nemokc's Blog

The '08 election is one that can best be categorized as a debate on experience versus wisdom.   Sen. McCain insists that he has the experience to lead him to make the best choices for America's future.   He says he will put country first.     Sen. Obama says he has the wisdom to make the best choices for America.   He too is looking out for our country.    Both sides then fill the media airwaves with political campaigning that may or may not be truthful or accurate.  This is politics.    

The day after the election one of these men will then begin a new process.   That of governing.    Governing has little to do with election politics.   It is a pragmatic exercise filled with real choices that often are decided by degrees of wrong!   For example, it is wrong to risk our ecology by offshore drilling but it is also wrong to wreck the economy by not drilling.   Both choices are bad.   The wise political leader has to find the least wrong answer when forced to govern the country.

 Our job as American voters should be to look past the politics and decide who can best govern our country for the next four years.   Unfortunately for us, there is only one presidential decision that shows the ability of a candidate to govern and that is his/her selection of a vice-president.     This is an awesome responsibility.    Every American voting in a primary helps to "vet" a presidential candidate.   But the Vice-President is the choice of only one person.   And it is the responsibility of the candidate to choose someone ready to take over for the president on day one!   This was a point that McCain has stressed throughout the campaign repeatedly because of fears about his age.

 Sen. Obama chose a Washington 'insider" much to the dismay of many (myself included...I wanted Gen. Wesley Clark).    The Conservatives claimed it proved he KNEW he had no foreign policy expertise and that was the reason for his choice.   The Liberals claimed it would lose him the election because he didn't choose Sen. Clinton.      She would have been a good political choice.   She's proved she's a great "attack dog".   Eighteen million Americans supported her candidacy and those are much needed votes.  But Obama picked Biden.    Why?    I don't know for sure, but several things said by the Senator in passing have led me to believe that Biden was not a political choice but a pragmatic governing choice.    You see, Sen. Obama wants to change a lot of things in this country.    But while anyone can promise change...you have to be able to get those changes through the same old Congress we've always had.    That's the real importance of Biden as a Vice-President.    After all his years in the Senate, I doubt that there are many bodies he DOESN'T know the burial site of.   

 Sen. McCain chose Alaska Governor Palin as his running mate.    She was introduced to us by Sen. McCain as a running mate who practiced his brand of fiscal responsibility; she turned down "earmarks" like the Legendry Bridge to Nowhere.   She was honest and dependable (with an 80+% favorability rating in Alaska).   She fights corruption and cuts taxes.   And besides, he had met her and "they were soul mates".    That was last Friday.

Over the past week we have found out more about Gov. Palin.   And I'm not talking about the gossipy silliness that the media has focused on.   I don't care that she shoots caribou with her child, I don't care that her unwed daughter is pregnant, I don't care if she had an affair, I don't care that she smoked pot, I don't care about the care of her infant, I don't care that her minister has made inflammatory statements.   Those are private matters that she and her family will deal with in the same manner that the rest of us deal with them for good or ill.

 This is what I care about concerning Gov. Palin:

 1)     Yes she cancelled the Bridge to Nowhere....but kept the money for other projects.   This doesn't strike me as particularly honest campaigning.

 2)     There was also a road being built to the Bridge to Nowhere.   You would think that when the Bridge was cancelled that the road would have been as well.  Nope, cancelling the road would have returned our tax dollars to Washington.   So they kept building a road to a Bridge that now would never exist.    This is not an example of fiscal responsibility or honesty.

 3)    As Mayor of Wasilla she hired a lobbying firm to obtain "earmarks" from the Federal Government for her city.   These included $500,000 for a public transit project, $1,000,000 for an Emergency Communications Center (which local law enforcement called "redundant") and $450,000 for an Agricultural Processing Center.   The interesting part of this is that all three projects were used by John McCain as examples of "pork" in the federal budget in 2001.

 4)    Her foreign policy experience has been proclaimed as acceptable because Alaska's nearest neighbor is Russia by Cindy McCain!    (Huh???   I lived in the same neighborhood as a Chinese immigrant, but I don't claim expertise in dealing with the Chinese.)

 5)    Alaskan's questioning her qualifications for Vice-President includes two major Alaskan newspapers and her own mother-in-law.

 6)   She was the first mayor of Wasilla (pop. 5,000 at that time) to need a City Manager to help manage the city.  (Add $60,000 per year to the Wasilla budget.)

 7)   She did cut property taxes in Wasilla.   She also raised sales tax to offset the loss of property taxes.   (This means that the renter who lives paycheck to paycheck no longer pays property tax but pays more for the food his family eats.   But the man who owns the home of the renter doesn't have to pay property tax.)

 8)   She inherited a city that was debt free before her election but was $22 million dollars in the red when she left it.  (In fairness, $15 million of this was for a sports center that was built on property that the city did not even have clear title to.   Seven years later it is still in litigation.)

 9)   She is loved by the citizens of the state because she has sent out checks from state oil revenues.   (But while she has returned the state's surplus funds to the citizens, she has borrowed money for Alaskan roads.   Huh?)

 10)  And while she may fight some corruption, there has been a variety of complaints about her trying to stall an ethics investigation that is being pursued against her.   The state of Alaska has offered to fly a representative anywhere in the country to speak with her...but she is too busy campaigning.   (Wouldn't it be nice to see if she was guilty before we put her a heartbeat away from the presidency?)

 So why was she selected as Vice-President?   According to McCain, they are "soulmates".    (I hope he has better eyesight when he looked into her eyes than Bush did with Putin!)    According to McCain's own campaign manager it's because of her story & personality.   Issues are irrelevant!

I have to question the wisdom of John McCain in the selection of his running mate, regardless of the experience he professes.   Simply put, I don't want Sarah Palin being a 72 year old heart beat away from the presidency of my country.   She's a nice lady.   She reminds me of a lot of people I know personally.    But none of the people I know personally would make a good president.   Why would she?   And what does it say about Sen. McCain that he would make such an important choice based solely on the assumption that she would solidify the evangelical base? 

Senator McCain, you may be experienced but your choice of running mate raises questions about your wisdom!