Some key (AKA "clarifying") quotes from today's National Review Online on why Sarah Palin has such appeal to conservative voters:
Millions apparently like Palin's atypical 19th-century profile.
She finds snowmobiling, hunting, fishing and living in small-town America not as a wasteful use of carbon-emitting fuels, cruelty to animals, gratuitous depletion of our resources, or proof of parochial yokelism. Instead it is a life of action in an often harsh natural landscape, where physical strength is married to intelligence to bring us food, fuel, and progress.
[She is] a rare politician who is unapologetic about America's past achievements ... and who reminds us with pride that a muscular world of action, not community organizing, creates the bounty that others use and take for granted but so often sneer at the methods of its acquisition.
My, my, my! Granted -- it IS the National Review -- but it's also an interesting window into the values that Sarah Palin has been tapped to bring home from the so called "Values Voters." ("Muscular action" vs. "community organizing"??? Why does that sound like Bush/Cheney all over again? Oh yeah ... because it IS!!!)
But wait ... there's more!
From MSNBC's Michael Levine: Palin on "God's will"
Then there were these quotes from Gov. Palin in a June speech to the graduating class at her former church in Wasilla, Alaska.
- While describing her family, Palin told students about her oldest son, 19-year-old Track, who is set to be deployed to Iraq this month with the U.S. Army. She urged students to pray “that our leaders -- that our national leaders -- are sending [soldiers] out on a task that is from God.” She added, “That's what we have to make sure that we are praying for: that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.”
- I can do my part in working really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, about a $30 billion project that's going to create a lot of jobs for Alaska. … [but] I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.
- I can do my job there in developing our natural resources, in doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded. But really that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's hearts aren't right with God.
Maybe someone could explain to Governor Palin the difference between a theocracy and democracy. Or maybe that's a conversation the McCain folks should have had with her before they announced her addition to the Republican ticket.
Of course we'll be watching tonight to see what she has to say at the Republican convention but don't expect to be surprised by any of it.
What you see with Sarah Palin is, I believe what you get. And it's not what we want a heart-beat away from the Oval Office.
It is sadly symptomatic of the systemic sexism that is so pervasive in this still-working-on-its-issues country of ours that questions about how Governor Palin will "mother" her children and be Vice President are dominating the media.
If those are valid questions they should be being asked of Barack Obama as the father of young children as well. And they aren't being asked of him. And they shouldn't be asked of her.
Because the question is not what kind of mother Sarah Palin is ... the question is what kind of VP will she be.
And the answer is, if you want a country led by a man who voted with Bush 95% of the time and thinks it would be swell to be in Iraq for another 100 years with a woman VP who is anti-choice, pro-gun and a Creationist, then McCain/Palin is just the ticket for you.
Or ... if you want to see a new direction in Washington focused on hope rather than on fear, on building bridges rather than blowing them up, on economic policies that give all Americans the chance to achieve the American Dream rather than continue to pander to the oil industry and give tax breaks to the richest among us and on a commitment to liberty and justice for ALL ... not just for some ...then Obama/Biden is probably your cup of tea.
If the National Review is correct and there are indeed voters out there attracted to a "19th century profile" then it's up to the rest of us to get out there and elect a team ready to lead us into the 21st century.
.
Because like it or lump it, Sarah Palin is doing the job she was tapped to do: mobilizing the social conservative base. And the stakes are too high for us to be complacent about that reality. Change we can believe in will only happen if we make it happen. So figure out what you're going to do to make it happen and get busy -- the election is only 62 days away!
.
16 comments:
After putting up some posts - fueled by my anger and despair (new label: Lamentation) I am redirecting my energy to posting about Obama and Biden for the next 60 days.
We have been played and played well by the GOP here. We all stopped talking about Obama, we were Palin all the time, as you aptly say.
What troubles me so much is that she is willing to trade our rights for her desire, which she seems to have confused with God's will.
As for her kids being off limits, yes but I must say, she has brought them front and center into the spotlight. I so dislike when the bully cries victim, although to her credit (ugh) it is her supporters who say that.
Her supporters and on my blog, in all due respect, my lefty blogfriends who are trying to be above the fray and politically correct. I say that with respect but the net result works for the GOP... a bunch of us get divided splitting these hairs and the Palin juggernaut rolls on.
Tonight- watch as they enshrine her daughter and the young man as the new saints of the sanctimonious. It makes me ill.
Gosh I sound so much more cynical than I want to... what has this done to us all?
Sorry if the comment is too long!
