I watched John McCain announce Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential running mate and was intrigued. Some questions that it raised for me…
- Was Palin chosen primarily to appeal to former Clinton supporters?
- Is Palin ready to be president, if something were to happen to John McCain?
- How will Obama and / or Clinton respond to the choice of a woman on the Republican ticket?
- Is the fact that someone is not a white male a reason to vote for that person?
I think that the 2008 election became a lot more interesting today and I believe that as a Christian I have a responsibility to consider how and if my vote might be a part of God’s kingdom coming on earth.
What do you think?
Rev. Andrew Conard 
9 replies on “Biden, McCain, Obama, Palin – Thoughts on the Election”
1) Palin was definitely chosen to appeal those people, who supported … Hillary Clinton.
2) Cause Palin has absolutely no experience, which was McCain’s big argument. Palin is now in her 2nd year as Governor and has no experience on a national and no experience on an international basis.
3) That will be interesting. Well Hillary and Bill Clinton said before the DNC, that they would campaign for Obama this fall, so… But the Dem Party is now Obama’s party as everyone could see last night. He has to run this race with Joe Biden together.
4) I don’t think that we should take the race in here. We should have a look at the facts. In my opinion and as a strong Obama supporter, I think, Obama and Biden represent the change we need so desperately in this country and John McCain is just another Bush-like-Republican. He even said that back in 2003 and 2004. And Sarah Palin as his VP pick studied journalism and I don’t think that will help solve our problems and finally bring some change to Washington.
That’s my opinion. 🙂
It’s long overdue that the ranks of the most senior executive offices in the US include people other than white males. But that doesn’t mean that we should vote for either a woman or an African American simply because they are a woman or an African American.
Whether you agree with Obama’s positions or not, you have to admit that he’s a person of substance. We know so little about Palin. It will be a challenge to educate ourselves about her in the time remaining before the election, so as to make an informed decision.
I gotta admit, it seems a puzzling choice on McCain’s part.
This is an . . . interesting development. Personally, my automatic response to this decision was to think that McCain is blatantly trying to grab more female votes. And, as a young woman, my automatic response to that was to feel offended: do they think we’re so easy to buy off?
I don’t think the fact that someone isn’t a white male is in and of itself a reason to vote for them. I may like the idea of having a woman in office, but I don’t like the idea of having her get there just because she’s a woman. First, it’s a candidate’s beliefs and actions that will really make the difference in terms of whether their leadership is good or bad, helpful or harmful to the country and the world. And second, regardless of the rhetoric, I don’t see it as a great moment for women if a woman gains high office simply or primarily because of her gender. It means that people are still more concerned about her gender than her individual identity and ideas, she’s still not being taken completely seriously. I don’t know much of anything about Sarah Palin or exactly why she was chosen as McCain’s running mate, but if indeed she was chosen because the Republicans wanted a woman on the ticket to get women’s votes, then I feel awfully sorry for her, because I think she’s being used.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents . . . we’ll see how this develops. But to back up my point about policy being the most important factor, here’s a way to address that right from the outset:
To ask Sarah Palin to use her new position to fight global poverty and disease, find out how to contact her here: http://faithandaids.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/mccain-announces-running-mate-get-in-touch/.
* Was Palin chosen primarily to appeal to former Clinton supporters?
Very doubtful. If you must believe she was picked to appeal to a focus group, it was self-styled evangelical Christians. I think she was picked more for her background as a reformer, which McCain finds very comfortable.
* Is Palin ready to be president, if something were to happen to John McCain?
Her executive experience is at least on par with Obama’s legislative experience. The difference, as Rich points out, is that we’ve had extra time to get to know Obama because of the primary.
* How will Obama and / or Clinton respond to the choice of a woman on the Republican ticket?
I think they will respond appropriately and treat her like any other opponent, after noting the historic nature of her position.
* Is the fact that someone is not a white male a reason to vote for that person?
No, but it is certainly not a reason to discredit that person either.
