And I, for one, am OFFENDED that he thinks Sarah Palin is some "substitute" for Hillary.

Well, as Hillary herself said this week...

How dare you compare their records! That is almost as bad as using McLames own words to show what a flip-flopper he is!

I hope Hillary eats a Palinburger

you said any woman picked as VEEP other than Hillary would be a slap to Hillary's face.

How dare you say Hillary is a backseat driver!!!

PUMA of the world unite!!

Yeah people wanted her to take such a backseat that we cheered for her laughed with and cried with her Tuesday night. I think we are all a little tired of this idea that because we voted for someone else we don't like her. I think we are all a little tired of this idea that because Obama picked someone else as VP we don't want her around. I think most of all we are just a little tired of arguing about it...

So let me ask you this; how many other people do you see here today making sarcastic biting comments about what we think of Hillary?

If you guessed nobody you are right. So get past it already- she sure has.

I certainly don't want her taking a backseat. I want her up front and center, helping to make change a reality and getting us universal healthcare.

There's no way she'll take a backseat anyway, so I'm not worried. She outgrew that quite a while ago.

No thanks.  It's time we grew up, and decided to win this election.

We get to attack them both.  nuff said.

Uhhh...

No?

Did you even watch her speak today?

Have you the 5 or 6 Hillary ads McCain has put out?

Are you paying attention here?

Some people just love being pandered too.

Hey! I know!

"You are a very witty and insightful commenter."

Can I gets some mojo now please?   ;o)

Please don't ask me to believe that Sarah Palin was chosen in 2008 primarily for reasons other than her gender and her good looks. Those two came first, her other good qualities were simply made to be justification.

This was a reactionary pick on McCain's part.  It's clear that he picked her because she's a woman and because he felt that it would sow division within the Democratic party.  Now they have two outs.  You can't criticize McCain because he was a POW and you can't criticize Palin because she's a woman (they'll say: oh you know Democrats think women are unfit to lead.)

Since you didn't seem to realize, the diarist was trying to show that the pandering wouldn't work because there is no comparison between these two women--you can't just replace one with the other because they share the same gender and expect to get the same voters.  

She is so unqualified to take over in his stead that I'm actually offended by this choice.  He didn't make a bad choice for his ticket, he made a bad choice for his country.

Palin's the one who opened the door by trying to cast herself as Clinton's rightful heir.

I'm sure she's a pleasant enough person, but I can not wish someone well (politically) who believes creationism needs to be taught in science class, abortion must be illegal under every circumstance, and that it's peachy for women to be paid 80 cents on the dollar.

I hope she has a long and happy life living in a cabin in Alaska . . .  and a long way from any authority over our country.

Could it be that Palin is coming in the day after the convention and trying to scoop up disaffected voters whose loyalty and support she did not earn the way Hillary did, working for it,  just because she too is a woman? Doesn't support any of Hillary's policies and doesn't have Hillary's dignity and perseverence,  and did not get them to vote for her the way Hillary did, just a quick flyby grab for the benefits created and earned by another, but which she thinks she can profit from.

She does have worth to him, a woman who is rock ribbed conservative, even more so than those who criticize him for not being so.

And a person with Ted Stevens campaigning with her is hardly an outsider. A person who says she wants the money her Congressional delegation in 2006 could get at that moment, i.e. pork barrel, is not an outsider, especially when she said she supported the bridge to nowhere then, and got the money for her state but didn't return it when the project was cancelled and now says she opposed it, with nary a mention of the money she kept to apply elsewhere in her state. Outsiders, country people, have been making fools of City birds for centuries.

If she had any worth to him other than that she would not have invoked Hillary OR the glass ceiling in the speech that was to introduce her to nation.

Pretending this is anything other than what it is would be a waste of time. The nation deserves better.

