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DJS
Trad climber
wherever my mind exists
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:34pm PT
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Interesting, this is what she had to say about the position a month ago
Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain's ticket mate.
Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”
Spin can obviously make this a positive or negative quote.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:35pm PT
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Eek. Sorry, Fatty. That's just not fair to do that to you for all the hard work you've put in... Is McCain *trying* to lose or something? Hail Mary? He just shot himself in the foot in two ways:
1) she's already in the middle of a scandal over trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired
2) it's hard to make the "Obama has no experience" argument when your VP candidate has a whole lot less
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:36pm PT
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Anders, American voters have historically cared remarkably little about experience. JFK remains one of the all-time favorite Presidents, despite having done nothing as a Senator and having left behind no single truly important piece of legislation.
Pundits, journalists, and academics aside, most Americans associate 'experience' with "corruption." By and large, most voters think of inexperience in politics as a good thing, at least when it comes to voting for Presidents. There is nothing stronger in American political tradition than the cliche of the country farmer (now the Alaskan housewife), fed up with political sharpies and corruption, who shoulders the burden of service for a few years to bring common sense and morals to politics.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:37pm PT
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So young black men treat women poorly and elderly white men are gentlemenly that is what you're saying?
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jstan
climber
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:40pm PT
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Skip:
Mortality tables are used to calculate all manner of important things affecting you without regard to your grannies age or disposition. Sorry. If you are getting up there you should pull some of them off the net and play with them. I would not suggest you just trust a corporation to do right by you.
One interesting thing is that people use "expected" life to calculate whether they have enough money to retire. Well, your expected life is the age at which you have a 50% chance of being dead. If you will, it is the coin toss age. It you, instead, plan using the age at which you are 95% confident of being dead another ten years is added on.
As regards Master McCain the fact he has unlimted access to medical tests and monitoring, will catch problems early, and will affect his expected life.
Kind of makes you wonder why the government is so determined to prevent these kinds of tests on the rest of us under Medicare. It is pretty clear you and I don't count.
In any event mortality tables can't deal with these special circumstances.
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Flashlight
climber
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:41pm PT
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You folks on the left criticizing her lack of experience are hypocrites. The elephant ticket exactly mirrors the jackass ticket in the experience department. Obama=Palin, McCain=Biden,
I would rather have the experience at the top of the ticket.
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:45pm PT
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Stick a fork in Obama.
I predict that 1/3 of Hillary's voters will now cross over...McCain getting those 6 mil, makes it a virtual lock. My Mom and sister are both ardent Hillary supporters, and they both love this pick...so my "survey of two" says it was a genius pick.
IMO, her bio is compelling. She's a working mother of 5--one with Down's Syndrome--she's self made, articulate, an athlete (she's competed in the Iditarod), and she didn't grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth. This women WILL connect with America. I predict she will not only be the first female VP but also the first POTUS.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:48pm PT
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You didn't answer my question Lois. If you didn't vote for Mondale Ferraro, then your argument makes little sense.
It may be that she can deliver some middle of the road, blue-collar women. But that's not who the main Hillary supporters were. That was mostly pretty liberal women.
As for experience, I'd say she's got a chunk less than Obama. She will have to do some serious brushing up on foreign affairs.
Even on economics, the situation in Alaska is so different to everywhere else, I'm not sure how well it translates.
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nb3000
Social climber
Oakland, CA.
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:52pm PT
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Palin's acceptance speech made her appear like little more than a cheerleading sidecar for the old coot.
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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Aug 29, 2008 - 01:57pm PT
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Fatty, as a McCain playa, did you advise this, a deja vu of the Harriett Myers debacle? Or were you kept completely out of the loop? hahhahahah, McCain has thrown his experience argument against Obama out the window, and has made his failing health a key issue. He obviously needs new advisors...
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jstan
climber
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:06pm PT
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Stevep:
A zinger! Will be interesting to see how Lois works around that one. Great thinking.
I think one of the most fascinating things is how we all now are trying to be spin masters. As if it is important for me to spin a few votes one way or the other. It really is not. I really don't have a desire to look down and laugh at the people I may have influenced. Geez. What kind of retards are we becoming? Data and logical thought. That is what we need.
When we had to stop using pitons it was clear to me the only important thing was to get the data out there that people needed if they were to decide. Were nuts any good? How should we use them so as to be sure they would catch us? We have to trust people to make their own decisions.
I have a half finished study of gasolene price showing how it changes as we come up to elections and the degree to which it appears to correlate with the dollar. On every issue facing us this is the kind of thing we need. We need real information and analysis that has been so well criticized you just have to say, "Good lord. That looks pretty solid."
Skip:
Neither of us knows how insurance companies use the information we supply. A big company with people all over the place making deals has to have some clear procedure that the data tells them they can make money on. That is what the mortality tables are. I don't know of any large studies showing showing the degree to which familial history predicts individual expectancy. And it would have to be so large as to give good statistics for each of all the many scenarios people present. I would expect really severe cases might just be deal breakers, a negative decision not affecting potential loss. Beyond that there may be some other procedures that cause rates to be kicked up. They want to know if you base jump. That is a kicker for sure. But companies generally rely very much on statistical mortality tables as a baseline. Go look at your pension calculation. The mortality tables they use are even set by statute.
