gop | Multiple Enthusiasms

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October 24, 2008

By now I’m sure we’ve all heard that the Republican campaign spent $150,000 on new clothes for Sarah Palin on her being named as McCain’s running mate. Here’s the LA Times commenting on it (link via It’s All One Thing).

I’m more surprised people are surprised by this. By Republican standards, $150,000 is an absolute bargain, considering it’s roughly half what Cindy McCain’s RNC outfit cost.

It’s become apparently newsworthy enough that the GOP is issuing statements concerning it. McCain says she needed new clothing, I guess either because she didn’t have enough, as governor of Alaska, or because everything she owned was maternity wear. They also claim all the clothes will be donated back to charity, by which I suppose they mean PUMA for Hockey Moms or somesuchlike.

To be honest, I don’t care, though I do so enjoy the fact that during the midst of an economic crisis verging on absolute collapse, John McCain can’t keep track of how many homes he earns and Sarah Palin spends very nearly more in a few weeks on clothing than I have so far earned during my entire professional career (and I’m 30. Which probably says a lot about my professional career, or sometimes lack thereof). The only thing I care about is that she’s a total hypocrite. Because here’s the Yahoo! news story in which she denies the rumors and then says that:

It’s kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported.

Which reminded me a lot of this video:

From back in March when she “offered Hillary Clinton advice on how to campaign” by criticizing Clinton for a “perceived whine.”

Please may this woman disappear just as quickly as she appeared in the first place.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go early vote. And by ‘early vote,’ I mean cast my ballot for “that one.” And by “that one,” I mean Barack Obama.

October 6, 2008

Right now, Colorado is split right down the middle between Obama and McCain. It’s a dead heat at 44% of voters each, which is why Palin was in Englewood the other day accusing Barack Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists,” the best evidence she has of which is the fistbump Obama once gave his wife and the fact that Obama barely knows some guy who did something when Obama was, like, 8 years old.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all, of course, and right now I’m not sure there’s anyone in America more desperate than the two people on the GOP ticket.

I get people who support John McCain, though, I’ll admit. I did once, too, long, long ago before he let Bush win the GOP primary back in 1999. Before then, I would have said he seemed like a good guy, and I’d like to see him come along after Bill Clinton. The world would be a much different place if we were currently ending a McCain administration instead of a Bush administration, and I’d wager, in fact, that alternate history wouldn’t have led us to such a bleak and very real present, with its economic crises, illegal espionage, and unjust wars. Back in 1999, McCain seemed like the kind of guy who would have told the world on September 12th, 2001, that we had been struck by terrorists and would respond swiftly and surely, and then, you know, responded to the right country.

But that’s not who John McCain is anymore. He’s erratic. He seems to want to believe that America can restores its international image simply by bombing more countries. He doesn’t understand the economic crisis, not in any real way; no one who would lose track of the number of houses his family owns could really grok the mortgage crisis.

So I get people who support him, I think, because they’re supporting who he used to be rather than what he’s done since and what he’s running on, now, and really, who wouldn’t like to go back to 1999? Well. Okay, I wouldn’t, but 2000-2001 would be nice, certainly. I’d dig it.

August 31, 2008

Have you heard the rumor about Sarah Palin’s youngest child, Trig?

I hadn’t until this morning, when I caught it via MightyGodKing.

Apparently, there’s a rumor Trig Palin might, in fact, be the child of Bristol Palin, Sarah’s oldest daughter.

Some of the details certainly make one wonder.

The official version of the story seems to be that Palin’s water broke while she was in Texas, at which time she flew back home to Alaska to give birth to her youngest child. If she did so, I’m relatively certain she would have had to take a private jet; commercial airlines prohibit women more than 8 months pregnant from flying.

But let’s say they made an exception because she’s governess of Alaska.

Still, her oldest daughter, Bristol, had been removed from her school for 4 to 5 months already, with a “prolonged case of mono.”

The other thing is that, even according to the Anchorage Daily News, when she announced in March that she was 7 months along, she “simply [didn’t] look pregnant”. She claims to have disguised it well.

The Moderate Voice vets both Palin and the story here.

I’m not convinced it’s true, but then, I’m not convinced it matters, either. I thought she was both batshit crazy and less than qualified for the gig before I heard any of the above rumors, and I still do. I think this whole back-and-forth argument between GOP supporters and McCain Democrats and PUMA supporters on one hand and Obama supporters on the other is silly, because I don’t think experience has very much to do with one’s ability to get a job done. Obama and Palin are, arguably, on equal level concerning experience, but Obama’s qualification vastly outpace Palin’s, and I think that’s what counts. Obama was the Illinois senator, and as such participated in national policy; Palin is governor of a state whose population is less than Brooklyn’s and may have participated in regional policy, there in Alaska, but isn’t Alaska a bit of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind state, anyway? People note it’s the largest, but Manhattan is more populous and impressive, no?

If it is true, however, I wonder if it plays into her anti-women’s rights beliefs. Keeping secret one’s daughter’s teenage pregnancy and then adopting the child as one’s own while actively concealing the entire thing seems somehow related to the “let’s all sweep sexuality under the rug, because the only real way to educate teenagers is to teach them abstinence. We won’t acknowledge sex education, we won’t dispense condoms to populations that might use them, and we will consistently teach that sex and its consequences are utterly shameful” belief system many fetus-rights activists seem to share.

What do you think? Would it make a difference, if true?

June 19, 2008

I think I make it pretty clear I don’t know a whole lot about the intricacies of the political system (even if that’s never stopped me from opining about the candidates therein). I say that because I just read this article in the New York Times, which concerns Obama and his decision to opt out of the public campaign financing system, about which I have little clue. The article states it goes back to 1976 and the Watergate scandal, and also that:

Under the federal presidential financing system, a candidate this year would be given $84.1 million from the Treasury to finance a general election campaign. In exchange, the candidate is barred from accepting private donations, or from spending more than the $84.1 million.

The next paragraph notes that Obama raised more than that limit in February and March alone, so I’d kind of think it would behoove him to not get into it. I mean, if the difference is that he could spend $84 million publicly, or twice that privately . . . well, it’s well known I ain’t no maths major, but it seems a no-brainer.

What bugs me is that the article gives two paragraphs to what McCain’s advisors think of the decision (spoiler: they’re not happy and think Obama suxors. Because they, of course, want to beat him and will use any opportunity to badmouth him). What also bugs me is that the article doesn’t actually comment on what this means.

And while I’m not sure what it means, or what effects it might have on the election process, what I wonder about is that latter itself. Because the article states his decision comes because the financing system is “broken;” as 2000 demonstrated, so is the election process itself.

Of course, Obama can’t just outright declare himself above the election process and the new, like, Emperor of America (our last was Norton. Seriously. Awesome story. Look it up).

But what I like about Obama most is that it’s neat to think he might. Maybe somebody should just toss a sword at him the next time he’s by a large-ish body of water. Quick, get on that!

Multiple Enthusiasms

Infinite jest. Excellent fancy. Flashes of merriment.

Tag: gop