Since I'm in rantmode for the next 19 days, and you offer an opportunity, I can't resist adding to the critique of this passage:
Well, Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin. They know that she's a role model to women and other -- and reformers all over America. She's a reformer. She is -- she took on a governor who was a member of her own party when she ran for governor. When she was the head of their energy and natural resources board, she saw corruption, she resigned and said, "This can't go on."
1) Since when do women need a role model? Do men need a role model? Is McCain suggesting that he is a role model for men? For that matter, can women only have female role models?
Yes, I know that he meant to say "She's a a governor *and* a parent of a child with medical issues"; but what he did say was "This is a person women in general should pattern themselves on." It's a small insight into what I think is a generational problem: McCain can't speak to women as equals, because he doesn't understand them. Hence his hardline position on abortion despite being personally moderate on so many other hot-button social issues.
2) In a week in which her home state issued a scathing report accusing its own very popular governor of ethics violations, it is foolish to call her a reformer. Here again, the insult to our intelligence seems somehow directed to women, who are lumped into the category of People Who Will Swallow This Tripe Because We Vote for Personalities, Not Policies.
She's given money back to the taxpayers. She's cut the size of government. She negotiated with the oil companies and faced them down, a $40 billion pipeline of natural gas that's going to relieve the energy needs of the United -- of what they call the lower 48.
Actually, the high price of oil gave money back to the taxpayers of Alaska, who in fact do not pay sales tax or a heap of other taxes. Alaskans all get a dividend check each year from the state's windfall profits in oil production through the Alaska Permanent Fund (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Fund_Dividend). Since oil spiked to $100/barrel, Palin was able to increase the dividend. As for taxpayers in "what they call the lower 48"? Alaska received more taxpayer pork per capita than any other state (http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SLinXQsOtha6WQKfxjkvQ2~). Why does Alaska get any money at all from us'ns in the lower 48, given that we are already paying for their windfall oil profits? (The answer is Sen. Ted Stevens (R), currently on trial for corruption.)
She's a reformer through and through. And it's time we had that breath of fresh air coming into our nation's capital and sweep out the old-boy network and the cronyism that's been so much a part of it that I've fought against for all these years. She'll be my partner. She understands reform.
A lot has been said about voters who vote on personality, which conveys perceived values, not policies and record, which convey actual values.
And she has ignited our party and people all over America that have never been involved in the political process. And I can't tell you how proud I am of her and her family.
Yep, the teenage daughter who carelessly got pregnant so her boyfriend is dropping out of high school and getting an apprentice job in the oilfields to support her. Good thing Alaska still has high-paying blue-collar jobs for an uneducated workforce (unlike the rest of the US). If this were a black family in Philadelphia, I wonder if McCain would see them as a proud role model.
Her husband's a pretty tough guy, by the way, too.
...And I'll be setting up his desk in the Oval Office as soon as they put in another phone line.
no subject
Well, Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin. They know that she's a role model to women and other -- and reformers all over America. She's a reformer. She is -- she took on a governor who was a member of her own party when she ran for governor. When she was the head of their energy and natural resources board, she saw corruption, she resigned and said, "This can't go on."
1) Since when do women need a role model? Do men need a role model? Is McCain suggesting that he is a role model for men? For that matter, can women only have female role models?
Yes, I know that he meant to say "She's a a governor *and* a parent of a child with medical issues"; but what he did say was "This is a person women in general should pattern themselves on." It's a small insight into what I think is a generational problem: McCain can't speak to women as equals, because he doesn't understand them. Hence his hardline position on abortion despite being personally moderate on so many other hot-button social issues.
2) In a week in which her home state issued a scathing report accusing its own very popular governor of ethics violations, it is foolish to call her a reformer. Here again, the insult to our intelligence seems somehow directed to women, who are lumped into the category of People Who Will Swallow This Tripe Because We Vote for Personalities, Not Policies.
She's given money back to the taxpayers. She's cut the size of government. She negotiated with the oil companies and faced them down, a $40 billion pipeline of natural gas that's going to relieve the energy needs of the United -- of what they call the lower 48.
Actually, the high price of oil gave money back to the taxpayers of Alaska, who in fact do not pay sales tax or a heap of other taxes. Alaskans all get a dividend check each year from the state's windfall profits in oil production through the Alaska Permanent Fund (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Fund_Dividend). Since oil spiked to $100/barrel, Palin was able to increase the dividend. As for taxpayers in "what they call the lower 48"? Alaska received more taxpayer pork per capita than any other state (http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SLinXQsOtha6WQKfxjkvQ2~). Why does Alaska get any money at all from us'ns in the lower 48, given that we are already paying for their windfall oil profits? (The answer is Sen. Ted Stevens (R), currently on trial for corruption.)
She's a reformer through and through. And it's time we had that breath of fresh air coming into our nation's capital and sweep out the old-boy network and the cronyism that's been so much a part of it that I've fought against for all these years. She'll be my partner. She understands reform.
A lot has been said about voters who vote on personality, which conveys perceived values, not policies and record, which convey actual values.
And she has ignited our party and people all over America that have never been involved in the political process. And I can't tell you how proud I am of her and her family.
Yep, the teenage daughter who carelessly got pregnant so her boyfriend is dropping out of high school and getting an apprentice job in the oilfields to support her. Good thing Alaska still has high-paying blue-collar jobs for an uneducated workforce (unlike the rest of the US). If this were a black family in Philadelphia, I wonder if McCain would see them as a proud role model.
Her husband's a pretty tough guy, by the way, too.
...And I'll be setting up his desk in the Oval Office as soon as they put in another phone line.