Derek Bodner’s Blog

It absolutely amazes me how short of a memory politicians expect the general public to have.

The phrase is quite common. In fact, both candidates have used the line before. When asked about Clinton’s health care reform vs the 1993 attempt, McCain used the line, saying “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig”.

So, McCain can use it when he’s talking about a woman’s platform, but when Obama uses it to discuss McCain, it’s disrespectful and offensive?

Ok.

Obama didn’t even bring up Palin (whereas McCain directly brought up Clinton).

“John McCain says he’s about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out George Bush — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics — we’re really going to shake things up in Washington. That’s not change. That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

Yeah, John. Nice try.

I hate what US political campaigning has become. You haven’t heard talk about actual issues in months, and certainly nothing since the conventions.

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.

Just some rants about various topics before I head out for the weekend:
Global Warming
- Every time there’s a warm day during the winter, people screaming “global warming”. No. While I’m not going to completely rule out global warming as a threat, most estimates have the average temperature increasing about 1.5 degrees farenheit over the last 30 years. When people go “god, it’s so hot out, this is proof of Global Warming”, shut up. That 1.5 degrees is not make a substantial impact on your warmth.

And really, try to have a global perspective. Have you heard about it being the 2nd coldest january in the last 15 years? Have you heard about China’s historically cold winter? Or about Greenland’s winter? Of course not. Because it doesn’t fit the chic story. I’m not saying global warming doesn’t exist, but please don’t use the last week’s temperature at your locale as proof.

Change

“I’m the candidate for change”. Oh jesus. I haven’t yet fully decided on who I want to vote for in the democratic primary, much less the general election. But dear god, if I have to hear about the rhetoric for “change” any more, I might throw up. That crap from Obama might just push me away from him. It’s as much the media’s fault as it is the candidates, but every non-incumbent candidate since the dawn of time has used that as a platform. I’d like to think our presidential candidates have a little more depth than that, and that our voters are a little more educated than that. I sometimes worry I’m going to be disappointed on both fronts.