Palin – Not the People’s Choice
Ladies and gentlemen, only once in the history of this blog I have borrowed text from another person. Some of you may remember the Bill Belichick controversy from last football season. I re-posted her views (with her permission, of course) because I felt that they were witty, interesting, and well-written. Well tonight, I re-post another blog by this same writer, Mrs. Johanna Parkhurst. She has taken a strong view on the McCain/Palin ticket that I feel needs to be shared. Please enjoy what she has to offer and see if maybe it makes you pause for thought.
Politics, Politics
Let me start this by being very clear: I am voting for Obama. I have been an Obama fan from the start. I was not “wowed” by his celebrity or his message of change. It is simply that I agree with and support all of his policies and platforms. Enough said. As a friend of mine once put it, you have to vote for the person who is, in the end, the best leader for you and your beliefs. For me, this candidate is Obama.
But I feel the urge to mention here that I do not classify myself as a Democrat. I am an Independent by nature. I try my best to vote for candidates, not parties.
I feel I have to mention that because otherwise many won’t believe me when I make this statement: I probably would have voted for McCain in the 2000 general election had he won the primary.
It’s true! All those who thought I was some kind of screaming liberal…I just look that way against a red Colorado right-wing backdrop. I am actually very centrist. And I was living in VT, right next door, when McCain got all that hype during the NH primary–which he actually won. We New Englanders kind of had a love affair with him. He’s a fairly centrist guy, and he fits right in at a town hall meeting (really).
Of course, I never got the chance to choose between McCain and Gore, so who knows how it really would have gone? Bush won Super Tuesday and I decided pretty quickly I wanted nothing to do with him (an opinion I haven’t changed much in eight years).
Yet all of this sat in my memory as I watched the primaries this year unfold. As I followed the growing career of Senator Barack Obama and began to seriously follow his candidacy, I also followed the continued wins of John McCain.
Sadly for McCain, he never got a fair shot with me this year. Obama is a candidate who was practically made for my husband and me. A guy who wants to cut middle class taxes, reform the educational joke known as NCLB (I never have agreed with all of any candidate’s view of education, but he sure comes the closest), bring jobs back to America and phases us out of Iraq in a way that doesn’t leave Iraq in total shambles? Sign me up. Travis and I sometimes joke that Obama stole Travis’ future political platform.
That said, McCain’s not that far off on a lot of these issues. As another friend of mine once said, the difference between the two parties is much thinner than we ever think about. Sometimes I wonder if you took abortion and tax cuts off the table if we’d still have two parties. (That’s an exaggeration, but you get the idea.)
Anyway, the point is (and yes, I realize I am digressing here) that I could have gone the other way this year. I could have been a McCain supporter. Despite my ardent and obvious dislike of Bush, despite my despair with the Republican party of late, he could have had my vote. As recently as a few weeks ago, I was telling my husband that while I preferred Obama, I could probably get on board with a McCain presidency if he won.
Which brings me to the real point of all this: WHY I’M NOT SO OKAY WITH MCCAIN THESE DAYS.
I’ll give you a hint: she wears a cute up-do, she should be tugging at every feminist muscle in my body, and she looks really nice while insulting people.
You’re right! It’s Sarah Palin!
Yes, I know she’s only running for the vice-presidency. I know McCain is still the guy at the top of the ticket. But out here in CO, it sure doesn’t feel that way lately! Sarah Palin is the reason right-wing conservative voters out here are voting for McCain. They love her.
Not to mention the fact that, as blogger extraordinaire Kari McPherson once wrote, “McCain is just one bad head cold away from a Palin presidency.”
So, without further adieu, the top five reasons I can’t get on board with Sarah Palin and why, in fact, she actually makes me cringe.
5. “I said thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere!” She says it once in every speech. Every speech! Now, if it were true, that’d be fine. This is a woman who, like McCain, claims to be against pork barrel spending and earmarks. Except…oops. She was for the bridge until it basically became an embarrassing-looking project, then she was against it. Here’s the kicker for me, though: she never gave back the money! She spent it! What pork barrel did she buy? That was my federal tax money, Sarah! Give it back! Give it back!
4. That whole “anti-earmark/pork barrel spending” thing. She claims she fired her chef, but she really just re-titled her and kept her on staff. She actually billed Alaska $17,000 for nights she spent in her own home. Perfectly legal, but not really what she preaches. Alaska residents get more money in earmarks, per capita, than any other state residents.
3. I’ll be frank: she comes across as very fake to me. First of all, there’s the near-blatant lying about the bridge thing, and then there’s some…funny stuff going on. Last week the National Guard director in Alaska was saying the Governor had nothing to do with the National Guard, i.e., the military in Alaska. Then he went on the news and said Palin ran the National Guard. Then he suddenly got promoted two days later. She’s been accused of having her sister’s ex-husband, a cop, fired. Every candidate, Obama and Biden included, has weird stuff in their closets. Still, her skeletons only lead me to the conclusion that I can’t trust her. Maybe it all wouldn’t add up in my head if she’d stop lying about that stupid bridge on national television.
2. The oil thing. Yes, I’m going there. I’m all for making sure we tap some of America’s oil resources, but I have high hopes that in the future America can move away from oil as our only source of energy. There isn’t enough in Alaska to make us energy independent; it can’t happen. We need other resources. Sarah Palin claims that’s her goal; I don’t believe it. Alaskans supposedly get a check from the oil companies every year for the drilling those companies do within the state. I’m supposed to believe the governor of Alaska is going to lead us to new energy alternatives?????
1. This woman is as fundamentalist as she lets on in states like CO, and a lot more fundamentalist than she lets on in states like PA. She supported teaching creationism in Alaska public schools. She is opposed to gay marriage, and supposedly her church in Alaska wants to “straighten” gay people. I won’t touch the abortion issue, as I am not really an abortion supporter myself, but I don’t agree with her stance that victims of rape and incest should not have access to abortion. All that said, the creationism thing alone was enough for me to say “whoa.”
Basically, it comes down to this: To me, she looks a lot like George Bush in a dress.
Now, in the end what I started all this with is still true. You have to vote for the candidate who does the most for you personally. I’m just out here stating my opinion, and my opinion is not the norm these days (at least among conservative Republicans). My view is that I liked McCain a lot more before Palin came on the scene.
Is she an amazing woman to watch? Sure. Does she inspire feminism? She has to be good for the cause. Would it be great to have a conversation with her? Absolutely. I’d love to have a beer with her sometime.
But then, many said that about George W. Bush.
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September 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am