DUers may be underestimating Palin as much as they underestimated McCain

[highplainsdem]

And you don't win elections by underestimating opponents.

What WE think of Palin is irrelevant. What matters is what people who are at all likely to vote for McCain will think of her.

I've been checking Google News and channel-surfing, and conservatives seem pretty happy with her. Here's one example, calling her a "dream VP candidate":

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/29/INA312IIVL.DTL


She is NOT "Dan Quayle in a dress." Nor is she comparable to George Bush. They were both born into families with wealth and political influence. She became governor despite being born to middle-class parents. If you think this woman is as dumb as Dan Quayle or W, you're kidding yourself.

And she's a very popular governor.

I DON'T want her to be our vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency. I don't think she's experienced enough, and I can't stand her positions on the issues.

I find it hard to believe she'd get many former Clinton supporters to vote for her, with her political beliefs.

But what I'm reading and hearing tonight, trying to figure out conservatives' reaction, suggests that the choice we're ridiculing as desperate may have been a very smart one for McCain.

He would never have been able to get away with picking a pro-choice running mate, after all.

The men who were being mentioned as possible running mates were, all of them, pretty boring. The media reaction would have been a collective yawn.

Choosing Palin stole media attention from Obama's speech, which probably would have been getting a full weekend of coverage as the main story if Romney or Pawlenty had been chosen.

It's still way too early to tell how this choice will affect the polls.

But I would like all of you to keep in mind that despite the nonstop ridiculing of John McCain in this forum -- and how much we hate his stance on the issues -- it's been a close race so far. I've seen DUers post countless times that they just can't understand the polls. It's because our opinion of McCain doesn't matter to the voters he's appealing to.

I wouldn't be surprised if I hear from people who tell me I'm wrong on this and Palin will doom McCain's campaign.

I pointed out that Housegate wasn't going to help us against McCain (I'd checked Google News then, too, and discovered that the people most likely to vote for McCain didn't see anything wrong with his wife being wealthy). I was right about that.

I told you I was concerned that Obama choosing anyone other than Clinton as his running mate could mean a dip in the polls, and it did -- at least temporarily. Thank God we're now finally seeing a bounce from the convention and the Clintons' rousing speeches endorsing Obama, and Michelle's amazing speech, and we should see even more of a bounce from Barack's incredible speech last night.

I can't be certain now how Palin will affect McCain's chances. But at this point I don't think she hurt him, and she may very well help.

And if we try to ridicule her as "Dan Quayle in a dress" or dismiss her as a "bimbo" -- at least if we're saying anything undecided voters will be paying attention to (rather than preaching to the choir here) -- it's likely to backfire. It sounds misogynistic and contemptuous of women. And that is not a smart thing for us to do this year.

I was glad to see Obama distance himself from his campaign's first contemptuous reaction to the news about Palin. And Clinton, too, gave a polite, and politically astute, response.

I wish more DUers would follow suit.

[musette_sf]

1. Debra Saunders is a well-known Repuke ass kisser

and Sarah Palin = Harriet Miers.

that is all.

[PM7nj]

2. I am still unsure about her.

I can't see her helping McCain tremendously but I am not sure she will bring him down. We'll have to wait and see.

[Danger Mouse]

3. It doesn't matter what DUer's do, it matters what Obama does...

and he will make the right moves.
He's good.

[JohnnyLib2]

11. Key point.

He's the leader. I'm watching for the timing and the phrasing that he uses and suspect it will be a LOT more astute than the ranting today.

[Danger Mouse]

15. His campaign staff is nothing short of brillaint. They'll go easy on Palin...

but let Biden rip her a new one in the debates.
She'll be plagued by scandal right up to election day. They'll hit her on the 'heartbeat away from Commander-in-chief' point. This is her weak spot, THEIR weak spot, and they won't have an effective answer for it.

[Neecy]

4. it's impossible to underestimate her

The first duty of a presidential candidate is to ensure his/her VP pick is qualified to be president of the United States. Period. Take away her moonbat policy positions and this one stark fact - she isn't qualified to run this country - is going to resonate with anyone who isn't a hardcore conservative. He's lost the independents and probably 90% of the suburban vote with this pick.

