McCain's VP Choice

Its a massive gamble by McCain and one that I think could easily backfire. Obviously the announcement had the element of surprise so nobody had much info on her but what is starting to enter the domain isn't exactly going to win over Clinton supporters. One commentator said she is 'Cheneyesque' which is hardly a ringing endorsement and her own mother in law said she doesn't know what she brings to the table!
Of course there are also now the rumours about the parentage of her last child. Politics in the US is a dirty game. Hope she knows what she is doing.
 
I think the move guarantees victory to the Republicans unless something spectacular happens between now and the election. You have to remember that the election is determined by the American voter, not worldwide opinion. Four years ago some arrogant, smarmy rich guy with catchy speechs, called John Kerry was being seen as the second coming and worldwide opinion had him beating Bush by a landslide. Kerry was beaten very comfortably - one of the biggest margins in recent decades. And the Democrats cant blame turnout - the election had the highest turnout in years.

I think the Democrats are making the same mistake again. Obama is the new John Kerry.

If the Republicans genuinely thought that either Obama or Clinton (as she was still in the running up to c.3 months ago) had any hope of winning the election, they would have fielded Guiliani & Rice. Instead we are getting Guiliani & Rice Lite. Once it became clear that the Democrat candidate would be either Obama or Clinton coupled with Joe Lieberman's (the potential candidate the GOP were real scared off) resignation from the Democratic Party, they knew it was theirs to lose.
 
One difference of opinion & one factual error

csirl said:
Four years ago some arrogant, smarmy rich guy with catchy speechs, called John Kerry was being seen as the second coming and worldwide opinion had him beating Bush by a landslide.
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Of all the things that could have been said about John Kerry, 'catchy speeches' is not one. The skill of the pithy aphorism was beyond him - his speeches were regularly criticised for being too verbose and long-winded. People regularly lost the will to live before he reached the end of a sentence. Jon Stewart replayed one last week that brought back the horror of Kerry oratory

csirl said:
If the Republicans genuinely thought that either Obama or Clinton .. had any hope of winning the election, they would have fielded Guiliani & Rice.
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Except for the fact that the Republican candidate is chosen by the electoral college, state by state. Giuliani was bounced out of the contest for a bizarre campaigning strategy and a perception that there was nothing to him beyond 9/11, cos that was all he ever talked about. Furthermore Rice was never a candidate, nor showed any interest in being one. Whatever about America not being ready, apart from liberal guilt, for a black man or a woman to be POTUS, the first American black woman to be President has not yet been born, and possibly her parents have not yet been born.
 
Palin is denounced by a letter writer to today's Indo as a "vociferous climate change sceptic". Happy days
 
Except for the fact that the Republican candidate is chosen by the electoral college, state by state. Giuliani was bounced out of the contest for a bizarre campaigning strategy and a perception that there was nothing to him beyond 9/11,
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The Republicans have a bit more control over their membership than the Democrats - the voters in the primaries usually go with party instructions. They are extremely good at vote management - would put Irish parties to shame. Giuliani was held out of the early primaries as the party leadership watched the Democrats. You may remember that the first primary Giuliani's name was on the ballot for was Florida. A couple of days before this vote, it became clear that it was Obama or Clinton, so the party leadership sent the word to local branches that Giuliani was being withdrawn and McCain is the chosen candidate. Florida primary went as per leadership instructions. You can 100% guarantee that if they decided they needed Giuliani, then he would have won Florida by an landslide and most of the states after that. I dont think Rice would like to be VP, but, the Republicans are a bit like the Catholic church - vow of obedience. If she was needed, she would do it.

The obvious question you may ask is why not go with Giuliani anyway if he is the best candidate. Answer is to do with internal GOP politics.

The GOP has 2 main factions. The intellectual/idealogical/Washington insiders (IIW) faction and the evangelical/businessmen/rural states (EBR) faction. The Pres and VP candidates are always 1 person chosen by each of the two and who gets the Pres tends to rotate periodically. At the moment the EBRs have the Pres (Bush) and the IIWs the vice-Pres (Chaney). Therefore its the IIW's turn to chose the President. McCain is IIW, Palin is EBR.

There is one thing that will over ride this system - if the GOP thinks it is in grave danger of losing. A year ago, due to the Congress & Senate results, the GOP thought it was in trouble, and thought it may have to just go with the best ticket it could. However, this danger was averted, and they are comfortable with their normal procedures. In their opinion, it is better to have Giuliani in power than a Democrat. However, Giuliani is his own man and is not a GOP "insider" - the GOP would always prefer an insider if they can get away with it and so the Giuliani plan was shelved in favour of McCain.

You may say that McCain hasnt always been on the same page as the Republican leadership, but being an insider is a bit more than just policies and votes - personal connections and friendships count. In spite of some of his views, it would be difficult to get anyone who's as much as an insider as McCain. On a personal level, the IIW leadership in Washington love him.
 

