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How do you recharge the Republican Party? Add some lipstick…
Pit bull-like hockey mom joins McCain and stirs up GOP
By Geoff Loper
I guess the number one reason I think Sarah Palin is a great choice for vice president on the McCain ticket is that she echoes the no-nonsense politics McCain himself stands for.
By the end of May, John McCain basically had the Republican Party wrapped up for himself on his road to Washington D.C. The biggest question that loomed over his campaign seemed to be who he was going to name as his vice president. Personally, from the day Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race and began throwing his support to McCain, I was really hoping to see a McCain-Giuliani ticket come this November. But the Republican Party and the entire country was rocked by the spit-fire spirit that McCain selected in Sarah Palin, current governor of Alaska.
Usually the person selected to run on the ticket for vice president really does not have much of a visible impact on the overall process, but I think that the selections made this year by both candidates have really helped to define their campaign. Obama made his choice for vice president with Sen. Joe Biden from Delaware.
Let’s look at the whole picture: the Democrats have nominated the first African-American presidential candidate, and he has picked, quite possibly, the biggest bigot on Capitol Hill for his running mate.
Not only that, but is feels like Senator Obama, with his immense lack of political experience, needs a mature voice of wisdom to help improve his image. Obama’s campaign theme: “Hope” really shows through there. I’ll bet Barack is hoping that dear old Joe won’t open his mouth and say something grossly offensive that will cost him votes in the next two months.
On the flip side of the ballot, John McCain, looking to find a better definition than his “maverick” status, selects Sarah Palin, who has more government leadership experience than Obama has. Starting her way from the bottom of the government ladder, she paved her path from the ranks of city councils to the governor’s mansion in Juneau.
A lesser known detail of her time in the mayor’s office is that she kept a glass jar on her desk with all the names of the people who lived in her city. Every week she would pull one name out of the jar and call that person and talk to them about how the city was doing. Now obviously there is no feasible way anyone could possibly do this with an entire nation. But it sure shows just how in touch she is with what people want and need in her community. Palin’s own maverick-like qualities are very apparent when you start to look at what she did while governor of Alaska. She has shown that she has no problems with breaking from the standard rank-and-file politics that you must follow your party. Earlier this year, she stood with her own lieutenant governor Sean Parnell to unseat a fellow Republican U.S. Representative. Palin also publically called out Alaskan Republican Sen. Ted Stevens for coming clean about an ongoing federal investigation into very questionable financial dealings.
But I guess the number one reason I think Sarah Palin is a great choice for vice president on the McCain ticket is that she echoes the no-nonsense politics McCain himself stands for. Ask any other hockey mom in America. Hockey moms will not put up with anything! So her reference to herself as a pit bull in lipstick perfectly illustrates just what we can expect from her in Washington.
But wait, the lipstick comment is only coming to help her more with each passing day. Just this past week, Tuesday September 9th to be exact, Sen. Obama was at a rally in Lebanon, VA. He was trying to poke fun at the new “change” form the McCain/Palin campaign is leaning towards. But all he really did was put both of his feet into his mouth. “You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink."
So, an educated, not-trying-to-look-the-part-elitist is trying to get down to the level and say “It's still going to stink”? Oh, how the mighty have fallen! I would have expected to hear a comment like that from Joe Biden, not the crowd pleasing Obama. That’s the way to win over the women voters, Barack.
While Palin will be facing the media scrutiny that all political figures and families face each election year, especially with the media created scandal surrounding her oldest daughter, her grounding to her ideals, the ethical standard that she has set for herself and those she surrounds herself with, her refusal to go along with the status quo sets her apart in this world and is , in this writer’s opinion, the best thing to hit the Republican National Convention in more years than anyone can remember. On to Washington we go!!!
> Comments
gordie howe on Sep 15, 2008 at 10:30 PM:
Geoff, How many black hockey moms do you think there are in the U.S.? How much does hockey equipment cost? How much does it cost to get rink time? Just wanted to make sure we're on the same page here.
Aaron Jeske on Sep 16, 2008 at 12:39 AM:
Nice article Geoff, right on the mark!
And to gordie above, whats the point?
Geoff Loper on Sep 16, 2008 at 07:26 AM:
Gordie, nice pseudonym by the way, what exactly are you trying to pry out of this article that was never there in the first place?
The race of a person running for office was never brought up here. The only time race is even mentioned is when I pointed out how ridiculous of a VP pick Biden is for a black candidate for President. But maybe you are seeing "racism" there because you want it to be there.
I was simply referencing the supportive roll a mother can take while allowing their child to play a sport with the potential for multiple injuries, (even thought there are more documented serious injuries from soccer) and the kind of mental fortitude it takes to do so...
Chris Walker on Sep 17, 2008 at 05:19 PM:
“On the flip side of the ballot, John McCain, looking to find a better definition than his ‘maverick’ status, selects Sarah Palin, who has more government leadership experience than Obama has.”
Your justification doesn’t work; by your own standards, Palin becomes more qualified to lead the nation than McCain does. And let’s be frank here; she’s only been governor for two years. I’m not saying that she’s not qualified for her position as vice president, but to imply that her two years of experience as governor trump Biden’s 30+ years as senator is pure lunacy.
And Obama’s use of the “pig in lipstick” line? McCain has used that line time and time again. And no conservative seemed to care when McCain made a tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton in 1998 about who her real father was (his punch line: Janet Reno).
I’m personally worried about Palin’s recent streak of lying to the media and America. She’s telling us that she said “thanks, but no thanks” to the infamous “bridge to nowhere” – but she initially supported the project. When it became unpopular, she took the other side and decided to oppose it...but kept the money appropriated to Alaska for its creation. She also likes to disguise herself as anti-pork, but look at her requests for federal dollars while governor of Alaska – in fiscal year 2009 alone, she’s requested nearly $200 million in pork barrel spending!
It isn’t that I find the practice to be abhorrent – some pork projects are helpful to local communities (while others are just plain stupid) – but lying to the American public about your position on pork barrel spending (being for it, but then being against it when running for VP) is irresponsible. We should be careful about supporting a presidential ticket that is so careless with the truth.