Austin Improv

What I'm curious to know is, How will Palin handle the situation that, if elected, she's only going to receive 70% of a male Vice President's salary until she gets more training?

Frank wrote:Didn't the VP spot used to go to the runner-up in the presidential contest? I could see an Obama-McCain team working out pretty well, not because they agree so much, but because it would mean some serious cooperation and opportunities to take care of real business.

12th Amendment to the Constitution changed that in 1804.
There were so many conflicts in the elections in 1796 and 1800, that it took only 6 months to pass the Amendment from proposal to enactment (most amendments take 1-3 years. Even the origianl Bill of Rights took slightly more than 2).

In short, electors used to cast two votes for President with the guy with the most being President and the guy with the second most being V.P. The 12th Amendment allowed two distinct votes - one for President and one for Vice President. In that way, Presidents could "propose" who their V.P. should be. For a long while in the 1800s, tickets were still relatively rare, with people runing for V.P. on their own. In the 1820's, John C. Calhoun ran for and won the Veep slot twice on his own and served under two different Presidents, one of whom Congress chose.

Theoretically, even today people could still mix-tickets. The votes are separate, so as an electoral voter, you could vote for Obama for President and Palin for his vice president if you so wished. It'd likely be a faithless elector move, but it is doable (as many states do not allow, or do not make it easy, to vote for separate President and Vice President candidates. You want to cause chaos, ask for a write-in ballot ans send a mixed party ticket to DC come January).

Thanks for the info, Wesley. Why did people in the 1800's want to be VP, though? I had always heard that, for example, the party machine wanted to kill Teddy Roosevelt's political career by making him a VP, robbing him of all power. It was always put it to me that the VP's relative power was a post-WWII invention.

After some reflection and research, I think this.

Palin as a person and a candidate is largely irrelevant - she just fit a set of criteria. The choice of Palin is relevant as it reveals McCain and his staff's current assessment of their chances. Which is to say, not good. Despite a number of reported polls that seem to show McCain and Obama running neck and neck; Obama is clearly the leader where you would expect him to be and ahead or tied in a number of places you wouldn't expect. The strongest McCain states are tending to be the ones where race is an overriding factor - the deep South, some of the less educated areas of the Midwest. The usual idiots who perpetually vote against their own self-interest in the name of "values".

Looking at many sources of numbers is telling me that this election may well be an electoral blowout. The McCain people have better sources than I do and the choice of Palin tells me that someone sat down with Senator McCain and said "You're about to get your ass kicked, John. The GOP brand is tarnished, you're too heavily linked to an enormously unpopular president and a longtime member yourself of an even less popular Congress - you need something to rock the boat, pull in some wavering female voters and try to shore up the religious right. Go waaaay out of the box if you even want a remote shot at this."

And that's what he did, in the process choosing a running mate that appears to bring nothing other than potential votes to the table.
The newsies will have a field day doing the background on her, which will distract us for a while from the candidate himself. Which is probably a good thing for McCain as he continues to confuse Iran, Iraq, Al-Queda, the Taliban, Sunni and Shia and push an economic plan based on "trickle-down" theories I thought were discredited by now.

If we look at the VP choice as a first test of executive decision making. Obama eschewed the obvious vote-getting choice in favor of someone who could bring things he didn't have to the table. McCain eschewed several qualified candidates in hopes of grabbing some undecided voters and shoring up his base with a supposedly "maverick game changing move". Maverick, my ass - this choice has everything to do with poll numbers.

Which of these guys is team-building, and which one is desperately pandering?

Advantage Dem.

And I don't think this race is anywhere near as close as CNN would have you believe.

I'll take the opposite stance and say that this race is closer than the Dems want to believe and the failure to realize or understand that reality is their potential Achilles heel.

There's no real indication of Palin's pull power yet. And there won't be until after the convention. If she galvanizes the right-wing base and pulls even a small percentage of disgruntled Hillary voters, then Obama is facing a MUCH tougher race than anticipated. Remember, there was a 0.5% difference in party results in 2000 and 2.4% difference in 2004. If only 10, 5, or even 3 percent of disgruntled Hillary voters choose Palin over Obama/Biden, that alone could swing the race.

We haven't had any real debates yet. Who knows what gaffes or gems those will produce. There are still some 8 weeks of campaigning yet to go, complete with gas price swings, Iraq politics, and Russian nutbaggery to deal with.

And if anyone thinks this hurricane will hurt the GOP convention, you'd really better think again. The Republicans are just as likely to have John McCain accept remotely from a storm area with a Red Cross tent in the background and then run that image against Obama's Greek columns for the next two months. Throw in remote speeches from Perry helping shelter refugees and Jindal staying put with a storm raging outside the windows and you've got a recipe for a party getting their hands dirty with solutions, true or not.

Another thing Palin has proven is that this is a soundbyte driven election and all the republicans need are some strong ones with good backdrops. The Dems had better be willing to work hard, REAL hard if they want to maintain any lead and win the day.

hubrisnxs wrote:Thanks for the info, Wesley. Why did people in the 1800's want to be VP, though? I had always heard that, for example, the party machine wanted to kill Teddy Roosevelt's political career by making him a VP, robbing him of all power. It was always put it to me that the VP's relative power was a post-WWII invention.

