Who the hell is Sarah Palin?

[ChuckF]

One might ask

Sen. John McCain has picked Alaska Gov. Sarah as his running mate, a senior McCain campaign official told CNN on Friday.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, seen in a February photo, will be John McCain's running mate, sources say.

Palin, 44, who's in her first term as governor, is a pioneering figure in Alaska, the first woman and the youngest person to hold the state's top political job.

She's been governor of Alaska since 2007. That's it. And McCain wants people to think Obama isn't ready to be President?

It's pretty important too, I guess, since McCain turns 72 today.

Reading further down, I see more cronyism!

Yays.

(And when the headline I saw simply stated "Palin," I was hoping for a Monty Python vice-presidency. Drat.)

[Sock Puppet]

She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and takes part in two of Alaska's popular pastimes -- fishing and hunting.

Okay, that covers the guns, but what about God and gays? Luckily, the kitchen TV at work has been switched back to Fox News, so pretty soon the Republicans here (i.e., most of my coworkers) will be informed what to think about her.

[wildernesse]

CNN's coverage trying to answer this question is funny.

We don't know much about her! Here's some pictures from her website!

One male anchor just mentioned that she will be a bad mother to her new Down Syndrome baby now that she will be VP candidate. I think the blonde woman anchor wants to strangle him.

[ChuckF]

I'm pretty sure the free market will take care of her child with Downs syndrome while she's off campaigning.

Hey, the Invisible Hand don't do diapers! Ooooh, snap!

[ChuckF]

[wildernesse]

ARG!! New mothers obviously can't do their job if it is hard. That's the message from CNN.

Most women do not have paid maternity leave, and those who do have extremely limited leave. They go back well before their children are 4 months old, to all sorts of jobs--with nothing approaching the help that a VP candidate or VP would have.

I'm remembering why I don't watch tv news.

[Clutch Munny]

Go have children and look after them, whiner.

[Sock Puppet]

Well, I sat (stood, actually) through a bit of the Fox News spinnage, and they're praising her "toughness," which appears to consist mainly of firing a lot of people who crossed her.

[Ari]

She's a women in a pants suit, what else is there to know?

[Stormlight]

She's the one that will secure the votes of disgruntled Hillary fans.

[BracesForImpact]

I believe she's also under investigation for something. I can't remember what though. Firing somebody I believe.

Originally Posted by BracesForImpact

I believe she's also under investigation for something. I can't remember what though. Firing somebody I believe.

A legislative investigation is looking into allegations that Palin fired Alaska's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire the governor's former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

Palin acknowledged that a member of her staff made a call to a trooper in which the staffer suggested he was speaking for the governor.
Palin has admitted that the call could be interpreted as pressure to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was locked in a child-custody battle with Palin's sister.

"I am truly disappointed and disturbed to learn that a member of this administration contacted the Department of Public Safety regarding Trooper Wooten," Palin said. "At no time did I authorize any member of my staff to do so."

Palin suspended the staffer who made the call.

Ayup.

[Watser?]

Damn, I was hoping for a more Pythonesque thread too

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Okay, that covers the guns, but what about God and gays? Luckily, the kitchen TV at work has been switched back to Fox News, so pretty soon the Republicans here (i.e., most of my coworkers) will be informed what to think about her.

Sara Palin

Palin is strongly pro-life, a supporter of capital punishment and belongs to Feminists for Life.

I don't get how people can reconcile a pro-life stance with pro-capital punishment.

She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination..... Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii. Palin has stated that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.

There is your Gays answer.

Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.

And the God answer. Though that information is in regards to her in high school, I assume her religious leaning haven't hanged all that much.

ETA: I had to look up Feminists for Life.

Originally Posted by Feminists for Life, Statement of Purpose

The president of the "non-sectarian, non-partisan" Feminists For Life, Serrin Foster, describes the organization as opposed to all forms of abortion, including cases of rape, incest, birth defects, or to preserve the mother's health or life as broadly defined in the Supreme Court's Doe v. Bolton decision. FFL believes that basic human rights, including the right to life, start at conception (FFL defined as the first formation of a human zygote).

Charming.

[Dingfod]

McCain only wishes he could tap that. Hell, I only wish I could tap that. She's hot for a middle-aged gummint-type woman.

But, just because I would have sex with her doesn't mean I'm going to vote for her.

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Zehava

I don't get how people can reconcile a pro-life stance with pro-capital punishment.

Abortion is, in every instance, the killing of an innocent human life. With capital punishment, such a miscarriage of justice is an aberration. So in principle, there is nothing to be reconciled.

[Julie]

If you call a clump a cells without a functioning brain human...I'm not inclined to do so.

I don't understand anti-choice women. How can they support letting people have control over our own bodies?

[ChuckF]

Did you hear her say that her husband is a champion snow machine racer? That's qualification!

[yguy]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

She's been governor of Alaska since 2007. That's it. And McCain wants people to think Obama isn't ready to be President?

That gives her at least a year more executive experience than Obama has...but of course the absence of any semblance of accomplishment in his life is arguably his strongest selling point.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Julie

If you call a clump a cells without a functioning brain human...

I call him President Bush.

[Joshua Adams]

lol, that gives her at least a year more executive experience than McCain has. While we're on the subject.

[California Tanker]

The president of the "non-sectarian, non-partisan" Feminists For Life, Serrin Foster, describes the organization as opposed to all forms of abortion, including cases of rape, incest, birth defects, or to preserve the mother's health or life

Ouch.

I don't get how people can reconcile a pro-life stance with pro-capital punishment.

To my understanding, the logic is that, the kid has done nothing wrong to forfeit its life. A convicted felon will have done something egregious enough to have forfeited the right to live. I don't see any particular logic fault in this.

She's the one that will secure the votes of disgruntled Hillary fans

I think this one rather nails it, but she's so much further to the right of Hillary, I'm not convinced that she'll attract many.

However, I do note that she seems to display great integrity.

Palin kept her campaign promises by reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%
<snip>
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned;
<snip>
Highlights of Governor Palin's tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. After federal funding for the Gravina Island Bridge project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending was lost, Palin decided against filling the over $200 million gap with state money. "Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on 'federal dollars,' as the state does today."
<snip>
She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.

Also seems that one of her first acts as Governor was to sell the governor's private jet, which had been purchased by her predecessor.

80-90% approval rates? I know Alaska is generally Republican leaning to begin with, but that's a hell of a high score. She must be doing something right.

Her name had cropped up as a possibility before, but I have to say I was more expecting Lieberman or Ridge. Very interesting choice.

And McCain wants people to think Obama isn't ready to be President?

No worse than Biden bringing change...

lol, that gives her at least a year more executive experience than McCain has

I would strongly argue that a military officer would count as being an executive position.

NTM

[ChuckF]

Yeah, I thought Obama's choice of Biden was truly awful, and set the bar very, very low for the 72 year-old McCain. I had no idea McCain would arthritically jump up and down on the bar until he hit bedrock.