Well, after the Democrats blew their chances at doing this completely, I definitely feel the emotion behind the "Serves the Dems right that the Rethugs saw the moment and took advantage." I mean, I won't vote for her (Creationism? Puh-lease...) but really, the Dems had a chance to put Hillary up there somewhere on the ticket and chose not to.

Just put it down to the Rethugs perpetually being better as sensing and seizing the mood of the electorate than the Dems.  

Anyway, she's not the first case of a woman spitting on the people who gave her a chance to succeed -- Phyllis Schlafly, anyone? Making opportunities for women means making opportunites for all women, even the unpleasantly hypocritcal ones.

Okay,

There cheers for Palin:

Hip, Hip, Huzzah!

Hip, Hip, Huzzah!

Hip, Hip, Huzzah!

Celebration over.  

Now, let attack them both and win this campaign.  Palin would set back women's reproductive rights by 30 years.  Not much to celebrate in that pick.

Game on folks!

And this is the type of comment that scares me.  

If you look at the situation rationally and unemotionally you realize that it's a truly absurd choice.  How could he possibly win with this ticket?  But then you hear comments like this one and you realize that we won't be able to attack her for lack of accomplishments, for her ignorance on foreign policy and domestic issues--because she will be liked.  She's charming, she's beautiful and she is in no way qualified to be president.  But if we say that, it will be turned into: You're just saying that because she's a woman.  This heightened fervor over identity politics will be the only thing that will lose us this election.  

And being originally from a very small, very poor town in central Pennsylvania, I'm not willing to see my friends and family suffer through 4 or 8 more years of shitty policies and inconsequential politics just because Governor Palin is an historic candidate.  It has real world consequences.

A historic achievement? Really?

McCain choosing an extraordinarily unqualified person in a pandering political stunt is an achievement?

Put this another way. Is there anything aside from her gender that makes her better for VP, in any way, than any other national level republican?

This isn't a historic achievement. This is raw mockery of the REAL historic achievement bought by the grueling work of Hillary Clinton.

Its not an achievement, I am sorry.

McCain did not do this because he is impressed with her record- she has none.
The GOP did not get together and decide that it is time they invited women to the party- it isn't their style.

They are using her to try and get what they want... lets not pretend its anything different than that.

woah. cool your jets trixta.

You make a mockery of Hillary Clinton's historic run for the Presidency. The Democratic Party doesn't need fools like you. Seriously.  You and the 36 other PUMAs who marched on Denver can go to McCain. You won't be missed.

If you did you wouldn't be saying that.

So go to hell... and fucking well stay there.

You know why PUMAs exist?
Because they're so wrapped up in themselves, it's more important to vote for a ticket that has a woman (and a supremely unqualified woman at that, compared to Snowe, Hutchison, et al.) on it, than the ticket that will actually protect all women and their rights.
It's not about you, it's not about Palin, it's about millions of women who have the right to make a choice, the right to proper sex education, the right to different methods of contraception and the knowledge to use them.
It's about preventing the Republicans like McCain and Palin from stealing those rights.
You are so missing the point of her appointment, it's frightening, but not surprising.
"Fuck ROE V WADE"? That says it all.

Buh bye.

almost as bad as Big Bad John Cornyn.  I know, not that that ever stopped Republicans before.

But still, you can say for Palin that she is hugely popular in AK and that she has reformer cred.

Hutchinson would be vulnerable to politics-as-usual Washington-insider lines of attack, while Palin is not.  Also, she may have experienced McCain's temper first hand.  I'm wondering if it's a coincidence none of McCain's short-listers were his fellow Senators, other than his clueless soulless douchebag BFF Lieberman.

Bingo!

I think that this is a Dan Quayle pick.  It will end up being considered a disaster.

Isn't that what Geraldine Ferraro did?  OK, so the GOP did it this time. But it's not the first a woman was on the ticket.

Well, it is pretty historic that the Repubes could crawl out of their caves, and at least make a passing nod at the 21st century.

It doesn't mean that they won't be crawling right back into their caves soon, either way.