The dynamics of the system have changed over time. Some wanted to be VP as a stepping stone to the Presidency. Others wanted it when they realized there were already too many contenders in the Presidential race and virtually none for the slot below. And when the Senate was smaller, say 30-50 people, and when Senators were still chosen by and beholden to state legislatures, I think ties were much more likely and the the VP tie-breaking vote was more crucial, more often.
I'd also speculate that being a VP on a "ticket" from the 1860's to 1940's was a weaker position, but running as a VP not on a ticket in the earlier 1800's, more as a free agent, was more powerful. So you could "weaken" someone like Roosevelt in your own party by giving them the second slot, but not someone running on their own for the post (if that makes sense).

I'm basically seeing it the same way as you Wes. I've been thinking a lot about this recently and trying to read up on Palin as much as I can. While the polls make her sound wildly popular in Alaska, she became governor with only 48% of the vote in a heavily Republican state. She's a persuasive speaker, though, and I wouldn't count her out at all. She's better when talking extemporaneously about matters close to her than she is at sticking to the script but she'll get the script down and work out the awkwardness of campaigning in non-Alaska. What little dirt there is on her is doubtful to change people's mind and I really hope this VPILF shit dies a quick death. I also think she'll be successful at rallying the religious right base of the GOP. Not sure if it'll rally big business for him. Obama could use their cash even if he publically shuns their influence - this will be a close race. I hate to be a pessimist, but if the election were tomorrow - I think McCain would win in the states that matter.

Where I don't think Palin will be succesful is in attracting disaffected Clinton supporters - particularly women. While I admittedly know almost no one who has announced that they supported Clinton, any quotes or reports that have been siezed upon seem to be more media constructs than indicators of a broad public sentiment. Aside from the political divide, the choice of Palin is being taken broadly as tokenism - rightly or wrongly. Tokenism or not, it's evidence of two things - 1.) it was likely a go-from-the-gut last minute decision by McCain who's had since March to decide and only gave her a call to talk about it 6 days before announcing her, and 2.) it shows once again that choices are being made on how best to win elections and not on how best to govern. So much for "Country First" - more like "Campaign Win First". What will happen if McCain is president and made similar rash decisions about war or if he is incapacitated and she is sent to work with foreign leaders. Forget our enemies for a moment - I'd be embarressed to send a former beauty queen and TV sports reporter who minored in Poly Sci at the U. of Idaho and has such precious few months of relevant experience that she lead off her resume with her time on her PTA... to meet oh...I don't know...Angela Merkel, say. The whole thing troubles me...not least because I think it'll work.

On a separate note...if questions about McCain's age were being handled obliquely before - they're now front and center. The contrast of ages in photo ops is not flattering and even supporters of McCain are talking openly and somewhat crassly about the guy kickin' the bucket before the end of his first term. He was born a year after Social Security was introduced so his number might be closer to "8" than people realize. He was also 23 when Alaska became a state and 28 when Palin was born. I don't suppose these matter much on their own except to consider that someone of that advanced age is probably not the best choice to advance the U.S. into a new age.

Wesley wrote:We haven't had any real debates yet. Who knows what gaffes or gems those will produce.

This is certainly true. We're all just peering through fog at this point. I imagine we'll be revisiting this thread a few times in the upcoming weeks.

for anyone interested...here's some info on Palin. it's from MoveOn.org, so of course take it with a heavily partisan slanted grain of ideologue salt. but while they're putting their spin on it, a lot of the facts seem pretty solid. here ya go.

"Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:


She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4

She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.5

She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

We also asked Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here's a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK

She's vehemently anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

–Ilyse, Noah, Justin, Karin and the rest of the team

Sources:


1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=1

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=2


4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=3

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=4

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=5

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=6

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=7

7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=1366 ... skSvRx&t=8"

Miggy wrote: I also think she'll be successful at rallying the religious right base of the GOP.

Ta-da, right on cue. Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins and even James (I will never support John McCain) Dobson are now onboard. Harper's quotes Dobson as saying he has "not been this excited about a candidate since Ronald Reagan".

Pentecostal AOG member, Feminists for Life member, "teach the 'controversy'"young-earth creationist; man, this woman is even more of a dream candidate for the RR than Huckabee was.

Since the media had so much fun with Obama/Wright and McCain/Hagee, I'll be interested to see what happens when they do a little background on Mike Rose and David Pepper.

I think that people shouldn't underestimate Palin, and I've actually heard of her before this whole VP thing because of her victory in Alaska.

She also vetoed a bill to disallow gay domestic partners the same benefits as straight couples.

That said, her values are still very far away from feminism. So, no support from me.

But a woman on the presidential ticket, then one on the VP ticket, and then a black dude on the presidential ticket? This election year makes me happy.

news today about Palin's pregnant daughter...might temper the enthusiasm of the religious right and bring her in for more criticism as being a neglectful parent. Apparently McCain knew about it before but slid it into the coverage today to be buried with the holiday. Her turning down the bridge to nowhere story also seems to be a bit exaggerated as does the 'commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard' line.

All these non-relevant but related news stories are coming out so fast it's making my head spin!

On just such a note...Prime Minister Yasuo Fukauda of Japan Resigned today. So if this table below were updated...it would make McCain the oldest leader in the world??

Yeah it's like the Republicans campaign is on self-destruct this year.

nadine wrote:Yeah it's like the Republicans campaign is on self-destruct this year.

yep. it's going to be glorious to behold. and fascinating to see how the Democrats still manage to fuck it up.

i am on the edge of my seat about her speech tonight.

this is american political theater at it's best...