole reason that he is not white. Personally, this is both horrifying and pathetic. I must be a little too idealistic and naive in forgetting what a large portion of America is still like, but I’d like to think I associate myself with pretty tolerant, accepting, color blind people. But then again, I do live in “communist country”, accorind to McCain’s brother.
Backtracking: Luckily, we live in a time where racism is less prevalant than in our parents’ generation. I’d like to believe our generation is better than this. If you vote for McCain, let it be for the right reasons, not because of his pasty white wrinkled skin color. Hopefully when are children are of voting age, we will have taught them what is fair and right–just like our parents have hopefully done with us. This election would not have even been possible 15, 10, even 5 years ago. Let’s not backtrack into the far too recent days of segregation and blind southern Christian agendas proported by the republican base. Sarah Palin represents this way of backward thinking and it is wrong, dangerous and cannot be tolerated in the 21st century.
Voting Tests: And lastly, please educate yourselves, and encourage others to do the same, before voting. If you dont’ know what you’re talking about, don’t vote. If you don’t care, don’t vote. If there was a way to reinstitute the voting tests without everyone crying “discrimination!” then this would solve most of the problems. Why not have a few extremely basic questions to answer before you cast your vote? In a post-racial society, this might become an acceptable norm.
Celebrity: If you are voting for Obama because it’s hip and the cool thing to do, try changing the channel from The Hills or Tori and Dean and listen to a debate and make up your mind that way. I firmly believe Obama to be the stronger candidate for this moment in history. But I want everyone to make up their own mind. This way, we know what we are getting and people whose candidate doesn’t’ win have no legitimate claim to complain (which is the tendency with Bush, everyone is complaining, but we elected him, and if you didn’t vote for him, then you didn’t do enough to elect Gore or Kerry). We already have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the democratic world. A few less voters who don’t know anything about the issues won’t hurt anybody.
Your Civic Duty: It’s not your civic duty to vote, it’s your civic duty to be a contributing citizen, which means to be an educated voter. I just saw a news program on 20/20 where many recently registered voters did not even know how many states there are in America, or how many Senators come from each state, much less the difference between health care plans or foreign policy constructs. I am extremely uncomfortable knowing that this kind of ignorance will possibly cancel out my vote inside the voting booths. It is this very same brand of ignorance that will make up the 6% of lost votes for Obama. Democracy is a fallacy without an educated populace.
Bayes Oct 9
Oh, and this was obviously not intended for most readers of this site, so I’m not sure if it will reach it’s “intended” audience. Do they have computers in Palin country?