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Sep
4
Wow – the Factcheck.org review of Governor Sarah Palin’s speech last night at the Republican Convention shows us what really leads to nowhere – Palin’s assertions.
- Palin may have said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure.
- Palin’s accusation that Obama hasn’t authored “a single major law or even a reform” in the U.S. Senate or the Illinois Senate is simply not a fair assessment. Obama has helped push through major ethics reforms in both bodies, for example.
- The Alaska governor avoided some of McCain’s false claims about Obama’s tax program – but her attacks still failed to give the whole story.…
- Finally, Huckabee told conventioneers and TV viewers that Palin got more votes when she ran for mayor of Wasilla than Biden did running for president. Not even close. The tally: Biden, 79,754, despite withdrawing from the race after the Iowa caucuses. Palin, 909 in her 1999 race, 651 in 1996.
Read the whole thing here.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:39 pm September 4th, 2008 in Politics, Sarah Palin | 2 Comments
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Sep
4
If Governor Palin is tough and conservative, why is she upset about Pat Buchanan affiliation?
Filed Under Politics, Sarah Palin, Voting, WH2008 | 4 Comments
One WLST commenter said that to refer to someone as a hockey mom is intended to mean that someone is tough.
If that’s the case, then help me make sense of the incident Jake Tapper of ABC recounts:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that “the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain.”
I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which “Obama/Biden Democrats” they’re referring to.
The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan.
That’s it. That’s the evidence.
An attack on Palin herself.
In other words, they can’t name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family.
But she made the charge anyway, to help raise money.
As I wrote earlier today, Governor Sarah Palin enjoys throwing barbs and the sound of her voice being sarcastic. But she doesn’t seem to like the sound of the truth. If she really is and has been always so distant from Pat Buchanan – but yet she wants to anger up a crowd and incite them to give her money to defend herself against such attacks – then shouldn’t we doubt just how tough she is?
Unless of course you can’t say that about being distant from Buchanan because it’s not true.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:30 pm September 4th, 2008 in Politics, Sarah Palin, Voting, WH2008 | 4 Comments
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Sep
4
Transcript of John McCain’s Speech, Republican Convention 2008
Filed Under John McCain, WH2008 | 1 Comment
I, er um – wasn’t listening the whole time.You can read it here.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:11 pm September 4th, 2008 in John McCain, WH2008 | 1 Comment
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Sep
4
Difference between hockey mom & pitbull? Lipstick – on divisive far right politics*
Filed Under Barack Obama, Campaigning, Elections, Jewish, John McCain, leadership, Ohio, Politics, Predictions, Religion, Sarah Palin, Social Issues, Vice President, Voting, WH2008 | 21 Comments
*I am 100% certain that not all parents who consider themselves hockey moms support far right politics – so let’s be clear. This quote about hockey moms, pitbulls and lipstick comes from Governor Sarah Palin – and I’ve added a few words.
Gloria Feldt, a writer and thinker I admire and have had the good fortune to get to know a bit more through one of the listservs to which I subscribe, has an excellent column posted today about Governor Sarah Palin’s speech last night, given after she accepted the nomination to be the Republican candidate for vice president on the ticket with U.S. Senator John McCain.
In the piece, Gloria writes,
Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks put together a wide compendium of opinion about McCain’s veep pick and concluded it will turn out to be a miscalculation on his part. Seems to me that Palin’s speech last night suggests otherwise.
I’m sticking with my instinct that this choice of Palin is a huge miscalculation, and, in a comment, I explained why. Here is the text of my reasoning:
For one thing, as the poll that came out yesterday from EMILY’s List seems to support, there’s nothing in his ticket for moderates or Independents. His VP choice is right to far-right and he himself has been working to appeal in the [same] direction as well.
For another thing, Gov. Palin’s speech offers up rhetoric which might play well in the arenas she’s mastered before, but we have a lot of vetting, including transcripts, of what she’s been saying – and an awful lot of it is not just finessing, it’s false.
Third, Gov. Palin’s comment about community organizing not involving responsibility is plain wrong and, in my opinion, shows her to be either completely naive about what community organizing is, or [to] have a very overblown sense of what being mayor of her town involved. The community organizers I know in the Cleveland area have far greater responsibility for large numbers of individuals and goals than it seems Gov Palin believes to exist.
