A lot of people at sites like Digg just don't get why Palin was a smart choice. For the sake of brevity, I'll list a few key reasons why:
- She seems to be a bona fide conservative, and that will actually be the one thing that might energize the Republican base to come out to vote for McCain.
- She seems to have a pretty tough attitude toward fraud, waste and abuse, if her strong opposition to the "bridge to nowhere" is any indication.
- She may be fairly inexperienced as a politician, but her experience has been as an executive officer; whatever experience Obama and Biden have as legislators does not translate into practical experience as an executive.
- The so-called scandal about the cop she got fired will actually resonate with both many women voters and civil libertarians who are frustrated by the "brotherhood of blue" that always seems to protect its own. Not only that, but it is hard to justify a case against her on this when the officer was not only abusive toward his wife, but used his tazer as a disciplinary device on his own 11 year old son!
- She's young, attractive and has a big family which can pull in stragglers from demographics ranging from those who wouldn't mind having a VPILF (that's the professional jargon for her position), to female voters who can identify with her being a mother with several kids balancing a full tme job.
- She's not a Washington insider. She can't be, when she's only held state jobs and shown no prior aspirations for Congress or the Presidency. By choosing Biden, Obama tied himself down to a Washington insider, and now McCain can exploit Palin's outsider status for better or for worse. It also gives him more credibility as a "maverick."
Ha! I like the blurb under the blog title. :-)
Lets not forget her wildlife record, abuse of power (I am a female and it doesnt resonate with me except that she used her power to try and fire her BIL and when it didnt happen she fired his boss). The more that comes out on her the worse his choice will become. He had many others he could have went with. She is a huge mistake.
Her BIL was guilty of domestic violence, going so far as tazering his own preteen son. The only "scandal" here is that she had a personal stake in it because it was a family issue. The main reason her BIL wasn't removed was because of the police union, an issue that many Americans, all across the nation, have to deal with. It might have had a self-serving element to it, but what she did was an objective good for Alaska on balance because she removed a dirty cop, and removed the bastard who protected him because of his loyalty to the "brotherhood of blue."
Her "wildlife record"? She hunts and eats animals. Humans are predators; this is what we are supposed to do.
I think her grizzly rug and giant stuffed crab are really cool pieces of office decor.
I think she's great - it's easier to teach a novice with a good head on her shoulders than it is to re-train someone who's had wrong ideas for a long time.