Thus revealed, the creature buried its nose in the tire-tilled soil...
August 29, 2008
More Veep Stuff
Category: Dreams … Serious

First, to answer Becky's comment on the last post, my dream never did give me a definite confirmation on who Obama's actual VP pick was -- there were just lots of names out there due to the psychic paper. My own note indicated Kathleen Sebelius, since I was kind of hoping he'd pick her (I really like her record, and picking her would have served as a preemptive measure against McCain picking a female running mate to lure disaffected Hillary supporters)... but she was so damned dull at the convention that I'm glad Obama didn't go with her. In waking life, I actually expected him to bite the bullet and pick Clinton -- even with the change argument, he could easily have justified the pick by saying that this election is also about the people. And you can't deny that whole heck of a lot of them wanted Hillary!

Regarding McCain's actual pick -- after Obama didn't pick Hillary, and given McCain's ads about his choice, and especially given how hard the Dems hit McCain on his less-than-female-friendly record this week, I kinda figured he'd pick a woman for his running mate. I doubted it would be Sarah Palin, what with her being under investigation for corruption and all, but eh. Anyway, I pretty much agree with the general consensus -- choosing Palin is a gamble with fairly unpredictable results. It clearly seems like McCain is pandering to female voters by selecting a woman as his VP (especially since there are a number of more qualified Republican women), but given my low opinion of the public I'm not sure whether disgruntled Clinton voters will be energized or offended.

I also think this shifts quite a bit more responsibility to Biden and Clinton. If the latter comes right out and picks the woman apart when campaigning for Obama, then it's less likely that her supporters will fall for the trick. If Biden destroys Palin in the debate (without coming across as a woman-hating bully), McCain will really be in trouble. If she even remotely comes close to holding her own, though, that could lend her quite a bit of credibility.

If I had a higher opinion of the voting public, I'd think McCain just threw the election -- but since I don't, this pick leaves me a little worried.

-posted by Wes | 6:46 pm | Comments (3)
3 Comments »
  • Jersey Girl says:

    I hope that Clinton supporters will not be blinded by the fact that what's-her-name is female. The women who supported Clinton tended to be more liberal, obviously, and this woman is ultra-conservative. She is anti-choice, anti-gay and comes with a built in scandal. The ONLY thing she has in common with Clinton is gender. I think McCain figured a woman would win over the Clinton voters who can't get over the fact that she lost, but, I can't imagine that this is the woman to do it. At least, I hope not. My first thought ways "Wow, he must really want to lose!" but like you, I have no faith that the voting public will do the right thing. I'm nervous.

  • dave says:

    Notice how the "government is bad" conservatives are rushing to her defense on the basis of the word of a govenrment official (McCain et al) without even having a few days themselves to even read up?

  • Becky says:

    There's no way that Obama could've picked Clinton for VP -- she would've been trying to undermine him the entire time and would already be campaining for office for 2016. One woman that came to mind for me was Kay Bailey Hutchison, since shes' a little more moderate, but some of the newscasters were saying that she and McCain don't get along.

Reply to Becky!