Worse Than Quayle

[yesthattom]

Daily Kos has a great article about McCain’s trainwreck of a VP selection
My favorite quotes...

The Palin pick takes a race already leaning toward Obama and pushes it further into his corner.

Why? Because Sarah Palin is the most unqualified VP nominee in modern history, with the possible exception of Admiral Stockdale.

She’s worse than Quayle.

After his selection in 1988, Dan Quayle was rightly lambasted as a dim, inexperienced lightweight with no real pertinent experience who was named by George H. W. Bush as a gimmick - a case of an old, out-of touch candidate trying to appear relevant by teaming up with a much younger pol.

...

We’re told that McCain really wanted to pick his old friend Joe Lieberman to run with him, but that Karl Rove and the rest of the elite Republican politburo nixed the idea, and told McCain that he had to take a conservative. And as he has at every step of his campaign, the one-time “maverick” sold out to the venal, icy core of the Republican leadership

...

Palin lacks any foreign policy experience, and is bereft of even the two core areas of policy expertise that governors are supposed to bring to a ticket -- agriculture policy (Alaska doesn’t have ... agriculture) and urban affairs ([Alaska doesn’t have any]). ... She’s easily the least experienced running mate in recent memory, which is pretty scary, given McCain’s age and his history of cancer.

...

He’s smeared himself with the pungent mud of Alaska Republican corruption.

...

We all expected McCain to pick someone underwhelming to run with him. But we never could have expected a pick worse than Quayle. Yet that’s what we got. Thanks, John!

Comments

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Sure, we can hit their ticket on experience. But frankly, I think it's the best choice he could have made: he appeals both to his base (which Romney would have turned off) and to disaffected PUMAs (which might not constitute a large portion of the Democratic votership, but in close states, you don't need a large portion). Palin's selection worries me a lot.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

She's a tremendous risk. When people actually pay attention to Obama, the 'not ready' attack loses all its punch. But when they pat attention to Palin, it's very likely to stick.

She has a lot of attributes that could help McCain, if everything goes right. But that kind of risk is not something a confident campaign would do. Regardless of whether it was a good tactical pick in their situation, I'm much more sure now that the McCain camp believes it's playing desperate catch-up.

[mangosteen]

I'd be very curious about your opinion on the following (complementary and alternate) analysis of the VP pick:

http://jeffpaulsen.livejournal.com/128570.html#cutid1

(Note: It's not "PALIN IS AWSUMMMMM", but rather a few really good reasons McCain picked Palin, that have nothing to do with swaying Democratic votes.)

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

She's a threat to Obama, that's for sure. McCain wasn't getting the RNC wacko support that Palin will draw in. It's going to help him a lot. However, it is going to hurt him too.

[seasings.livejournal.com]

Sadly, she's pretty hot.

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

And, sadly, there is a portion of the shallow electorate who will vote for this ticket for that reason alone. As a matter of fact, I talked to one of them today o_O

[disappearinjon.livejournal.com]

The way I see it, McCain has nominated the VP candidate with the least name recognition since Dan Quayle, and the least political experience since Spiro Agnew.