Palin and the Election in general.

It has been a few months since my last post. School has started again and my classes and research are taking up a large chunk of my time. Since my last post, Palin has been selected as McCain's running mate on the Republican ticket. Despite my silence in the blogosphere, I have been following the "Palin Phenomenon" with much interest. I think it is good that I have waited a few months to form a solid opinion of her before commenting on it.

First of all, I think that McCain's choice of Gov. Palin was successful at shifting some of the attention of the race from Obama. And, I think it maybe McCain's best chance at a victory. It is no secret that McCain is not highly-regarded by the base, and much of his post-primary campaign has been trying to convince Americans that, despite his "mavrick" image, he is a raging conservative. Fortunately for him, the American public has a short memory.

Let's call this what it is folks. Palin is nothing more than an attempt to pander to the conservative vote and true conservatives should be offended at McCain's attempt to win their vote. Let's assume for a moment that Sarah Palin is a strong, capable, and principled leader (a definite possibility, but difficult to discern considering her lack of history). Can anyone honestly picture McCain including Palin in his decision making process? Does anyone really think that McCain is going to consider Palin's opinion when forming policy. We all know McCain. He has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be a bitter, contemptable, miserable, old man with a chip on his shoulder. His performance in every single debate this election has shown his contempt and intollerance of anyone who dares to question or second-guess him. If he can't tolerate being questioned by the media or his opponents, how will he take criticism from his VP? Conservatives need to accept the fact that while Palin's selection is exciting, it will not have any effect on McCain's presidency. Face it folks, she was picked to look pretty, smile for the camera, and appeal to the base.

As an example, Palin has been asked several times to name specific instances on how McCain has pushed to increase government oversight. Repeatedly, Palin has been unable to cite more than a few examples. Here is Palin's dillema. McCain has been a crappy senator! After decades in the Senate, he has done relatively little of substance that is worth bragging about. Most of his pieces of legislation have been dismal failures, for which his name has been villified by conservative pundits and talk-show hosts. Notice that despite all his talk on being tough on pork-barrel spending, he did little to speak against the pork-filled 800-billion bailout package that was passed in the house today. Another good example is McCain/Feingold. You would think that Palin would hold that one up as demonstration of McCain's commitment to governmental oversight. Just one problem...conservatives HATE McCain/Feingold...flashing that one around wouldn't do much to help win over the base now would it.

On the debate the other night, Palin demonstrated her inexperience by passing up a clear opportunity to call Sen. Biden on his various inconsistencies with respect to American military action. Biden defended his support of military action in Bosnia, Somalia, and Darfur, by saying; "When a country engages in genocide, when a country engaging in harboring terrorists and will do nothing about it, at that point that country in my view and Barack's view forfeits their right to say you have no right to intervene at all."

I seem to remember another dictator in Iraq who had been gassing is own people. Why didn't Palin call him on that. So it is ok to go to war to defeat a dictator in Bosnia, Somalia, and Darfur, but not in Iraq? Palin didn't call him on that. Rather she ended the conversation by saying essentially that they could agree to disagree. What??? This demonstrates her inexperience folks.

She also kept attacking Biden on his status as a "Washington Insider". I am sorry, but is she suggesting that McCain is not an insider? As far as I can tell, the only difference between McCain and Biden, is that Biden has better teeth.

Another thing about the debate, Palin continued to cite McCain's war record as an example of his qualifications to be our president. I am sorry, but that didn't fly for Kerry and it shouldn't fly for McCain either. I am grateful to him for his service. I realize that he suffered greatly at the hands of the Viet Cong, and that he demonstrated his bravery many times over. Despite all that, it does not qualify him to be president. Move on!

It should be obvious to anyone with an attention span longer than a two-minute commercial break that Palin is a puppet. This leaves two options. 1) either she knows that she is a puppet and is fine with that (bad). Or, she honestly thinks that she will have a say in a McCain administration, which illustrates how naive she is (also bad).

So, back to my old question; "what is a conservative to do?" Honestly, I am still leaning to the free market solution. Let it burn. If the Republican party won't step up and grow the stones necessary to defend our ideals, then we must go shopping for a new party. If conservatives abandoned McCain and the republican party, then not only would Obama definitely win, but the republican party would collapse, making room for a new conservative party.

I think that most conservatives are willing to exchange their desire for a solid leader in order to defeat Obama. I am not convinced that an Obama presidency would be much worse than a McCain one. Look at Bush, while I do not hate him with the vigor that much of the media does, I find that many of his weaknesses stem from his inability to stick to the conservative principles that got him elected. While I disagree with almost every aspect of Obama's platform, at least he is relatively honest about what he plans to do (as honest as you can expect any politician to be). I am not so sure about McCain.