In that alternate reality Up North, Gov. Sarah Palin is back home with her new fame and wardrobe, while Ted Stevens seems to have won reelection to his Senate seat.
The careers of Alaska's two media stars have been intertwined since before Palin emerged and ran for the state house in 2006, and the conjunction will clearly continue.
Senate Republicans, anxious to escape the past and look to the future, would undoubtedly pressure the 84-year-old convicted felon to step aside to let Palin run for the seat in a special election early next year.
That would pose a slight problem for John McCain's running mate, who attained national stature without showing any knowledge whatsoever about substantive issues. As a senator, she would be a politician, to quote her convention speech, "with actual responsibilities" to know what's involved in proposed legislation and cast votes.
But her admirers at the National Review and Weekly Standard would be happy to supply tutelage, and it would be hard for Palin to resist the spotlight and remain frozen in Juneau.
As she told Rush Limbaugh, she is not bothered by the pesky attentions of the mainstream media: "Well, yeah, I guess that message is they do want me to sit down and shut up. But that's not going to happen. I care too much about this great country."
In his concession speech last night, McCain called Palin "an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength" and in Washington she would have much more occasion to wear the designer clothes that Republican contributors bought for her.
Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Will McCain Play the Gender Card?
With disaffected Clinton supporters still vowing to stay home or vote for him, John McCain must be tempted to give them another reason to come aboard by picking Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.
From a look at her political history, the 44-year-old "Northern Exposure" chief executive would bring more than token womanhood to the ticket. With approval ratings in the 80-90 percent range, Palin is seen, in the words of NPR, as "a moose-burger-eating, snow-mobile-riding maverick who's not afraid to take on fellow Republicans she disagrees with," including distancing herself from the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
At the same time, she is adored by the Religious Right as the mother of five, the eldest of whom joined the Army at 18 last year and the youngest a Down's Syndrome baby she refused to abort, and as a hunting, fishing lifetime member of the NRA.
With her beauty pageant looks and background in journalism, Palin would enliven the Republican campaign and bring them an activist on the key issue of energy, providing a tireless young partner for McCain's claims of change in Washington.
Unrequited Hillary Clinton supporters, still fighting for recognition at the Democratic convention, would face a bitter irony in Sarah Palin as a potential vice-president. In the light of McCain's age, a Republican victory this year could eventually make the first woman in the White House a president who would appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v Wade and restore the era of back-alley abortions.
If McCain decides to play the gender card, he will be forcing Democrats to overcome their differences, to put up or shut up by making party unity a reality rather than a slogan.
From a look at her political history, the 44-year-old "Northern Exposure" chief executive would bring more than token womanhood to the ticket. With approval ratings in the 80-90 percent range, Palin is seen, in the words of NPR, as "a moose-burger-eating, snow-mobile-riding maverick who's not afraid to take on fellow Republicans she disagrees with," including distancing herself from the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
At the same time, she is adored by the Religious Right as the mother of five, the eldest of whom joined the Army at 18 last year and the youngest a Down's Syndrome baby she refused to abort, and as a hunting, fishing lifetime member of the NRA.
With her beauty pageant looks and background in journalism, Palin would enliven the Republican campaign and bring them an activist on the key issue of energy, providing a tireless young partner for McCain's claims of change in Washington.
Unrequited Hillary Clinton supporters, still fighting for recognition at the Democratic convention, would face a bitter irony in Sarah Palin as a potential vice-president. In the light of McCain's age, a Republican victory this year could eventually make the first woman in the White House a president who would appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v Wade and restore the era of back-alley abortions.
If McCain decides to play the gender card, he will be forcing Democrats to overcome their differences, to put up or shut up by making party unity a reality rather than a slogan.
Friday, August 03, 2007
All at Sea in D.C. and Alaska
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Karl Rove’s aide, J. Scott Jennings, used a maritime metaphor in declining to answer questions:
"I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation," he said. "It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise."
Very literary, but Sen. Pat Leahy, the Committee Chairman, was not charmed. "Mr. Jennings, I am not here to play games," he warned.
Jennings’ reference to a “pleasure cruise” may have been the final straw for Leahy’s frustration over not getting answers from the White House about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
But, while he and others in the political mainstream are sweltering in Washington, denizens of the Far Left and Hard Right are on actual pleasure cruises, enjoying temperate weather off the coast of Alaska.
Devotees of the Nation and the National Review are out there this week on separate but equal Holland America luxury ships, attending seminars and demonizing one another in first-class style at a cost topping out at $9489 for NR and $8657 for the Nation’s plebians.
Their schedules have been cunningly arranged to avert a possible Monitor-Merrimac kind of naval engagement, missing each other by a day in ports of calls such as Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan.
Stars for the left-leaning sailors are Ralph Nader, actor-activist Richard Dreyfuss and former CBS news producer Mary Mapes, who was terminated after a to-do over a segment about George Bush’s National Guard service in 2004. Regaling the right are such charmers as John Bolton, Robert Bork and Dick Morris.
As they bloviate in cool comfort, no wonder that those like Leahy who are laboring in steamy Washington are getting a little testy. Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and the whole Bush crew are still sailing along, untouched.
"I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation," he said. "It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise."
Very literary, but Sen. Pat Leahy, the Committee Chairman, was not charmed. "Mr. Jennings, I am not here to play games," he warned.
Jennings’ reference to a “pleasure cruise” may have been the final straw for Leahy’s frustration over not getting answers from the White House about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
But, while he and others in the political mainstream are sweltering in Washington, denizens of the Far Left and Hard Right are on actual pleasure cruises, enjoying temperate weather off the coast of Alaska.
Devotees of the Nation and the National Review are out there this week on separate but equal Holland America luxury ships, attending seminars and demonizing one another in first-class style at a cost topping out at $9489 for NR and $8657 for the Nation’s plebians.
Their schedules have been cunningly arranged to avert a possible Monitor-Merrimac kind of naval engagement, missing each other by a day in ports of calls such as Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan.
Stars for the left-leaning sailors are Ralph Nader, actor-activist Richard Dreyfuss and former CBS news producer Mary Mapes, who was terminated after a to-do over a segment about George Bush’s National Guard service in 2004. Regaling the right are such charmers as John Bolton, Robert Bork and Dick Morris.
As they bloviate in cool comfort, no wonder that those like Leahy who are laboring in steamy Washington are getting a little testy. Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and the whole Bush crew are still sailing along, untouched.
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