1. Yes, There are so many women who were Hillary supporters who are deeply and profoundly offended by the blatant sexism exibited by the Obama campaign and even more by the Media outlets, that they are ready willing and able to vote even against their own policy interests in order to defeat Obama and give Hillary a shot in 2012. Just take a look at the http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net discussions to see this phenomena at work.
2. I find the second question almost laughable.
Palin has spent the last 2 years governing a state deeply involved in the Energy debate which – of course – is the primary political discussion of our time. It is the primary driver of our foreign relations issues in the Middle East, In Georgia/Russia, and throughout the world. She has won two hard fought elections event defeating an incumbent Republican Governor on an ethics reform platform. Before her time in statewide office she served in her state legislature, and as a Mayor.
Obama on the other hand spent years as a community organizer (Whatever that is), then spent time in the Illinois legislature, then because of a Republican sex scandle which took town the favored candidate, virtually ran unopposed to win a US Senate seat. Since taking office 3 years ago – he began running for president for more than two years. He has not championed a single important bill, and has maintained a voting record that shows absolutely no independence from the party.
So Obama has virtualy no foreign policy experience, has never governed anything, and simply rose to prominance on the force of his oratory skills. He is essentially an empty suit. Everything in this race points to Obama’s increadible inexperience – his VP pick is more qualified than him to be president, McCains VP pick is more qualified than he is.
The sole reason that Palin is being question on her experience, in my mind, is the fact that 1. She did not go to an Ivy League School, 2. She is not a lawyer, 3. She isn’t a washington insider, 4 She is a Mother of 5 (Anathama in today’s culture) 6. Her parents arent from the Aristocrat Class.
All in all the readiness argument is insane.
3. I suspect they will respond with subtle sexism directly, while sending their attack dogs like Paul Begala and James Carville to be blatantly sexist and Elitist. I’ve already seen more of this than I can begin to believe from the so called champion of women’s issues.
4. No, its political Malpractice to vote for someone based on Race. In fact id go so far as to say its Malpractice to vote for someone based on oratory skill, or personality, the only way a democracy governs well is with an informed electorate who have studied the issues, and found and supported candidates which they think can effectively implement the policy stances they have determined are important. Unfortunately this may be only about 30 percent of the electorate.
To All – I appreciate your responses to my questions and instead of responding will encourage new comments on this post. Thanks and looking forward to more!
Time to get out of our religious boxes and pray 🙂
I think to look at McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate merely on the basis of getting the female vote is both short-sighted and, frankly, blatantly sexist.
Since Palin showed up on my radar a while back as a potential (but unlikely) selection for the VP slot on McCain’s ticket, I thought she’d make an excellent choice.
1) She has more executive experience than Obama. Anyone saying she’s unqualified to run the country is saying Obama is as well. And she won’t be running the country unless something happens to McCain – at which point, she’ll have additional experience at the national level. It effectively takes the age/experience debate completely out of the picture, on both sides.
2) She’s as far outside the beltway as you can get. Literally. It doesn’t get any further than Alaska. Figuratively as well – she’s got a proven track record of taking on the entrenched self-serving politics of her own party and winning. This takes the 3rd term of bush argument off the table as well.. much like Biden takes the “washington outsider” argument off the table for Obama.
3) She’s one tough cookie. Her record speaks for itself on that.
4) She’s a woman. This effectively takes the gender/race issue off the table as well.
So maybe, now that we’ve taken all the stupid, superficial arguments off the table, we’ll actually get down to debating the real issues like tax/fiscal policy, national defense, and an ineffective and corrupt Congress rather than debating the relative merits and pointless issues of the color of a candidate’s skin, what genitalia they possess, and how long since they were born.
I personally was very excited about the addition of Palin to the Rep. ticket. I think she can bring a great fresh perspective to the White House. Just as Obama brought in a well seasoned politician to his ticket for balance – Palin brings that balance to the Rep. ticket. I personally find much of Obama’s backstepping from previous statements of anti-Christian thought and other items to numerous to list here very disturbing. He is charismatic but I find myself not being able to trust his word. I like Palin and really believe her experience as Gov. of Alaska has challenged her leadership skills for the last two years and she has shown brightly. I say yeah for the Republican ticket.