[Danger Mouse]

5. She'll appeal to soccer moms and some suburbanites, I think.

Remember, style counts for a lot. Substance often gets ignored.

[Awsi Dooger]

13. Undoubtedly

We've already underestimated her, based on threads today. It's hilarious that posters who never heard of her 24 hours ago automatically assume she's of no value to McCain.

Palin got a huge percentage of the undecideds in her '06 primary, and she won by 7.6% vs. Knowles when the polls had it considerably closer. Recently she's had approval ratings in the 90s until the publicized troubles.

It's a cynical pick that a female VP nominee can grap a small percentage of women voters who otherwise might have favored Obama or stayed home. In other words, it's exactly what McCain had to do, some type of game-changing roll of the dice.

Did we really expect him to sit on his 35-40% theoretical likelihood and be happy about it. :rofl:

[Danger Mouse]

16. Don't get me wrong, it's still a terrible pick. She's got some good points...

but her bad points will become more glaring as time wears on.

[CK_John]

19. She is old enough and a natural born citizen, That's all that required. Everything above that is

personal bias.

Policies, plans, position papers are nothing but bs (or political theater).

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

6. I agree with what your saying. Underestimated your opponent is fatal.

Luckily, Obama's folks are solid. McKeating5 made a decent play today politically. In the end though I think that it's a wash, but we'll see.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Why aren't you nominating, commenting and kicking on the threads

where DUers are finding real stories about her.

Rather than posting this downer crap?

[Occam Bandage]

8. She isn't Dan Quayle in a dress. She's just Dan Quayle.

Yeah, she managed to become a young governor. Quayle managed to become a young Congressman. Both were picked for their looks and youth.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Ohmigosh...highplainsdem posts yet another very concerned post about Obama

What a shock.

Who do you want to win this election, highplainsdem?

[tekisui]

23. That's the question in my mind.

[Arugula Latte]

28. Yeah, really. Highplainsdem is very concerned for our chances...

How consistently thoughtful of highplainsdem, huh? :eyes:

[BeyondGeography]

10. But not nearly as much as you have underestimated Obama

[RichGirl]

12. This was a desperate attempt to save himself.

He's a weak candidate, running on a hopeless platform. More to the point though is: I will not underestimate the stupidity of the American voter. We can never become complacent or over confident. We all need to work as if Obama is 10 points behind.

[Arkana]

14. Oh boy, it's you again with your special, noxious brand of concern trolling.

Good lord.

[GoesTo11]

17. Pragmatically, we may as well give her the benefit of the doubt

If she sucks as much as it looks like she might, she'll show it to us in good time, and we're better off for assuming the best and having the McCain-Palin ticket's destruction in this regard be self-inflicted so that it will be more complete. If she's really fairly bright and has pretty good political instincts, then treating her like a lightweight will totally backfire, whereas treating her as reasonably competent and continuing to focus on McCain and the Iraq war and the economy, judgment and temperament, we will make good progress in that direction.

[City67]

18. This was unexpected

I read conservative as well as progressive forums and blogs and this choice of Gov Palin as the Rep VP candidate has energized conservatives that would not have even considered voting for McCain. I have read many many posts where conservatives fed up with the GOP are ecstatic about this pick. I think the Libertarian candidate just lost a lot of votes from disgruntled conservatives that were fed up with Bushco and saw McCain as more of the same. The next couple of weeks are going to be very interesting.

[WinkyDink]

20. "you don't win elections by underestimating opponents"~~~Great advice....for McCAIN.

[iconicgnom]

21. DUer's underestimated McCain? What, how many depends he goes thru' per day?

[depakid]

22. Oh boy, here come the usual sycophants

Some of whom despite their purported education sometimes seem dumber than a sack of rocks... and eager to prove it.

[bluesbassman]

24. She became a rebub gov, in a sparsely populated rebub state.

I don't think she's being underestimated at all. She's not going to "doom" McCain's bid, I just don't think she'll help. She's popular now in her home state because she has been walking the "reformist" line. When that plays out, we'll see how popular she is in Alaska.

The flaw here, is our side giving her any consideration at all. The focus should be kept on McCain and his platform. Palin will sink under her own less than substantial qualities IMO.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[iamjoy]

26. Oh, I Understand It

We shouldn't underestimate her.

