Ok lets just be honest here.. what bothers us most about Palin

[Peacetrain]

is the fact that so many media and some supporters are so delusional when it comes to Palin.

The woman could not even answer what newspapers she reads.

She is all talking points and no substance.

Even people who tried to promote her have come out in books and talked about how clueless she is about everything..

And 600 people pull themselves together, and say we are a convention and it gets all this media attention because she is there.

Palin is basically the result of reality TV come to politics.

And for most of us, it is like watching a train wreck.. over and over. We sit around, scratch our heads.. and wonder..here we have possibly one of the brightest lights and intellects that has graced the white house in decades.. and who gets the gravitas.. Palin..

The quitter, and manipulator of public funds for her own benefit. Palin

And what scares some of us of a certain age the most.. is .. who in the world would have ever thought Ronald Regan would have been president.

The realization that a certain portion of the population is stuck on stupid, is sobering. The fact that they can manipulate elections, should sober all of us up.

Time to give a little love to our Democrats, write them letters of support and keep them bucked up.. unless of course you think history could not repeat itself. Personally I do not want to take that chance.

[DCBob]

1. I am starting to feel this country deserves Sarah Palin..

for not appreciating possibly the greatest man to ever occupy the WH.

[Peacetrain]

3. A million people in peace marches basically a five minute story

and this thing that is going on now? What did we do to deserve the kind of media that manipulates this way.

The sad thing, is that in 10 years, or less.. a new generation of voters will be taking their spots, and just like Reagan.. the truth will be with those of us who have lived through it..but the myth will take on a life of its own.. and overwhelm it.

[DCBob]

5. The media love this crap.

Palin draws eyeballs..

[iceman66]

25. +1000!!!

[FSogol]

2. She is George Bush in a tight skirt and with less common sense. n/t

[Peacetrain]

4. George Bush understood more than she does.. and that is scarier yet

[instantkarma]

42. Bush has a masters degree in business from Harvard

(Please don't get the idea I'm defending him. I'm simply stating facts)

I'm guessing Bush and Reagan are generally thought of as dim bulbs by many/most on this board. I certainly do. That said, Bush has the aforementioned masters degree and he got his bachelors from Yale. He was twice elected as governor of Texas, serving one full term and almost half of the second before resigning to take the presidential oath of office.

Reagan served two full terms as governor of California and was deeply involved in politics for what, at least twenty years? before he was elected president. He at least knew the workings of the political system.

Sarah Palin has a bachelors in communications (not that there's anything wrong with that in and of itself) and served a little over one half of one term as governor.

My point is that Bush and Reagan were leaps and bounds ahead of Palin. A year and a half ago she was chosen, most undeservedly, by McCain and since then has somehow become a lightning rod, an incredibly polarizing figure and money-making machine. Of course, the tv people are more than willing to exploit her for their own purposes, controversy -> ratings -> money in the bank.

[Peacetrain]

44. Its almost like they are devolving.. in a political sense.. the dimmer the bulb

the brighter it shines in the hearts of the baggers and their ilk

[instantkarma]

45. a fresh piece of meat for starving dogs

Actually, I have (some) sympathy for (most) of the people who fall for the dog and pony show. They've been programmed to be afraid and confused and their fervor is not much more than the stimulus/response of a lab rat. The problem is that they're being manipulated, they don't even know it and if you point that out to them they're likely to react angrily or even with violence. And to be honest, that is not an affliction reserved exclusively for conservatives. I see it on this board every single day.

[Soylent Brice]

43. that's one of the more accurate descriptions i have seen to date.

[billybob537]

6. Since when do "Delegates" pay $500 to go to a "convention"?

[Jennicut]

7. The media seems obsessed with the novelty of an attractive woman running for office

They are willing to overlook her shortcomings. I don't remember Hillary getting such a break-every word she said was scrutinized. It seems so silly but such is the way of life in America, we sometimes chose correctly and other times we like plastic-type leaders with no brains.

[Nancy Waterman]

8. Peacetrain, you described my feeling about her perfectly

She is all talking points and no substance

Palin is basically the result of reality TV come to politics.

[Clio the Leo]

9. That Palin woman doesn't bother me.....

.... she's a gift to the Democratic party and was one of the President's biggest fund raisers during the campaign.

We need to clone her.

