American Politics
Boy it sure was an interesting week wasn’t it?
I listened to parts of the Democratic convention. (Please note the correct use of the word Democratic. I wish people on both sides of the aisle would grow the fuck up and return to using the correct terms) I heard Sen. Clinton’s big “Let’s pull together” speech. It was well written, well delivered and full of demagoguery. Nothing real said in the whole speech except “Vote for Obama.” I am just cynical enough to wonder what they promised her to get her that much on board. Although, I’ll be honest, I expected her to toe the line if she lost. And for most of her followers to toe it too. They are pretty old school when it comes to politics. If she had won, I doubt Obama’s coalition of the African Americans and young folk would have. I think they would have gone and whined about how the establishment “stole” the nomination from them and they would have sulked the election away. (hence the reason I was pulling for Sen. Clinton to win the Democratic primaries.)
I also heard Biden’s speech. It was less informative than Clinton’s. It was also less well delivered. I didn’t listen to Obama’s speech or Bill Clinton’s. there is only so much I can take and I really didn’t expect to hear anything new or interesting. From listening to the NPR commentators gush about it I was right. (note: The NPR reporters often reminded me of teenage girls talking about the Backstreet Boys (now I have dated myself). So much gushing can be a bit hard to take after awhile.) so. On the Democratic side, I’d rather see the Veep candidate become President than the Presidential candidate. Oh well.
Now the Republicans certainly aren’t immune to political weirdness either. I am still trying to wrap my mind around McCain’s choice for Veep. After all the talk about the need for experience to do the job on day one he chooses someone with arguably less experience than Obama. Yes, I know she has been governor of Alaska. For less than one term. Alaska has less population than many cities in the lower 48. Not exactly top flight presidential training. I think he went for her to A: wave the woman issue in the faces of Democrats. B. Appease some of the “social conservatives” and C: show that he is still the maverick, doing things his own way. It will certainly be interesting to see how it goes.
I listened to parts of the Democratic convention. (Please note the correct use of the word Democratic. I wish people on both sides of the aisle would grow the fuck up and return to using the correct terms) I heard Sen. Clinton’s big “Let’s pull together” speech. It was well written, well delivered and full of demagoguery. Nothing real said in the whole speech except “Vote for Obama.” I am just cynical enough to wonder what they promised her to get her that much on board. Although, I’ll be honest, I expected her to toe the line if she lost. And for most of her followers to toe it too. They are pretty old school when it comes to politics. If she had won, I doubt Obama’s coalition of the African Americans and young folk would have. I think they would have gone and whined about how the establishment “stole” the nomination from them and they would have sulked the election away. (hence the reason I was pulling for Sen. Clinton to win the Democratic primaries.)
I also heard Biden’s speech. It was less informative than Clinton’s. It was also less well delivered. I didn’t listen to Obama’s speech or Bill Clinton’s. there is only so much I can take and I really didn’t expect to hear anything new or interesting. From listening to the NPR commentators gush about it I was right. (note: The NPR reporters often reminded me of teenage girls talking about the Backstreet Boys (now I have dated myself). So much gushing can be a bit hard to take after awhile.) so. On the Democratic side, I’d rather see the Veep candidate become President than the Presidential candidate. Oh well.
Now the Republicans certainly aren’t immune to political weirdness either. I am still trying to wrap my mind around McCain’s choice for Veep. After all the talk about the need for experience to do the job on day one he chooses someone with arguably less experience than Obama. Yes, I know she has been governor of Alaska. For less than one term. Alaska has less population than many cities in the lower 48. Not exactly top flight presidential training. I think he went for her to A: wave the woman issue in the faces of Democrats. B. Appease some of the “social conservatives” and C: show that he is still the maverick, doing things his own way. It will certainly be interesting to see how it goes.
posted by exMI | 08:35
3 Comments:
Also, she compensates for him a bit aesthetically.
The experience question isn't contradictory.
First, we're talking about the President, not the whole ticket. The VP is the backup. It's valid to argue that the President needs experience while it's okay if the veep doesn't have it (McCain/Palin), but not necessarily good the other way around (Obama/Biden).
And it's a way to get experience, right? If you have to have experience to be President, but no woman politican does, how do we ever get a female President without having an inexperienced female VP to get that experience? (Being First Lady, a la Hillary? Ha. Hillary didn't learn politics just by being married to Bill.)
Second, if you buy into the notion of tickets as a team at all, then Obama has compensated for his lack of experience with Biden's experience. But there's no need for McCain to compensate since he's not lacking experience. Adding an experienced VP adds nothing new. But, McCain does need to compensate for other areas -- let's say the outsider, agent-of-change, different viewpoint blah blah. Obama already brings that to the Democratic ticket, so he wouldn't pick someone similar to himself. But McCain does need such a choice, rather than a establishment white guy.
(For the sake of the argument, let's just stipulate that McCain is "experienced" while Obama isn't, and that such experience even matters, and so on. That's a different argument from the charge that McCain is somehow hypocritical for choosing someone inexperienced as VP.)
Nicely said anonymous. I agree.
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