Sadly, there are lots of women who don't pay much attention to the issues - they may be inclined to assume that because Sarah Palin is a woman, she has their interests at heart when nothing could be further from the truth. There may be other women who don't care about things such as equal pay and reproductive freedom. These women may be inclined to vote for McCain simply because he did what Barack Obama didn't - chose a woman as his running mate. There will be women voting for McCain/Palin because they so much want to see women break that glass ceiling that they don't care which woman it is, or what her stances are on the issues.

The media will continue the whole gender vs. race theme they loved so well in the primaries. But they will be kinder to Palin than they were to Clinton. The jokes that were funny against Clinton will be sexist against Palin.

We must do it. We must write letters to the editor and post on blogs (not liberal blogs, but moderate ones) and constantly say what a poor choice Palin is and how it shows shows McCain lacks judgment and is a hypocrite. The number one job of a vice president is to be president. Palin is not ready.

* McCain made an issue about Obama's supposed lack of experience and then picked some one with less than two years state wide experience (and that in a state with a population only slightly larger than Washington DC) and no experience on the national stage

* She has NO foreign policy experience. Unlike Obama, she has not demonstrated any outstanding knowledge of foreign affairs or grasp of international issues.

* McCain called Obama a celebrity and then chose a beauty queen as his running mate

* McCain's choosing of Sarah Palin is a desperate attempt to to pander to female voters. This is also part of the wedge strategy the Republican party has been using regarding Hillary supporters. Heck, if McCain has so much respect for Hillary and was willing to tap a woman, why didn't he choose Hillary?
* It shows McCain thinks women voters are stupid enough to vote for him just because he picked a woman without paying any attention to the issues. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have made careers helping women with regard to issues such as equal pay, protection from violence and reproductive freedom.

* Palin is under investigation and is this really the best person to "change" Washington.

* McCain's choosing Sarah Palin shows he is insecure - a couple of rationales
- He is insecure about his "maverick" status. He used to stand up to his party, but in the past 8 years, his drive to be president has caused him to turn on several key principles he once held and fall into line with Bush and the rest of the Republicans. He picked a woman from outside the beltway in a desperate attempt to regain this "maverick" reputation.
- If John McCain were really a maverick, he would not have pandered to the so called Religious Right, but would have picked Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman would have been a loud declaration of his bi-partisan attitude and independence. Instead, he pandered to the extremists in the party. If he was so keen on having a woman, he could have picked Olympia Snowe or Kay Bailey Hutchison

Even if we allow that Palin is a female Dan Quayle (Quayle at least had a law degree) we ignore the fact that as poor and lightweight a choice as Quayle seemed at the time, George HW Bush still won that year.

Obama is right to distance himself from this and take the high road. He needs us to go to bat for him (good cop, bad cop maybe?) The sad thing is that negative campaigning works. Lots of people decry it, but they still fall for it. We must say these things because if you say something often enough, people will believe it. Sure that's nasty, but we've got to stop bringing knives to gun fights.

[EstimatedProphet]

27. THANK YOU!

The people calling her Dan Quayle in a dress need to remember one thing - Dan Quayle was vice president. It doesn't matter what her experience is at all. What matters in this situation is whether voters will support her, and frankly she's got a lot of support if the blogs are any measure.

At this rate we're bound and determined to wake up November 5th wondering what happened, once again.

[bridgit]

29. I think that's right. We've had some fun today, but Palin's initial effect has been to...

pierce the air of the magnificence delivered by our convention just yesterday. I see it as a cold blooded, even cynical calculation, but elections have been won on less. A person able to provide such a diversion by little more than walking on a stage is to be considered formidable imo

I know I can't see myself in the middle of a couch and coffee table full of dead bears, crabs, and assault rifles; but believe it or not there are people that do not have a problem with such imagery whatsoever. In addition, I've been watching some of her stylings since this morning, and I'm able to recognize some savvy in there somewhere. They'll be bringing her up to speed very quickly about what will be coming straight at her.

Dismissing out of hand a danger, or people we have no direct understanding of, relationship to, or experience with; can be a bad habit to fall into. Especially these days when these dangers and people are still standing there right in front of us. Better to remain vigilant is my thought. Better to not underestimate.