Which brings me to a fourth reason, which, living in Ohio, I’ve seen played out: Rural v. urban. The population centers of this country are still in the urban areas, which happen to be the areas that tend to vote Democratic and tend to have a lot of newly registered voters this year. There is absolutely nothing Gov Palin has said that would intrigue a city dweller to believe that Gov Palin knows about or cares about the urban dweller’s needs or desires. Now – maybe she does – but as a voter, what has she told us?
Fifth, her message is one that encourages people to embrace fear of what is different from themselves. How is she doing this? First, by working to reinforce how she is just like them.
Now, Obama and Biden also try to help us see how they are like us – and between the two of them, I would say they come at least close enough.
However, Gov Palin isn’t much like most working women – for one thing, the Alaska economy has no resemblance to any other state’s economy. Just in scale alone, it is very unlike many of the states. And she’s shown excrutiating little interest in getting to know, care about or understand any other state, at all.
That in itself engenders this idea that different is bad – because the state is so homogenous. The number of Jews in all of Alaska’s 660,000 residents is fewer than the number in one of the synagogues in my town.
Sixth, Palin’s attachment to religion will be exceedingly troublesome to Independents. Her stance on creationism, praying in church that God can influence legislators to get them the oil deals they want and of course reproductive rights all send up red flags.
Finally, and this is what I wrote before, Gov. Palin breaks no glass ceiling – if anything, she is moving backwards. How can that be, some might ask, since she’s being recognized as being competent enough to be the VP of the USA? Because the choice of her was a political choice – as someone else wrote and I apologize for not recalling who exactly, if Gov Palin’s first name was Stanley, the GOP would be selecting a different nominee. If they really wanted a reformer, they could have gone to Bobby Jindal or Mitt Romney. If they wanted an ethics person, they could have gone to Mike Huckabee. And if they cared about experience nearly as much as they appeared to all the time they were decrying Obama’s alleged lack of it, they would have gone to any of the other women previously named by the GOP as possibilities – Kay Bailey Hutchison or Christie Todd Whitman who I believe would have been a far more appealing candidate to the independents and moderates.
Gov Palin mentioned that the difference between the hockey mom and a pitbull is lipstick, but, as much as I’ve always hated this expression, sincerely, Gov Palin is, to me, lipstick on a pig – and the pig in this case is the GOP that has nothing of value for working women in its platform.
Thanks for your always thoughtful writing – and I hope you’ll let me know what you think of my holding firm here.
What are you thinking today? Whose miscalculating – me, or John McCain?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:15 pm September 4th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Elections, Jewish, John McCain, leadership, Ohio, Politics, Predictions, Religion, Sarah Palin, Social Issues, Vice President, Voting, WH2008 | 21 Comments
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Sep
4
Listen TODAY: WLST on BBC’s World Have Your Say, 1pm
Filed Under Blogging, Gender, Jill Miller Zimon, Media, Politics, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Vice President, WCPN/SOI, WH2008, Women | Comments Off
Here’s the link to the blog and the show and the listen live options. Locally it’s on WCPN and around the country, most stations that carry NPR will carry it. Here’s the description of the show:
Following her speech to the Republican convention, lots of you have been talking about Sarah Palin here on the blog, so today we’re going to run with it on air.
Two weeks ago no-one knew her name, now everyone has an opinion. Many Republicans love her because of her views – she’s Christian, creationist, pro-gun, anti-abortion and against gay marriage.
But she’s come in for lots of stick as well – as well as criticism of those views, she’s been accused of being inexperienced, and of being a bad mother to her five children. She’s been called a “cheerleader from the west” and a ”trophy running mate“.
Some people, including Cindy McCain and McCain campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, say that this and other criticism of Sarah Palin is sexist.
Do you think the response to Sarah Palin has been sexist? Is she being judged on her gender or her views? Do you think that her nomination is a good thing for women? What about where you are – are women politicians still treated differently?
I listen to WHYS pretty frequently and I went to its taping in 2006 or 2007 when it was in East Cleveland – it was great.
If you aren’t familiar with the show, people literally from all around the world call in and talk with other people from all around the world about a certain topic. I am really, really flattered that they called me to do it.
But there’s always the part of me that say, Hey! Is this a set up!?
Please listen and send me good juju.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:32 pm September 4th, 2008 in Blogging, Gender, Jill Miller Zimon, Media, Politics, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Vice President, WCPN/SOI, WH2008, Women | Comments Off
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