If you're going to make your own reproductive anatomy and the choices you've made with how to use it central to your candidacy, then you can't expect voters to think only of the issues. If you're going to make 'family values' central to your candidacy, then you are asking to be judged on that basis. I'd have been 100% delighted with a VP pick whose fertility and religious views never brought up. But once you ask us to think about both, we will, and it is totally, totally our right to be judgmental. It's clear enough why it would hurt Obama to condemn what's going on in the Palin family--fear of making a low blow--but there's nothing to stop anyone else from saying about the incident whatever they see fit.
And enough with the over-the-top populism. Having a kid at 17 might be 'real,' but so is failing math, living off Fritos, and drinking six beers too many. It's time to stop celebrating mediocrity. It's starting to be very clear why I, a conservative relative to those around me, am very much stuck with Obama.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
In response to those (David Brooks, Jezebel, etc.) who say the Palin grand-fetus is none of our business:
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6 comments:
Exactly!!
And also, I love watching ell these Evangelicals implicitly celebrating premarital sex...
If you're going to make your own reproductive anatomy and the choices you've made with how to use it central to your candidacy, then you can't expect voters to think only of the issues. If you're going to make 'family values' central to your candidacy, then you are asking to be judged on that basis.
I have seen no evidence that Sarah Palin has ever done anything of this sort. Palin, when running for Governor, made very little mention of her reproductive choices (indeed, the one in question had yet to be made) and did not run on 'family values.' She ran as an anti-corruption crusader. Nor has she made anything of these issues thus far as the VP, though both her supporters and her opponents have made a great deal of these issues.
She is "pro-life" but does not celebrate pregnancy enough to mention her own to her constituents until four weeks before the baby arrives. She was already elected, so wouldn't have risked losing voters on account of being over-extended, so to speak. And clearly this fetus was not going away, so why conceal its existence? I don't get it.
She was seven months along when she announced it (Trig was a month premature). Nor was she "concealing" its existence; she just didn't bother telling the press until then.
What Andrew said.
Show where Palin has been the source of revelations about her family life. Was she not forced to divulge her oldest daughters pregnancy because of others politically generated rumors this daughter was the real mother of her last child?
Introducing your family to political introduction and acceptance events don't count. It is expected.
I rather expect you have found liberal positions in general to be more kosher than conservative positions Phoebe, and all things are seen from this lense(bias, whether we realize the tint or not. I am guilty too.
Your 'celebrating mediocrity' line is interesting. Murray, both in Bell Curve and in some later writing, suggests that meritocratic mechanisms (SAT, hugely demanding college entrance, nationalizing the college applicant pool) have been hoovering up the best and brightest from the whole society, leaving fewer highly capable people in the lower quintiles.
Palin is - the Palin pick is looking like sheer electoral genius at the moment. Given the extent of national revulsion towards W, the percent of voters identifying as Dems versus Reeps, and the overwhelming press sympathy towards Obama, to have the contest be close at this point seems incredible. Palin has got McCain into the position of being the candidate of everyone who went to Chico State instead of Princeton. She's going to start mentioning that Obama drinks herbal tea next and sew the whole thing up. Six colleges in six years! take that, Princeton swells!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/ats-ap-cvn-palin-educationsep04,0,3284051.story
I'd have been happier if the election had been about issues, instead of the Eloi versus the Morlocks. I do think Palin looks like a very strong counterexample to Murray's claim - this is someone who came out of the middle-middle and is clearly enormously capable, took on the Murkowski machine and beat it like a gong, very popular in her state. Obama understands that he has a big problem with the Morlock vote, lost it heavily to Clinton, and Biden was his big outreach there. Palin is going to do McCain a lot more good than Biden will Obama. dave.s.
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