Sarah Palin

I decided I wasn't going to video blog about this one, because it's nice to actually type thoughts out once in awhile, although nothing replaces the act of physically writing something out.

I'm voting Democrat this November, and was a big Clinton supporter before Hillary's speech at the Convention, and I'm now supporting Obama.

When Obama came out and said "Families are off-limits, especially children," and then mentioned that his mother was 18 when he was born, I thought to myself "You know, he's right, let's just judge the candidates on their own merits."

Sarah Palin, however, CHOOSES to use her Down's Syndrome child, Trig, as a political prop. She wields that poor child like a weapon against liberals, and it’s sad. Bristol continues to be a news story because Sarah Palin has supported an abstinence-only education program and cut funding to help educate teens about pregnancy, yet continues to parade her in front of the camera with her shiny new wedding ring. 5-year old Piper was put in broad view of the camera, holding baby Trig and kissing his head. Don't tell me that it's unfair to get into family issues and then use your family and their stories, like Track shipping off to Iraq on 9/11 and your nephew Casey serving in the Persian Gulf, to shore up your political base and then bemoan the invasive "biased liberal media".

Sarah Palin is a power-hungry, dangerous woman who uses her gender as a shield when it’s convenient and as a battering ram when it’s not, firing those around her who don't support her political aspirations and scratching and clawing her way to what she perceives is her place at the table. She fired a state trooper who was divorcing a member of her family; she is currently the subject of an ethics investigation in Alaska about that case. She decried Hillary Clinton's claims of media sexism, saying that it made women look bad, yet on a radio show, Sarah Palin laughed when a major political opponent of hers was called a bitch, and a cancer (Palin's opponent is a cancer survivor), and laughed again when a joke was made about her opponent's weight. She talks about Hillary Clinton making women look bad, and then laughs when a man insults a woman live on a radio show not once but three times. Palin had the audacity to use the momentum of the Clinton campaign to try to divide and conquer the still on-the-fence Clinton supporters by talking about the 18 million cracks in the highest and hardest glass ceiling, but has done nothing to further the rights of women, aligning herself against women's reproductive rights and a solid educational program that teaches responsibility to young men and women.

The proof is in Sarah Palin's pudding. A woman from Alaska who has governed for 2 years is not qualified to be the President, or even the Vice President. She might be what Alaska needed, but she is NOT what America needs. I do not trust a woman to reform Washington if she has never worked there. Her mother-in-law said that even she wasn't sure why Sarah had been asked to join the ticket. Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan and Bush speech writer said the Palin pick was "political bullsh*t", and Mike Murphy, a McCain Campaign adviser, said that choosing Sarah Palin was "gimmicky".

Sarah Palin delivers a great speech, with all the talking points the McCain campaign could get her to memorize in a week, but John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin is the WORST kind of pandering, and the fact that she can play into that pandering and deliberately target women is sickening.

Sarah Palin is NO Hillary Clinton, and any claim she makes to be a legitimate contender for a political office is laughable. She's John McCain's Flavor-of-the-Month and nothing more. Oh, and she's pretty. Lest I leave that out. Sarah Palin might be a hockey mom, but I’m a hockey player and I’m not buying the act.