I could probably go on for entirely too long about all the muck that’s been dredged about Sarah Palin in the weeks since her unveiling as the GOP presidential candidate, but there has only ever been one way in which she should be discussed by the Obama campaign. Until now it seemed like the Democratic candidate was content to pretend like she wasn’t even there (which, personally, I’m mostly okay with). But in the latest Obama ad, they set their sights on undermining McCain’s judgment by highlighting his choice of the Governor of Alaska as his running mate, in light of a previous comment he had made about needing to look to his Vice Presidential candidate for guidance on the economy.
Is this a huge blow to the McCain campaign, not very likely. But if you’ve been paying attention to any of the newspaper endorsements Obama has been receiving from publications that endorsed Bush in 2004, there’s a common theme: McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin has been a major factor in convincing traditionally conservative publications (like, say, the Chicago Tribune). Colin Powell even cited her lack of readiness as a factor in his endorsement of Obama.
The Obama campaign’s a little late to the game in making this argument, but I’m glad that they’re not afraid to make the case that McCain knew he needed more expertise in the economy and when he had the opportunity to aid his ticket (and, were he to be elected, his administration), he instead chose to select someone that would placate the extreme right-wing base and give him a news cycle or two. How’s that for “Country First.”
She had seemed like one of the most poised McCain surrogates out there, but the past couple of days have not been kind to former HP CEO Carly Fiorina. Yesterday she repeated the campaign line when anyone dares to even imply anything disparaging of Sarah Palin (even if it’s in jest) by saying that the Saturday Night Live sketch that featured Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton was “sexist.” That alone would have been ridiculous, but it was made even moreso by the fact that the support she offered for this view seems to actually debunk her own claim:
Well, I think that she looked a bit like her. I think that, of course, the portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial. I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance.
Perhaps I’m confused, but last I checked Hillary Clinton is a woman. So forgive me, but I don’t quite understand how drawing a contrast between one woman and another is sexist. Take out the “sexist” claim and Fiorina had set up a great defense for slamming Saturday Night Live as a bunch of Hollywood liberals, but the implication of sexism doesn’t pass the smell test.
But sexism and SNL seem like small potatoes when compared to what Fiorina got herself into today.
It began when she appeared on the McGraw Milhaven Show on St. Louis KTRS Radio this morning. The host asked Fiorina if she thought that Sarah Palin had the experience to run a major company like Hewlett Packard. Her response:
No, I don’t. But you know what? That’s not what she’s running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things.
She goes on to repeat the party line about how Sarah Palin is more experienced than Obama because she has executive experience. But still, how can you make the case that Palin doesn’t have the experience to run a corporation but does have the experience to run a country with a population of more than 300 million people and a GDP of more than $13 trillion?
But Fiorina didn’t stop there. She appeared on MSNBC later in the day to give her comments about the governor’s experience some context…by saying that John McCain (as well as Barack Obama and Joe Biden) couldn’t run a corporation either.
Well I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don’t think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don’t think Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But on the other hand, a major corporation is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States. It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So of course, to run a business, you have to have a lifetime of experience in business. But that’s not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing.
Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor responded:
If John McCain’s top economic advisor doesn’t think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis? Apparently even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn’t understand as well as he should.
I had ambitions of blogging about important stuff today, but I got a little tied up with work and cleaning my kitchen. So instead I’ll just be giving you this for now with plans of more substantive posts later in the week. I got a kick out of it, hope you do, too.
I know they’re not allowed to use the the word “lie” in the mainstream media, because we’re apparently not supposed call a spade a spade. This certainly wasn’t the only lie included in the speeches at the RNC last night. There were plenty and most of them have been debunked several times earlier in the campaign (like that Obama’s going to raise taxes on the normal folk and that Sarah Palin didn’t keep the money for the Bridge to Nowhere), but this gem from the Governor of Arkansas has shiny, pretty numbers to prove how much of a lie it really was.
Mike Huckabee made the claim that Palin got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.
For the record, Joe Biden got 79,754 total votes in the Democratic primaries.
As of the 2000 census, the population of Wasilla was 5,469. It has been reported at currently more than 9,000.
That would mean, conservatively, the entire town of Wasilla would have had to have had a 100% turnout for nine years at 9,000 to top Biden’s primary numbers.
According to Wikipedia, Palin received 909 votes in her 1999 run for the Mayor of Wasilla. That’s about 1% of the number of votes Joe Biden got for President. (And let’s not even talk about how many votes he’s gotten in his many runs for senator in Delaware or even his 1970 run for County Councilman.)
And yet they had this woman stand in front of a crowd on Friday and talk about how anti-earmark she is. I wonder if she’s going to talk about that again tonight. Knowing how the GOP generally treats facts, she probably will.
Three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of “objectionable” spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin.
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This year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. “The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship,” she wrote in a newspaper column.
In 2001, McCain’s list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town — one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.
McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin’s tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002. The funding was provided to help direct locally grown produce to schools, prisons and other government institutions, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
Wasilla received $11.9 million in earmarks from 2000 to 2003. The results of this spending are very apparent today. (The town also benefited from $15 million in federal funds to promote regional rail transportation.)
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Wasilla had received few if any earmarks before Palin became mayor. She actively sought federal funds — a campaign that began to pay off only after she hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who long controlled federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark.
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This year she submitted to Congress a list of Alaska projects worth $197.8 million, including $2 million to research crab productivity in the Bering Sea and $7.4 million to improve runway lighting at eight Alaska airports. A spokesman said she cut the original list of 54 projects to 31.