[bigdarryl]

10. we said the same thing about George Bush and look what happened

[Vicar In A Tutu]

11. Bush is different.

First of all, he didn't walk out and quit his role as Governor. He then ran against an uninspiring, anodyne, drab Al Gore cruising on auto-pilot through a campaign bereft of any spark or inspiration and secured a highly dubious victory. As expected, he bumbled and fluffed his way through his first few months as President, and then received a massive political gift in September of 2001. Without that, he would have lost a Mondalian landslide to John Kerry in 2004 (which, ironically, would probably mean the current President would be Republican as the economic damage caused by Bush would have taken hold to a lesser but still significant extent to see some dull Republican take charge under the guise of being 'fiscally responsible' in '08).

Palin lacks what little savvy Bush had.

[Berry Cool]

13. Exactly. It's why I will keep on repeating, until enough people believe me,

that Sarah Palin is nothing but the Baby Ruth bar floating around in the Democratic swimming pool. She terrifies and frightens a lot of people, but she is not what she appears to be, and as a result she is harmless.

True, both Palin and Dubya were fakes. But the crucial difference between then is that one could be manipulated and made to serve as a figurehead for the presidency by a major political party, and the other cannot. She doesn't take well to coaching or styling or being told how to act or what to do. Dubya was dumb, but he could be put on a stage and prompted and coached and muddle his way through. Sarah Palin cannot, and inevitably, she always falls victim to her own hubris and her temptation to throw her advisers away because she believes she doesn't need them--her public loves her without them!

If people didn't make such a fuss over her, she'd vanish. I mean, yes, she's captivated the hearts and numbed whatever brains belong to a handful of people. But that's not enough people for her to be elected president--a job she ultimately wouldn't want and would quit in a few months anyway, saying it wasn't what it was cracked up to be and she never got a chance to do anything she wanted to do. (Can you imagine her coping with the kind of opposition Obama is?)

It's not going to happen. It's silly to worry about it.

[instantkarma]

46. Dooty!

great anal-ogy

[JoeyT]

15. It wasn't his savvy so much as

the fact that he knew he had no functioning brain cells and was willing to do and say exactly what he was told to do and say. Palin doesn't even have the virtue of self-awareness. She thinks she's the smartest and most edumacated person in the world, which means no handler could keep her on the message and off the crazy and stupid for fifteen minutes at a time.

Edited to add: I don't know how I missed Berry's comment, but he/she said it far better than I did.

[Vicar In A Tutu]

16. Well, that *was* Bush's savvy...

...Bush played the game pretty well. Yeah, he had a remarkably easy year against a dire opponent (I'm sorry, but I'm sure Al Gore, if reminded of that campaign, he looks back at it and cringes) but still, he really sold people on the moderate, compassionate Conservative stuff. He knew his limitations and stuck rigidly to them while the dirty behind the scenes players sorted the rest out. Palin scared the shit out of the majority with two or three TV appearances.

[Peacetrain]

17. Yep.. who in their right mind, thought a drug addict who took every

business he owned into the dunk tank.. would lead the party..especially in the self described party of GOD..

Palin may not be the nominee..but she gets enough juice behind her in events like this without some push back.. who ever she decides to anoint could have a sizable chunk of the republican fringe.. who are a dedicated lot.

[JoeyT]

21. Pretty much.

"I'm stupid and I know it" *clap* *clap*
And Rove or Cheney would feed him a talking point as a reward.

[NYC Liberal]

41. Bush's mistakes were funny

or at least they could be spun that way. Telling us that we have to "put food on our family" or that "too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women" is funny, even people here on DU laughed.

When Bush was asked what newspapers he read, instead of hemming and hawing like Palin did, which made her look like an idiot, he just openly said, "I don't read newspapers."

In the end, Palin is trying to hide her stupidity which will never work because she THINKS she isn't.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hekate]

32. "Elitist" has become RW code for anyone with an education. Just so you know....

The people who like Sarah Palin like her because she tells them what they want to hear, and mirrors their class resentments and hatreds, and does so with a wink and a wiggle that makes RW men (especially those in the media) sit up and beg. I base these statements on abundant evidence from the campaign, not from some specious "elitist class and gender war" bias.

The gender war in 2008 electoral politics was not declared by Democrats or liberals, but by the RW, who have always hated Hillary Rodham Clinton with a certain viciousness. Ms. Sarah, unlike the feminist lawyer who kept her own maiden name for years after she married, conforms to their stereotype of patriotism, piety and womanhood, at least as she brazenly portrays herself.

