What Sarah Palin does for John McCain

[edschweppe]

Sarah Palin adds an awful lot to John McCain's ticket. For example, she adds an ongoing scandal over her firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner because he wouldn't fire the ex-husband of her sister (who was embroiled in an ongoing, nasty divorce and custody battle with said ex-husband, an Alaskan State Trooper). As mayor of Wasilla, AK, she fired the police chief for having supported her opponent in the mayoral election. While running for governor, she supported the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" in Ketchikan, Alaska, and Alaska is still building the access road to the (empty) bridge site. She supports teaching creationism in public schools.

On a lighter note, she adds three more houses to the ticket (to go along with McCain's "I can't count that high" number). And, of course, she adds eye candy; after all, former POW McCain spent five and half years not having a running mate to ogle:

(Of course, the McCain campaign didn't bother to send anybody to read the (mostly offline) archives of her hometown newspaper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, before announcing her as the pick. But they did know that her 17 year old single daughter is five months pregnant.)

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

So what does her daughter's pregnancy have to do with anything? I'm kind of pleased with McCain that he didn't decide against Palin for that, even though I'm sure there are some Christian conservatives who'll be disappointed by the news.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

The fact that her daughter is pregnant doesn't have anything to do with anything. (Okay, it's more proof that abstinence-only sex education doesn't work, but that's no surprise.)

The fact that McCain's campaign knew about it, and had responses ready for it - and that's the only potential issue with her that they knew about - is an issue for me. Either they didn't vet her worth beans, or they don't mind that she's flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere and has a long string of ethics questions in her background.

There's plenty more that I find wrong with her from a policy standpoint. The Palin pick tells me something bad about McCain, as well: he's making fighter-pilot style, split-second tactical decisions - in an environment where that's the wrong model to use.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, sure, he's making mistakes. No question about that. It just bugs the bejezus out of me to see you and a bunch of other people jumping on Sarah Palin's daughter and Sarah Palin about something that I consider a private matter. I'm with Barack Obama in thinking this is something that is out of bounds and ought not to be discussed.

[carl-schweppe.livejournal.com]

Well, his post was making fun of the McCain campaign for making sure they defused the pregnant 17-yr old situation and not looking at the newspaper stories about the actual VP nominee.