The VP's- Part 2 of the Election Series

Here is part dos of the election special focusing on VP’s.

The Selection

The first topic to really look at is how the candidates chose their running mates. Barack Obama had many great choices for VP, two of which were Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden. He ultimately went with Joe Biden, who is the head of the foreign relations committee in the Senate and could probably be President in his own right.

John McCain on the other hand went with an untested governor of Alaska. She was chosen to inject life into the McCain camp to actually get the party behind their candidate and to get the public to attack the Republicans, which is instant galvanization for the elephants. She has limited experience but is very conservative which helps shore up the Republican base. The fact that the selection has everyone scratching their head is kind of frightening to me. One of the first big decisions McCain has to make and it has half of America afraid of what could happen with this woman as President. Not the type of feeling I want from my President.

Joe Biden

I will not go into too much depth about Joe Biden, especially in the negative sense. Here is a quick guide to Joe:

Biden, 65, was elected to the U.S. Senate representing Delaware at the young age of 29. He was not old enough to hold the office on Election Day, but he turned 30 before it was time to take the oath of office. This means Biden has been a U.S. senator for close to 36 years.

Prior to his service in the Senate, Biden was a member of the New Castle County Council for two years, and he was an attorney in private practice for four years. (linkage)

Joe is not perfect in his political views for the Reaper, especially when it comes to his views on the internet and policing there of but I do feel safer with him being the VP under an Obama administration.

Sara Palin

I will not attack the amount of experience Sarah Palin has because it brings about a moot point between her and Obama. I have heard the argument that the Republicans have the ticket in the right order but when it comes down to it, McCain’s health brings about the issue and the experience this woman has becomes a much greater issue than the Republicans would have you believe.

The main label the Republicans have tied to Palin is one of reformer (obviously trying to cut into Obama’s message). However, she is being hailed as the earmark queen of Alaska.

For someone who hates earmarks, she seems to have gotten a lot of them for her small town of Wasilla. So much so that John McCain before he had even met Palin criticized her on the amount of earmarks, she actively went after with her Washington lobbyist (LA Times). This same “reformer” also billed the state of Alaska for travel expenses when she was clearly at home (312 nights to be exact) (Washington Post).

The biggest concern is her foreign policy knowledge, which was obviously put to the test in this interview:

I do not trust this woman to run my country if she cannot grasp what has been happening these last ten years. I do not buy her excuse that it is okay for her not to know because she has been busy running Alaska. When you are running for the second highest office of my country you better be damn good.

I do not want a President or Vice President I would want to have a beer with. I want the highest officials in my government to be better than me and strike fear in me when it comes to how much more they know about the world and my own country. I seem to know more about Sarah Palin when it comes to United States History and foreign events, which scares the hell out of me. Maybe it is just that she has not shown her true knowledge yet but I do not have time for her to show me something she should have command of right now.

Matt Damon sums up the Palin rise perfectly:

:: GR Out::

to have doubted one's own first principles, is the mark of a civilized man. ~oliver wendell holmes~