D-I-S-R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Found Out What It Means To Me
Posted by Greg Bulmash in Politics & ReligionSome say John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate to pick up all the disaffected Hillary voters under the mistaken belief that they'd vote for anything with ovaries. But there's a good counter-argument that he picked her because she's a gun-toting, vindictive nutcase who spouts Jesus out the side of her mouth while picking and choosing which "Christian" values she wants to incorporate into her life... just like much of the Republican "base."
As the stories like Troopergate and the firings during her term as mayor show (including trying to fire a librarian who resisted her attempts at banning books), Sarah is a poor loser... which puts her right in line with all the Hillary supporters who said they'd vote McCain for spite. But it also shows that Christian values like "forgiveness" are easily rationalized away in her brain.
And let's not talk about Charity. Her view on that Christian value is that the government should cut funds to help the neediest and most vulnerable in our communities and that charities should step up to provide replacements. To an extent, taxation and government spending are an enforced redistribution of wealth, and to the extent that this wealth is spent on social services, it's enforced charity. Since charity should come from the heart, they think "let's cut out government social services so it's true charity." And if people don't make enough charitable donations to help the truly needy, well, either they'll have to form a big enough majority to get something voted their way, or they can die off.
For a party that doesn't believe in Darwin, their belief in Social Darwinism is through the roof.
But I digress. I originally started this post because I wanted to blog about a video a friend pointed me to. It's by a musician with the stage name of Dean Dobbins and addresses the whole "vote for her/me because she's/I'm a woman" thing. Fun little song. And for those of you who know my family, no, the guy on the piano isn't my dad with his hair grown out. It's just an unfortunate circumstance that if you're an older Jewish man with a few extra pounds, gray hair, and a beard, you look like my dad... or vice-versa.
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McCain picked Sarah Palin for two reasons: 1) to fire up the conservative base and 2) because she is a female.
There are two schools of thought on winning a general election. The first is the side that motivates its base more wins elections. Your base needs to come out and vote for you. Before Palin was chosen, the conservative base was demoralized. McCain is a moderate conservative, not a 'true believer' and he was not the conservative choice for the nomination. The conservative base has been fired up by the choice of Palin.
The second school of thought is that the more middle of the road candidate wins every Presidential election. Statistically, McCain is the more MOR candidate. From 2005 to the present, McCain has voted with the majority of Republicans in the Senate 87% of the time, and Obama has voted with the majority of his Democratic colleagues 97% of the time. The counter argument is that the Democratic position itself is the more MOR position, but I don't agree.