[quote]pushharder wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
Look, I may have misspoken. Guess it doesn’t pay to be too forthcoming around here.
Nobody’s upbringing is a disqualification from office. Nobody’s private lifestyle is a qualification. Regardless of that, the subjective factor does matter to people. It helped Palin among her supporters and hurt her among her detractors. It helped Bush and hurt Kerry in 2004. It’s not a very high-minded way to pick politicians, but that’s psychology for you. And I was admitting that it mattered a little to me. I do try to get beyond that in general.
And, at any rate, I don’t have a problem with humble origins.
I agree that Lincoln would have stood out head and shoulders above the other candidates. He was the closest thing to an abolitionist that national politics was going to see, and he was visibly a moral and intelligent man. Experience meant something different then anyhow, as the US was less involved in foreign policy, and publicity was very different. It’s not that one term in Congress or one term as governor isn’t enough – I think it can be enough. But a national candidate has to spend time reading up on the issues and preparing for media coverage; Palin simply didn’t have enough of that kind of time.
The thing that really condemns Palin in my book isn’t really her lack of knowledge. Anyone suddenly thrust in the national spotlight will be a newbie at first. Now, I don’t entirely buy this as an excuse - I’m pretty sure any random mid-level blogger knows more about foreign policy than she does - but it’s understandable.
It’s that, having had her ignorance exposed, she did absolutely nothing to correct it. One of the most damning stories bits in that Vanity Fair article talks about how the McCain campaign sent over squads of aides to desperately attempt to get her up to speed, and she largely blew them off, or just sort of moped to herself while they tried to teach her. And nothing she’s said since the election has given any indication that she’s improved at all. It amazed me that during the Couric interview she couldn’t name a single newspaper that she read. Not a stock respectable conservative paper like the Journal or the Washington Times? Not the goddamn Anchorage Daily News? Nothing? That’s an embarrassment, to herself and to her supporters.
Together with this, she has a tendency to avoid things that don’t go well for her. Good politicians understand the art of compensating for a bad media appearance. Nixon learned the value of stage-makeup and grooming after the 1960 Kennedy debate. Bill Clinton, after giving an awful speech at the 1988 DNC, went on Letterman, kidded himself, played the sax and repaired much of the damage. But after Palin had a few embarrassing interviews, she decided to ignore the media entirely. Avoiding interviews - even with a sympathetic outlet like the WSJ, say, or the National Journal - is not a trait that a serious would-be-national-politician should have.
To sum up what you think about Palin: “She is not a very good politician.”
And therein lies her appeal.
Shitarooski, that was easy. Do not quit your day job just to try out for a major league pitching position.
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Her appeal as a candidate for political office?
We could debate whether being a bad “politician” is an objectively bad characteristic in a candidate. I say it is, romantic Bullworth-type fantasies notwithstanding, because someone without political instincts cannot get anything done.
But being ignorant, being willfully ignorant, priding herself on that ignorance and refusing to remove her ignorance, were pretty much inexcusable characteristics in her.