Derek Bodner’s Blog

I can’t recall an election where the Vice Presidential nominations made less sense to me.

You have Joe Biden saying “I think he [Obama] can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training.” Then 4 years ago you have Biden campaigning that John McCain should be John Kerry’s running mate. I think Biden has some merit to being a vice presidential candidate, and will at least provide is with good sound bites during the campaign, but it seems politicians expect us to have short memories. The amount of rhetoric and spin now to back track from those comments will be inevitable.

And Palin? Where to begin. Ok, the lack of experience is obvious.

I mean, 20 months ago she was the mayor of Wasilla. Never heard of it? Most haven’t. Population is in the 7000 range. 19 months as the Governor of Alaska doesn’t exactly qualify you.

And the scandals make you wonder whether there was any vetting process at all (which, if you believe reports that McCain only went to her a few days before the announcement after he was prevented from getting his top choices, is plausible). Not that her teenage daughter getting pregnant is her fault, but it does shed a bad light.

And wait until her husband and her own involvement with the Alaskan Independence Party starts getting more attention (who’s main objective is secession from the US).

I understand the thought of going for female voters/Hillary supporters not yet ready to accept Obama, but I don’t think a pro-life woman with that kind of rumored scandals behind her is going to do that. And the hypocrisy of criticizing Obama’s lack of experience, then saying the VP is someone who needs to be able to step in in a heartbeat, then hiring someone with no experience, is crazy.

Definitely interesting. I’m not sure in the end it has that much of an effect on the election results, but both of them were surprising to me.