nt

n/p

So we should have less of that in the GOP?

You left the Democrat party because you didnt like people who did this:

She had earned stripes — and enmity — after Murkowski made her head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. From that post, she exposed ethical violations by the state GOP chairman, also a fellow commissioner.

She and her husband Todd Palin, have five children. The latest, a baby, was born with Down syndrome.

Think about all the categories you have to look through in the selection of a VP candidate
- executive experience
- ability to bring along a state
- does it invigorate the party
- will the person campaign strongly
- ties to Iraq war?
- and about a million others

Others have made the case for Palin without the identity politics portion. If she as others have stated is pro-life, pro-guns, anti-corruption, and an executive.

Take a look at Achance’s blog.

On the identity politics - should have no play in conservative selections - but I think that her gender did play a part which I can certainly see as disappointing - just affirmative action again.

I understand Mr. Suit’s point and it is quite valid: this choice is identity politics, and to prove it, ask yourself: How is she *more *qualified than Mitt Romney/Tim Pawlenty/etc?

Simple answer: she is not.

On the other hand, the calculation is being made that she will attract young voters, and possibly more Hillary supporters, thereby preventing Big Brobama from bringing in an Orwellian state.

Do you toss out the valid first principle to effect the second?

If it works, McCain and company will be geniuses. If not, well, you know…

It wants its choosing of a female vice-president because she is female back

They are the reformers in the party. There are others, but those three are the shining stars of change in the party.

Palin knocked off a corrupt GOP GOV by a 51-20 margin. She tried to oust REP Young and his pork-barreling.

This isn’t just “a woman.” This is someone who is taking on corruption inside the party and fighting for the right things. I would have preferred Sanford or Jindal. But the first wasn’t vetted and the second refused to be vetted. Palin was the best choice left.

As has been pointed out, she is a conservative reformer, and if Biden was supposed to be Obama’s gateway to blue collar voters, that one has been closed.

The idea now is to get McCain in the White House and to keep Obama out. This is for the future of the country and for the future of conservatism. (Except for issues like campaign finance, McCain has been a good conservative. Palin has been exceptional.)

Call us what you want, pal. We want to win.

How would the choosing of Palin because she is female any different than Pawlenty bringing Minnesota or Sanford to shore up Southern evangelicals. It could all be about identity politics if you want to make it so. Or it could be about Sarah Palin gives us a significant edge on the two biggest issues-energy (She’s a huge proponent of drill here, drill now), and reform and ethics corruption. Not to mention the fact that she’s a social and fiscal conservative whose taken on the corrupt Alaska government in contrast with Barry whose embraced the political corruption of his state and you have the perfect contrast to the Obamessiah ticket.

I know exactly what you are saying. In the last two years I have seen the political debate from conservatives become VERY group think. (and everyone will be quick to deny it)

I remember just a very short while back we would have very long discussions about major issues in which many different sides were stated and there were few attacks.

I also remember when the Republican party leaders did something questionable and they caught heck from it.

It does not seem that way anymore.

As for the subject at hand. Personally I think this pick is a bit of a stretch and might backfire, but I am not unhappy because I think Palin would be a better president than McCain, certainly a more conservative one.

One of the criteria for a Vice-President has always been what state or region they were from. X and Y may both be skilled, but X is from a safe state and Y a battleground, so pick Y.

If this had been Pawlenty and the logic was to try to get Minnesota into the R column, nobody would have howled affirmative action.

There are lots of people qualified to be Vice President. Thousands. Millions. So other factors enter into who gets the nod.

Palin has a good record as a reformer, and she has solid conservative credentials. She also has the youth which an older candidate like McCain requires. To sweeten the pot, there’s the quasi-chance she can snatch some votes away from disaffected Clinton supporters. Let’s also point out, she has more executive experience than Biden or Obama.

To be short, I don’t see this as affirmative action. I see this as a pick with a lot of positives and no negatives.

I was just reading a few posts on RedState over the past few months and I came across this one, posted August 25th, 2008 at 9:37 a.m.

I like her a lot, but I just dont see how two years as Governor of Alaska makes all that qualified. For example, is she really prepared to deal with the Russian/Georgian conflict. Can she handle the Washington press core?

The interesting thing is that the poster who made the post above just wrote a very fawning diary about Sarah Palin. No mentions whatsoever about her lack of experience now. Indeed, quite the contrary. What a difference a few days makes.

And truthfully, there were others; although admittedly, most were dated earlier. This one just especially caught my attention because of the diary they just posted.