She's not stupid, just as Dubya was not especially stupid -- but both are invincibly ignorant about the world around them and are convinced of the rightness of their gut instinct.

Dubya was ambitious -- probably to prove himself equal to or better than his father and brother, both of whom actually do have educated brains, even if we disagree with their conclusions. Ms. Sarah is just incredibly ambitious, from whatever source that springs.

And Ms. Sarah, like Dubya -- like Reagan -- has powerful supporters among the REAL elite of this country, i.e. the ones who pull the levers of power for ideology and/or money.

As for the rest of your post: agree with you about Gore. However, Obama can't "lose" the RW because he never had them and never will. Many people who call themselves Independents are either frustrated Republicans or Libertarians, neither of whom see eye to eye with the Democrats.

Hekate

Hekate

[JTFrog]

36. People DON'T like her. They laugh at her. Barely 1000 people will pay to see her speak at anytime.

"elitist class and gender war that is being run against her"? What a bullshit right wing and PUMA talking point that is.

She's a blabbering blundering idiot and nothing the Democrats do will ever take away from that.

GMAFB. This is definitely not the right place to try to convince people that the idiot isn't an idiot in order to get a slam in against Democrats. Those that do should go back to lurking.

:eyes:

[JohnnyLib2]

12. You speak for me.

You, and the Palin 2012 bumper sticker I see in the office parking lot.

[Berry Cool]

14. Single bumper sticker in parking lot does not = data.

It also cannot lift a finger to help an essentially stupid, lazy, unwilling-to-learn, unwilling-to-work woman win the highest office in the land.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

18. Is how much attention we give her, when we should try to keep the image of Democratic President

strong. Attention is all Palin wants and needs, most things she says aren't really that important till she runs. We don't need to run her election campaign, just our one no matter how we might differ from Pres. Obama he'll provide us a more successful 8 years than any Republican will ever dream of.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Agreed. Plus, I think she's a decoy to keep us nice and busy,

while whomever the GOP candidate will be is being kept on the back burner, well protected.

[Peacetrain]

22. My point.. not so much worried about Palin..but who she rallies behind

aka Massachusetts.. What we need to remind people is how delusional the tea baggers are..and what a joke Palin is.. the woman QUIT her job as governor.. she and the people she supports are all a bunch of losers and quitters.. that is what we need to keep up front for the media, and the independents.

[greenbird]

34. Yep.

I think that, too.

[noel711]

23. Palin sticks in my craw...

As a feminist, 60 years old, who went thru the
Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement,
the feminist movement, SDS, The Weather Underground..
and the backlash against all civil discontent during the Reagan years,
Palin as a remote possiblity of leadership
is the beneficiary of all those movements and growth,
and she spits in the face of all those who
stood up for injustice and prejudice,
all those who were hosed by the police in Chicago,
all those who marched holding hands while white
racists stood on the sidelines and spit on them,
all those who were hung from trees in southern towns,
all those who died at the hands of domestic terrorists,
all those women who perished because abortion was illegal...

Need I go on?

She thinks she got where she is because of her feistiness
and spitfire. She got there because women paved the way
so women's voices would be heard, and attention paid.
Does she have a clue about our bloody history?
Does she have a clue about any history?

yet she shoves those activists under the bus whenever
she speaks. She walks on the backs of women who stood up
for labor unions, and job equality and quotas.
She walks on the graves of those who gave their lives
for the greater good.
She's not just a lightweight fool, she's evil.
She doesn't realize she's complicit in the devouring of
young women for profit,
and she uses Christianity like a cheap charm bracelet.
She makes JEsus weep.

She reminds me of the Mean Girls in high school,
those girls genetically blessed to be good looking
who never did their homework,
who flirted with or kissed up to the teachers to pass,
who betrayed the others girls,
who lied and stole and skated by...
and stuck the knives of their random good luck
into the backs of other young women who wanted to play
fair to earn their way by hard work and genuine talent.

There is not one genuine, compassionate, trustworthy
molecule in her body. Every sense of my intellect
and soul tries to find something redeemable in her,
but my heart says: do not bother.

[lunatica]

30. This 61 year old says, "Bravo!!"

Yes. She reminds me of the mean girls too. She uses the same sarcastic and humiliating intonations I remember so well. She was supposed to be the woman that all American women would support just because she was a woman. Bleh!

