Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton

[jianantonic]

A Faux News journalist recently argued that Sarah Palin has plenty of foreign policy experience, because she's the Governor of Alaska -- Alaska's RIGHT NEXT TO Russia!

That's like saying that since Fox News is right next to the porn channels on my cable lineup, they have plenty of experience in smut. 

I don't know if you're aware of her baby controversy.  hope_persists pointed this out to me.  She's got a 5-month old baby.  She announced that pregnancy in her 7th month, much to the surprise of her entire staff, because she wasn't showing at all, and she's a very petite woman.  At the same time, her 17-year-old daughter had been out of school for months with mono.  Hmm.  My connection is too slow right now to go looking for links, but there's been a lot of buzz about this lately so it shouldn't be too hard to find articles and the like.  Also, she went into labor in Texas, but then flew home to Alaska to give birth.  WTF, right?

I'm not one to jump quickly aboard with conspiracy theories and rumors, but this one seems rather substantiated.  I was at a party the other night with a couple of doctors and mothers and folks with life experience who all agreed with me that given the evidence, it seems pretty goddamn likely that Palin's daughter is actually the birth mother of this infant.  But then the really ridiculous question is why would you sign up for such scrutiny when you have such a huge secret -- one that you didn't work too hard to cover up, presumably because you were so out of the spotlight that you never imagined it would be a problem.  And the flip side is that whether this is her kid or not, she has a newborn special needs child, and by taking on the role of VP, you're pretty much saying "let the nannies deal with it." 

I'm not one to say that all mothers should stay at home with their babies or the kids will be ruined, but when you have a special needs child, you should at least allow yourself enough time to spend with the kid so that he at least knows who his parents are.  Yeesh.  I know that there's a lot of sexism in both sides of this debate, because if she were a man, no one would be focusing on her family life, unless one of her kids were a lesbian or something.  But I'd like to think that I'd feel the same disgust if it were a man leaving his special needs infant behind while he pursued a political office.  

I know that the McCain camp is busy patting themselves on the back for this move, thinking they've just won over all the Hillary Clinton supporters.  There may have been people who were on the fence in primary season and ultimately tipped toward Hillary because she's a woman, but I don't think anyone voted for Hillary ONLY because she's a woman.  She's a very opinionated and driven woman, and people voted knowing what her goals were for the country.  Sarah Palin, apart from being a vaginad American, has absolutely nothing in common with Hillary.  They are political opposites, and I think it's a huge insult to the intelligence of any Hillary supporter to think that they would shift to McCain because of the addition of Palin to the ticket.

Anyway, I think it was a bold but stupid move on McCain's part, and once the initial buzz dies down, it's going to prove a very poor choice.  Not that there was any chance I'd waver, but Palin's addition to the opposition only drove this Hillary supporter farther to the left, and farther to Obama/Biden. 

And I still love Hillary.

Peace.

Comments

[stillbigonbnl.livejournal.com]

I know next to nothing about this Palin woman, other than she's got a blue collar husband and she spoke out strongly against Ted Stevens' bridge to nowhere. Personally, the Republican Party has a long way to go to straighten itself out. That said, I think you're dead wrong in saying that women were not going to vote for Hillary simply because she is a woman. I think a LOT of people were going to do just that. Granted, I'm not sure they'll do the same for Palin. I think there were plenty of people who made their choice for Hillary based on research and on her views, but I also think a lot of women just wanted to see a woman in there.

For me, I'm hoping McCain is moderate "enough" to keep us from becoming more and more socialist, by electing Obama. I have too many small business clients who are frustrated by working hard to make money, only to pay off their loans and then still be left owing the government tens of thousands of dollars every year.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

I know very few people are as informed as I would hope them to be before voting, but I'm sticking by my Hillary assessment. There are lots of folks who wouldn't have voted for her if she weren't female, either by going with Obama or not voting at all, but I don't think Palin and Hillary share any of the same electorate. She didn't get any lifelong Republicans in her camp simply by being female, and Palin isn't going to pull any real Democrats away from Obama. The gender issue may be something that tips the scale between two candidates, but I don't think it's possible to be on the fence between two candidates who couldn't be more opposite.

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

I think those people would not have voted for HRC because she was a woman, but rather because she was a Democratic woman.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Right. This is sort of what I was trying to say. I don't think there were any cases (certainly not enough to swing the election) of people voting for her only because she was female and for no other reason but that.

[quandary87.livejournal.com]

I'm going to post a Palin entry on my LJ, was going to respond with something here, but I've been thinking about it enough to probably warrant a small entry.