The problem the Left has with Governor Palin is that she is the antithesis of what a feminist is supposed to be. She certainly is the furthest thing from what an East or West Coast liberal feminist is supposed to be. She does, however, reflect a lot of the values of the folks in "flyover country," that vast expanse of middle America (geographical and cognitive)that both parties' establishments disdain, but to which the Republicans are so much better at pandering.
By the way, what is a "community organizer," and how does it qualify someone to be President? Whether you like her politics or not, the day Sarah Palin became mayor of Wasilla she had more executive experience than Obama, and on her second day on the job she had twice as much. In the experience department that, plus two years as governor, trumps 140 some-odd working days in the Senate.
For the record, this Libertarian doesn't like either ticket, and is rather annoyed that, again, the choice is between Calvinists and Bolsheviks.
Susan, this is much more fun than talking about sex!
NPR has been going to Republican places (like Derry, NH) and talking to some of the Repubican women there about Palin. It's . . . amazing how some of them rationalize their way into acceptance. Although a few of the sisters have it right and are "insulted" by this choice.
There well may be hope.
A lot of the conservative Catholic blogs are ready to beatify her for her pro-life stance and they don't seem to care that she's pro-death penalty, pro-gun and anti-environment. Many of them hold her up as an icon of feminism as well .... yikes!
Fran: But part of supporting Obama is knowing both what he stands for and has done, and what she stands for and has done.
God help us through this convention.
By the way, what is a "community organizer," and how does it qualify someone to be President?
It's a disgrace to the US education system, that every American citizen doesn't know the answer to this question.
Whereas a politician usually meets w/ lobbyists and other movers and shakers in their jurisdiction, a community organizer meets people w/ no moving, shaking, or $$$$ among them (if co's good, the co can at least get 'em registered to vote!). A co works w/ people who've all but given up on their civic society---those who've "been down so long it looks like up" to them.
With no hyperbole: a community organizer is the absolute BEST thing that could possibly happen to the Presidency of These United States . . . that Obama's been a state/U.S. Senator also, is gravy! :-D
READ SAUL ALINSKY!
So, the way I understand it, a community organizer in the Alinsky-Obama model is someone who convinces people that first, he knows better what's good for them than they know themselves and second, that it's OK for them, with the assistance of the government, to reach into the pockets of their fellow citizens to better themselves. Along the way, of course, those people become beholden to the organizer and will elect him to some political office, and keep him there, so the gravy train keeps on running.
If Obama wants to organize factory workers, tenants, or even fundamentalist Christians, that's fine; just don't use it as a cover for government theft.
And yes, jcf, I'm a product of government schools, run for years by the teachers unions and Democrats!
And the answer is, if you want a country led by a man who voted with Bush 95% of the time
That's the Democratic talking point. Too bad that they have stooped to bald-faced lying to support their candidate. The actual facts are that in the last complete Congressional session (the 109th) Sen. McCain voted with his party 79.4% of the time, the 6th lowest of any Senator; his record in previous Congresses is similar. Sen. Obama, the man who supposedly can unite us, toed the party line 94.8% of the time, tied for 4th highest of all Senators.
and thinks it would be swell to be in Iraq for another 100 years
Here's what he actually said
"Maybe 100," McCain replied. "As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."
The man's talking about the kind of thing we have in Japan, Germany, Italy, etc., not 16 brigades of combat troops.
with a woman VP who is anti-choice,
She's not anti-choice; she just figures you have made the choice before you got pregnant.
pro-gun
Define "pro-gun". Is owning a gun in and of itself wrong? It's certainly Constitutional.
and a Creationist,
Yeah, that's a little off. But she's got a track record that says she won't try to impose that to be taught in the schools.
As Gov. Palin put it, the difference between being a Mayor and a community organizer is that the Mayor actually has to get something done.
Susan - why did you publish the picture of the moose (which I'm going to presume she shot)?
ron: ummm ... because it illustrates the part in the text about her being a hunter?
What bunch of non-Nature Planet watching so and sos. Steve Irwin is rolling in his grave.
That's a caribou - you know - relative of the reindeer. They taste alot like mantee when grilled.
There were descriptions of lots of aspects of her character in the text. I'm curious as to what struck you to illustrate that particular aspect, and in that particular way?
BTW, my mistake; now that I look at it again, that's a caribou, not a moose.
I'm still waiting for an explanation of the disparity between 95% and 79.4%.
ron ...
Source on the 95% ... Congressional Quarterly ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/27/mccain-voted-with-bush-10_n_103718.html
... with this follow up ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tepper-marlin/mccains-senate-voting-rec_b_121308.html
Post a Comment