Yeah, this is definitely “Bizarro RedState” now.

I did. Yes, I hated the identity politics, the worst aspect of identity politics was not the candidates they chose, but rather the way they stereotyped the identities of their voters and sowed the seeds of lies about what they ought to think.

Republicans are a whole different animal. They care about stands on issues FIRST!

Then they pick qualified people, and Zoot, this gal is what the doctor ordered. She is a real conservative leader.

And the justifications being given for selecting Sarah Palin are proving it.

Indeed, the Democrats wanted a liberal and, whatever else you say about Barack Obama, he is a liberal. Even more so than Hillary Clinton. I guess you can honestly say that the Democrats choose on issues first!

And as for stereotyping the identities of voters, what do you think the argument that Sarah Palin will attract female voters — or more particularly, former Hillary supporters — because she is a woman is?

Why would pro-abortion liberals be attracted to a pro-life hunter?

Isn’t the argument that they would blatant identity politics, that pro-Hillary women voters would (and should?) vote for a woman on the ticket even though the woman on the ticket fundamentally disagrees with them on the issues, isn’t that argument the very definition of “identity politics”?

I did indeed leave the Democratic Party — and more importantly, liberalism — over principle. But unfortunately, those same liberal principles that forced me to leave the Democratic Party are creeping into the Republican Party. And just like many Democrats who knew, disagreed and maybe even initially opposed the extreme liberalism that was creeping into their party eventually excused it, rationalized it, and later even embraced it, so the same thing is happening within the GOP. Case in point, the justification for the selection of Sarah Palin.

Look, I think the selection of Sarah Palin is a bad choice. I have said so before and continue to stand by my reasons. But I’m a grown man, I do not get offended when people disagree with me. The selection of Sarah Palin is itself not the reason why I think many (most?) of the people on this board are hypocrites and think this website is becoming “Bizarro RedState.”

The reason I think many people on this board are hypocrites and it is becoming a sort of “Bizarro RedState” is because of the initial reasons and post facto rationalizations many here are now giving for the Sarah Palin selection, along with their often wholesale rewrite of their personal blogging history.

First of all, look at some of the posts uring a Sarah Palin selection before she was actually chosen. Many were explicitly stating that she should be chosen because she is a woman and would thus help McCain win the women’s vote. That is not selecting a qualified candidate first; that is playing the game of “identity politics” pure and simple.

And that is exactly what the liberal Democratic Party does. The only difference between them doing it and us is … well, truthfully, there is no difference!

Then look at the after-the-fact rationalizations given in support of her selection. Previously, at least some people had the integrity to say that she did not have the experience. Now, many (not all, but many) of those very same people are saying that she does, that what really matters is “executive experience.” The funny thing about arguing “executive experience” now is that I bet not a few are the same people who argued that Bill Clinton, a man who served six-times as long as the governor of a state with five-times the population of Alaska, did not have the experience, “executive” or otherwise, in 1992.

But even more, for most people the major — and very potent — non-ideological argument against Obama was his lack of experience. That’s what all the political ads by John McCain and most of the ads by the GOP and third-parties mentioned. Indeed, I would even argue that even on the partisan, ideological site of RedState, more was written about Obama’s inexperience than anything else. You may have been the exception, gamecock, but you were indeed the exception. But now, conservatives have just thrown that argument out the window.

Or rather, we now argue that it doesn’t matter or that what really counts is “executive experience.” If that’s the new argument, Obama should have chosen Tim Kaine: he has more “executive experience” than John McCain and Sarah Palin (and Barack Obama and Joe Biden) combined.

Look, it was John McCain himself who said that his most important criterion for selecting a Vice President is that they would be ready on day one to step into the Presidency. Indeed, many of not most on this site also thought McCain should someone “ready on day one” as his Vice President. Do you honestly think that Sarah Palin is “ready on day one”?

And more to the point, do you honestly think Sarah Palin would have been chosen if she were a man?

gamecock, if you think Sarah Palin is a great choice and never once raised questions about experience for either her or Barack Obama, then great. Seriously. But please don’t deny that many on this site were pushing and hoping for her selection were doing so because “she is a woman and she will help McCain win the women’s vote” and many of those same people who were arguing that experience matters are now arguing that it doesn’t.

If you don’t believe me, look up some of the old posts by some of her most ardent supporters now.

That’s not principle, that’s hypocrisy. And what many conservatives are doing now is absolutely no different from what you and many others condemn liberals for doing.

Seriously.