AND THE NOMINEE FOR VICE-PRESIDENT ON THE REPUBLICAN TICKET IS.... WHO????
So my stint as an odds maker completely backfired. Not only did I do a bad job handicapping this one but Sarah Palin was not even on the radar screen. I won't spend any time trying to figure out where I went wrong; instead I'm trying to figure out what in the world Mr. McCain is thinking? An unknown for VP?? Just how did McCain & Co. arrive at this decision? Let's break it down:
1. The female vote factor. Now this is the part that really ticks me off. It's blatantly obvious what the rationale is here. Hillary left a whole slew of disgruntled women in the wake of her defeat and now the McCain camp can get 'em with a woman VP!! Yeah yeah, that's it! Fabulous idea! Boy it's great, Obama will never see it coming! Wink-wink, nod-nod. The brilliant minds of the McCain camp with a genius idea. When did they make the decision? Last night over cocktails? This is a VP position, not a parlor trick!
2. The tow-the-line factor. Being a Washington outsider and first term governor, Palin is likely not to question the direction of the camp. The maverick that he is, it doesn't seem characteristic of McCain to surround himself with yes-men. Then again, his history does show that he's had a preference for yes-women... I'll leave that one where it is.
3. Perhaps McCain is intentionally committing campaign suicide. Maybe he wants out but doesn't want to bow out voluntarily. Have the hours, miles, and his age caught up with him? Maybe picking a no-name for VP is his way of taking a dive while still appearing to put up a fight.
Well, you have my speculations so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. One thing is for sure, this is the most baffling VP pick I've seen in my lifetime. What are conservatives to do but reluctantly vote the ticket regardless? McCain & Co. are betting that this pick will draw moderates - especially women moderates - to his ticket. To the contrary, I see it as such a lukewarm choice that it will either confuse or turn off moderates to the point that they'll choose instead to get behind the exciting Obama train and ensure it rolls all the way to the White House.
Vitals:
- Jason
- Henderson, NV, United States
- Las Vegas native, currently reside in Henderson. Married to fabulous wife of ten years and we have four young boys
2 comments:
read this: The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers.
Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went
to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee
since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress:
the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader
Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a
heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of
lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn, men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who
heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.
Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become 'adverse parties' of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America
is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as
happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies
are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will
not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
Having several lawyer friends myself I would be careful to agree to a point - there are conscientious lawyers (perhaps hard to find but they're out there; my friends among the small throng). But I would generally agree; these folks went to school and then to practice law, never truly experiencing true commerce that drives our economic engine. Lawyers don't produce anything and so they'll never quite understand what it takes and what it means to be successful in a natural market setting. Most lawyers do know a thing or two about profits though - especially those lawyers whose TV commercials and radio spots target the very demographics that (surprise) tend to make up the democratic voting constituencies.
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