With the Republican brouhaha all wrapped up in St. Paul, amid protests squashed Gestapo-style by the police, people across America are all talking about McCain’s curveball vice presidential pick, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin. They have reason to. This small town, high-school basketball star turned TV reporter turned Mayor is an obscure choice, and one that is highly controversial.
To begin with, McCain has always rested his campaign platform on the basis of his vast experience, and his stoic maverick style, but Palin undercuts him on both counts.
Palin has been governor for a meager two years, having previously been a mayor of a town of only 6,000 for two terms from 1996 to 2002. My hometown of Orono, Maine, isn’t much bigger but does have the immense University of Maine-Orono campus in town, and there certainly isn’t anything too special or exceedingly difficult in managing the town, considering a high school senior ran for town council, losing by only three votes.
In her time as governor, she has maintained a high approval rating, but as to her accomplishments in office, she has very little. Running on a promise to build the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” she then abandoned the project after Congress translated the initial earmarked funds into an infrastructure grant to Alaska, thus freeing up potential funding for “other” projects.
Is that really experience? Having come from a small town in the middle of nowhere, the politicians that come from my town of 12,000 wouldn’t last a second on the world stage, and considering Palin’s meager record, what’s to think she will do more when given more?
And then there are the scandals that are beginning to swirl around this 44-year-old Alaskan native, like how her daughter is pregnant out of wedlock while Palin remains pro-life, and how she may have abused her power in a custody battle involving her brother-in-law. That the Republican Party, already a generally mistrusted party and misrepresentative of a majority of America, would pick such a controversial candidate is mind-blowing.
A nominee’s family life should be off-limits in politics, but when a candidate displays such a degree of discrepancy, it makes you really wonder what such a candidate really believes in. That Palin can try and appeal to the religious right, in the face of her daughter’s premarital sex, standing for family values while trying to steal Hillary’s thunder just seems ludicrous to me.
Instead of trying to bring people together, instead of trying to lure Democratic voters and independents in, Palin has done nothing but slander and attack both Obama and Biden. This sort of behavior is expected from the warhawk party, but for the second woman VP nominee to come out and be so vile to her opponents is astounding to me. It’s almost like the Grand Ole Party wants to lose, to put such an implausible candidate into the running.
What is truly scary however is that the GOP isn’t trying to lose, and with Palin’s nomination, McCain has moved up four points, taking the lead over Obama 48 percent to 45 percent. And with North Carolina looking to be a crucial battleground in November, we must all as Americans stop this absurd ticket from winning.