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:09pm PT
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Here's a link to a video of her speech. I am VERY impressed. She is a reformer, a "hockey mom", and she has more executive experience than Obama. A very smart pick for the elephants.
video
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Redlands
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:14pm PT
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Pretty shallow "analysis" going on here, if you can call this delusional spew "analysis".
Media narrative drives the entire race. Issues, policies, experience, and everything else take a backseat to media contructed narrative and what they choose to emphasize. They will ultimately paint the two tickets with a storyline that will inform the basic opinion of the low info voter, which happens to be the largest portion of the electorate.
Of course you can influence the narrative, and that has been far and away the GOP advantage over the last decade or more..."working the refs" so to speak with the "refs" being the media. Witness the coordinated talking point rollouts where GOP operatives attempt to inject their chosen framing on any narrative/story arc. Yes, both sides do it, but the GOP has been far superior on this front for a long time.
As someone who recently moved back to the lower 48 after living several years in Fairbanks, I'm relatively familiar with Palin. She is genial and well liked in AK. But the reason she won the governorship had everything to do with a viceral hate of Murkowski on multiple fronts (pipeline negotiations, nepotism by putting his daughter into the Senate seat he vacated, luxury yachts, etc), and little to do with her experience or capabilities.
Palin is currently under investigation herself in AK for a scandal involving the firing of her ex-brother in law. The allegations are that she pressured the state official to fire her brother-in-law (an AK state trooper) who was going through a nasty divorce/custody battle with Palin's sister. The official refused and she apparently fired him. The investigation is ongoing.
Now back to the media narrative. We are already seeing the initial storyline...McCain, on his 72nd birthday, looking to be the oldest president in history, and a cancer vicitim, puts someone of very little experience and basically no foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Yes, the right will argue that Obama lacks experience, but the narrative effect here is that McCain just lost the ability to use the experience argument. He neutralized one of his strong running points. Palin is virulently anti-choice, and the narrative may pick up comparing her status as a woman with her anti-choice stance.
The only thing said in this thread so far that is compelling is the argument that Biden will be somewhat hobbled in the VP debate compared to Biden debating a man. He cannot be as harsh or "attack dog" like without appearing as a bully.
Personally I think this was a desperate and weak choice and not McCains first (or even second or third) choice. But he couldn't choose a pro-choice running mate after floating the trial balloons on that front (Ridge, Lieberman) for fear of the hard core base not turning out...you could make a similar case against Romney, being a mormon would arguably alienate the same sector of his base...the rabid anti-choicers tend to be evangelicals who don't really cotton to mormons. Seems to me Ridge would have been the strongest choice. Pawlenty was always a non-starter, he's not even that popular in Minnesota and has the millstone of voting against some infrastructure funding and then having the bridge collapse tragedy shortly thereafter.
Should be interesting to see the narrative develop over the next couple of weeks and on what topics the battles will be fought.
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Danielle Winters
Trad climber
Alaska
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:17pm PT
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I luv my Govenor and want to keep her in Alaska!!!!! so please vote for Obama and let us keep the best Gov we ever had .
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:20pm PT
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Flashlight, and I am still writing in Cynthia McKinney, thereby cancelling your vote. Isn't democracy fun. ;-)
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coward
Trad climber
Boulder, Wyoming
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:26pm PT
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Horst - you've got to be kidding me! You think she is in any way qualified? Generously speaking, her qualifications are barely there and she looks like she'll blow over in a stiff wind. Ok, she's a woman. Great, she's a "feminist". Yay, she has five children. How much motherly attention is she going to give her latest child, diagnosed with DS? Sure, she's an ATHLETE, but what does that have to do with being POTUS? Her resume is decidely modest at best.
Lois, the fact that women like you still talk about Obama having some kind of obligation to pick a woman as the running mate is hilarious! I don't need to know how women think to assume all women are not as clueless as you are.
Why do you want McCain again?? Is is because he's a "Maverick?" And she is, too, right? What a pair they'll make He's got taste when it comes to women, pfft! Her credentials do not compliment the lack of his!!
Hopefully we won't be seeing any tears (a la Hillary in NH this last fall). YUCK!
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jstan
climber
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:27pm PT
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ElCap:
Very informative. Thank you.
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Dick_Lugar
Trad climber
Indiana (the other Mideast)
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:41pm PT
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McCain has done what the ancient Greeks could never concieve: blending comedy and tragedy into one! I'm going to sit back and enjoy how this all "plays" out....
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:44pm PT
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Coward,
I didn't say she was "qualified." I simply said that I was impressed with her person (she was born 3 days before me, and she's done a hell of a lot more than I have! LOL), and that I think she can connect with Hillary voters. If this election was about being qualified and experienced, then Obama wouldn't be in there either.
This election is about BRANDING. Get ready for a two-month frenzy of spin and branding, the like we've never seen before.
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toomey
climber
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Aug 29, 2008 - 02:50pm PT
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Lois cracks me up. She said:
"female trumps anti-abortion any day."
Not true in the least. You only wish it were so. You insult a lot women with that comment.
Then said:
"McCain by contrast is coming across as gracious and respecting of women in an elegant fashion - the white haired cultured elderly gent honoring women by selecting the young and beautiful governor as his running mate."
not sure what planet you live on. this "cultured gent" who "honors" woman divorced his wife for a younger model with cash and later called that one a "trollop" and a "kunt" in public.
He sure honors women alright. yup.
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