Truly you are the wonk among wonks

The quote clipped above doesn't ring true for me. Surely GWB was more of an insider than anything else. The scion of GHB, alumnus of Ivy League and Skull & Bones. The whole 'photos of President Bush clearing scrub on his ranch' PR nonsense never convinced me that he was a good old boy, happiest necking a beer with his John Deere trucker cap pitched at a jaunty angle. Or was this enough to convince the EBRs that he was one of theirs ?

Furthermore, Giuliani potentially had more enemies within the GOP, than outside. His 'metropolitan' attitudes and colourful personal life could only ever have denied him monentum in a campaign.
 
ubiquitous said:
Palin is denounced by a letter writer to today's Indo as a "vociferous climate change sceptic". Happy days
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I'm sure the 'vociferous climate change advocates' are still flagellating themselves after helping Ralph Nader deny Al Gore the White House 8 years ago .
 
The quote clipped above doesn't ring true for me. Surely GWB was more of an insider than anything else.
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evangelical/businessmen/rural states

Ticks all 3 boxes, doesnt he?

The scion of GHB,
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The previous EBR candidate - I suppose it makes him an EBR insider.

alumnus of Ivy League and Skull & Bones.
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Being an Ivy League graduate doesnt make you a Republican insider, otherwise Bill Clinton et al would be in the GOP. Republicans actually regard the Ivy League colleges as being very anti-GOP in attitude. Most of the Ivy League colleges are located in very strong Democrat areas.

His 'metropolitan' attitudes and colourful personal life could only ever have denied him monentum in a campaign.
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Never stopped Clinton - doesnt make someone unelectable in the US.
 
 
Why did news of the pregnancy take 4 days to be disclosed ?

Last night I got around to reading the Sunday Times and it included a picture of Mr & Mrs Palin and their 3 daughters. The oldest daughter is showing, with the benefit of hindsight, the signs of pregnancy, and not making any effort to conceal her tummy. If it was an open secret, why not have included it, in the deluge of information about the family, released on Friday ?
 

As far as I know it wasn't an open secret. Rumours were circulating that the daughter had actually given brith to Palin's 5th child and that she was raising it as her own so they had to come out and announce the truth. I would imagaine they were hoping to keep it quiet until after the convention and then deal with it.
 
Think its very sad that all this private stuff about her daughter is such a big issue. Then again I suppose its the press are pushing this. Good to hear Obama speak out about it.
 
Ash 22 said:
Think its very sad that all this private stuff about her daughter is such a big issue. Then again I suppose its the press are pushing this. Good to hear Obama speak out about it.
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To be fair she must have known what she was getting into and putting her daughter through when she agreed to run, especially when she was brought on board to please the more conservative religious voters in America. It will be very interesting to see how they handle this and my own view is that she shouldn't have run at all with this going on and she certainly shouldn't have come out saying that your 17 year old daughter is going to marry the father. To me that's just playing politics with your daughters life because you don't want to offend certain parts of the electorate. I don't blame the media, I blame her.
 

In % vote terms, recent results are as follows:

2004 GWB 50.7%
2000 GWB 47.9%
1996 Clinton 49.24%
1992 Clinton 43.0%

GWB also had the highest ever total number of votes for a President - mainly due to large turnout.
 
2004 Bush 50.7 Kerry 48.3 margin 2.4
2000 Bush 47.9 Gore 48.4 margin -0.5
1996 Clinton 49.24 Dole 40.71 margin 8.53
1992 Clinton 43.0 Bush 37.4 Perot 18.8 margin 5.6
1988 Bush 53.4 Dukakis 45.6 margin 7.8
1984 Reagan 58.8 Mondale 40.6 margin 18.2
1980 Reagan 50.7 Carter 41.0 margin 9.7
1976 Carter 50.1 Ford 48.0 margin 3.1
 

Interesting thing about this chart is that Clinton never reached 50% in either of his victories yet he's very very popular in our media. The Reagan/Bush administration from 80-92, which was heavily critized by our media was way more popular with US voters than Clintons. In spite of GWB being slated by our media, he increased his percentage vote for his second term. Shows a disconnect between media sentiment in Ireland and voter sentiment in US.
 
The mainstream media sentiment in Ireland subscribes to a liberal orthodoxy that does not permit dissent. Either one subscribes to all the 'received truths', or one is castigated.

Last week RTE Radio broadcast a short interview of Sean Hannity in full flight. Afterwards they were almost apologetic for having inflicted a different opinion on the listenership. Each week, George Hook talks to a right-wing radio broadcaster and regularly reads out text messages from people outraged that an opinion is allowed on air that does not believe that GWB is the Devil incarnate.
 
Well according to Feargal Keane reporting this evening on the news there are rumours of other more serious things in the background concerning the VP which we will obviously soon be made aware of.
 
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