McCain's running mate - Sarah Palin

First Impressions.

Wow! Suprising! Smart!

Of course she's from Alaska, another big oil producing state. And with all the government corruption up there with Senator Stevens and his bridge to nowhere, one can definately see pay for play politics at its highest form.

By picking someone three years younger than Obama, McCain just made himself the biggest hypocrite possible. Throughout his campaign he's been knocking Obama for his youth and lack of experience - foreign policy and in everything else. Now he picks someone three years younger than Obama. A person who will take over if something happens to McCain. Someone who has less experience than Obama in politics and Washington.

Obama and the editorials should have a field day with this. If McCain says anything about Obama's lack of experience, Obama only has to point out that McCain feels Palin is capable of taking over as commander-in-chief if something should befall him - because that is the primary role of a VP.

Realistic, rational, best-for-our-country thinking aside, I think McCain's camp made a brilliant choice in choosing a female VP. He should've chosen a women perhaps ten years older just for the experience quotient, but still a good move.

I am sure a number of women and maybe some others who were voting for Hillary because she was a woman, will switch their votes. I don't know how many, but there will definately be some.

As long as Palin is a capable speaker and debater she can only help McCain. I don't know enough about her to know if she is or not. Her speech at next week's Republican Convention will be very telling.

The only way McCain's choice for VP will backfire is if during the VP debate, Biden is able to talk circle arounds Palin much like Kerry did to Bush during their first debate. Adding to that train of thought, Obama's camp will need to remind people that if something happens to the elderly McCain, Palin would be the President. Right now.

I don't think it'll draw away the youth vote from Obama who were voting for Obama because his youthfulness in and of itself symbolized change. The reason: McCain is still have an old geezer with conservative ideals and out of touch with the average American and he'll be making policy not her.

This pick will help McCain and keep the race tight. But it will also make some of McCain's most effective attacks against Obama - inexperience - less effective.

****

I think if McCain is elected or even if he fails, four years from now - or eight - she could definately be a top candidate for presidency - if she is capable and not another Dan Quayle. Wow, imagine for the women of this country a Clinton vs. Palin election in 2012 or 2016.

Of course, I've said all this without knowing much about her. Only that she is three years younger than Obama, a woman, governor of Alaska, strong anti-abortionist and has a child in the National Guard. I know nothing about how she runs Alaska. It'll be interesting to learn more.

Update to Topics Previously Discussed

Movie reviews: Saw Hancock, thumbs down. It wasn't bad enough that a white man had to show a black man how to be civilized, but then the movie committed the most mortal of sins, the hero couldn't even save himself (to make it worse, the white man had to save the black man). Talk about stereotypes. I'm surprised Will Smith signed on once he read the script.

Wall-E - two thumbs up. Aside from the visuals, the story itself was unique and very heartwarming. Endearing even. I took my kids with me, but over half of the audience was adults without kids.


Politics: Obama and McCain are both moving towards the center, what else is new. Whoever wins, will go back and serve their more radical constituents. Obama is probably wishing the elections were held next week so he doesn't suffer any more reversals.

Book Review: SPQR IX The Princess and the Pirates. The writing was very engaging although a bit unorthodox. The protagonist kept going into these speals about various historical details. Unlike Pompeii, the Robert's laying in of details seemed a bit smoother. Not as suffocating. But the tone of the story was strange, like the protagonist knew his audience was 21st century readers. Strange, but quite engaging. My only problem, just like Star Trek 3 (that was the one with the Hot Headed Klingon chasing Kirk all over the galaxy itching for a fight, right?) was that there was no fight. We read all of these nautical details about how good the pirate captain is and all these interesting tricks and all of the naval manuevers our protagonist is running his men through, but in the end, there is not single sea battle. Mind you, this novel is call the Princess and the Pirates. And with Roberts' eye for detail and good fight scenes on land and the book was less than 200 pages, not having the big fight he had been alluding to throughout the novel was a big let down. Isn't the old saying if there's a gun on page 1, it had better be fired by someone on page 50? If you've got warships, marines, sailors and pirates you'd better have a naval engagement.

That's all for now.

Equality

900 people will soon decide who will be the Democratic presidential candidate.

900; not the 20,000,000 who have voted over the last two months.

1 man, 1 vote? Not so my friends.

As Mr. Orwell once said, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Real Democracry? Part 2

Ha ha ha, to those of you who asked me if I'd ever taken U.S. History.
(I'm happy to know more than one person is reading my blog.)
However, I must've been sick the day my instructor explained that when Americans vote, they are voting for Presidential Electors who have signed a piece of paper stating that they WILL vote for a certain candidate, BUT that they don't have to.

That's a lot of power in the hands of 538 people.

Let me ask this: Why are Americans voting for President at all? Why aren't the presidential candidates holding meetings with members of the Electoral College, swaying them to their side, rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on national ad campaigns? It appears the only purpose of the popular vote in the presidential elections is to create a facade of legitimacy?

I know, you all are asking, "But John, have you forgotten the elections of 2000?" No, I haven't forgotten that farce. My understanding is that Bush won, based purely on the mathematical consequence of how many delegates are awarded to the president based on which states he won - that's why the popular vote didn't matter. Some states had larger populations, but were given only a limited number of electoral votes. But with my new understanding of the political process, when the Electoral College voted 41 days later, they didn't have to listen to the popular vote of the Floridian election. If the electors had decided to vote for Gore, I'm sure there may have been riots in the street for disregarding the Floridian popular vote, but legally, Americans would have had no recourse to change those electors' votes.

Only Michigan and Minnesota have state laws in place to render invalid the votes of faithless electors (those who don't vote as they agreed to, when they applied to become electors). In 22 other states, there are laws to punish the electors after the fact, but once the votes are cast, they can't be changed. If America keeps the Electoral College as an institution, we should impose a federal law rendering all faithless electors' votes invalid.* It will provide a greater sense of legitimacy.

(*Except in the case of when a candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the time of the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, which has happened twice.)