[Hekate]

33. Abundant applause from your contemporary here...

:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

Hekate

[JTFrog]

37. Well said.

:fistbump:

[bigwillq]

24. How some DUers seem to be obsessed with her

For every thread posted, she gets free publicity. Can't we focus on the things Democrats are doing (or not doing)? Palin is a distraction. Some at DU are just as bad as the media. Overexposure of something irrelevant.

[Cha]

26. I don't think the coporatemediawhores are the least bit delusional

regarding palin and her ilk..they know exactly what they're doing..promoting an ignorant, bloviating attack on Democracy and President Obama. The m$m know they're as dumb as a conventioal hall full of stripped screws.

[Hekate]

27. Some of our DUers are scary in their blindness. FOLLOW THE MONEY, FOLKS: who does it serve to have

... to have Ms. Sarah be groomed for the US Presidency?

She is an attractive sexy MILF who winks and sashays her derriere across the stage; she's unbelievably ambitious; she is proud of her ignorance, which is invincible; she says all the religious and political buzzwords that excite her intended audience, as if her MILFiness weren't exciting enough; and she thinks she is controlling her destiny WHEN IT HAS ALREADY BEEN TAKEN FROM HER HANDS because she is just so useful as a sock-puppet.

Never mind the Teabaggers with their misspelled protest signs, WHO has the $$$$?

This country will be damned lucky if the president we place so much hope in survives his term in office.

Hekate

[EmeraldCityGrl]

31. In more ways than one.

They're already talking impeachment if things go well for them in Nov.
As crazy as that sounds it's their MO.

We are in the midst of one of the most ambitious propaganda campaigns
I can remember. If there was ever a time for Democrats to pull together,
now is that time.

[annabanana]

28. She is a dangerous demogogue..

In the ilk of Father Coughin

[Raine]

29. That sums it up

PERFECTLY.

[Vinca]

35. What bothers me most is her hatefulness masquerading as good works for Jesus.

Let's all be patriotic and kill some ferriners.

[Peacetrain]

38. That bothers me with about 90% of self avowed right wingers..

They use religion for racism, sexism, killing people.. etc etc..and I am a Christian with a capital C.. When they start using their religion for political purposes.. look out.. you have a fascist posing in religious dogma..

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

39. She's a symbol....

The terrifying aspect of a democracy is that people are easily fooled. Their emotions can be played like a three-dollar banjo and they can be stampeded into embracing policies that could destroy this country.

Politicians don't talk about it much because it sounds elitist, but even the Founders were wary about allowing the "mob" too much power in their new democracy. They required that Senators be elected by the House of Representatives rather than by direct ballot. They even seriously considered having requirements that only landowners should be allowed to vote.

I know this sounds anti-Democratic. But the fact is that about a third of the country (mostly on the right, but party ont he left), are a pack of gibbering idiots who are ripe for exploitation from any charismatic demagogue who comes along.

Ronald Reagan was an idiot during his prime years, and was in the early stages of dementia during the 1980's. During parts of his second term, he wasn't even the President of the United States in any commonly-accepted defintion of the term. He told stories about things that never happened but smiled warmly for the camera while his aides drove the country into a ditch and conducted a covert war in Central America.

He's their hero.

Enter Sarah Palin. She's even more dangerous than Reagan because Palin is by far more manipulative. Reagan sought power because he genuinly thought his ideas were right for the country. Palin is seeking power because she loves power. She is the most dangerous sort of rightwing idiot - clueless as the day she was born, but gifted with a animal cunning for politics. Like any good sociopath, she knows exactly what people want to hear and she's willing to say it.

Right now, Palin is still a fringe player. She's Hitler in 1920. She's not going to be President in 2012. But there's still 2016.

[Peacetrain]

40. That very last sentence Jeff.. that has crossed my mind more than once

I see her as a power broker for the deranged.. she might run for office, but I am guessing that is more of a shill movement right now..but she is definitely trying to pull all the tea party movement under her wing so she can be a "king or queen maker" as it were.

I still cannot get over the fact the media gave her so much coverage for 600 people. But I think we are going to see this non stop.

So as much as I hate to nit pick and pull threads.. all of us make mistakes..but every single blow up she does, I think we should shine a light on.

Not attack her 24/7 so she gets a pity vote..but keep her faults and mistakes in front of her followers.

She is an empty suit

[polichick]

47. What I dislike most about her is she reminds me that many voters are ignorant. nt