foxchasefive.com

Perhaps the most logical explanation for the selection of first term Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain’s running mate is yielded by his preferred game of chance, Craps. After all, nearly all political observers can agree that choosing Mrs. Palin, after Mr.McCain was informed he could not choose a pro choice candidate, is at the very least a gamble.

Making her way from television sportscasting to PTA council presidency and then eventually, the Alaskan governor’s mansion for approximately two years, Mrs. Palin, a self described “hockey mom”, has continually cast herself as a tough female “maverick”, an unlikely conservative fighter for “the people” against the corrupt “elites” entrenched in power, willing to buck even her party to do what is right. Mrs. Palin points to her ethics reforms and largely symbolic actions such as selling the Governor’s jet on Ebay, firing the chef at the Governor’s mansion and lowering her own salary when mayor of Wasilla, Alaska as evidence of the tough, principled fiscal conservatism that Mr. McCain prides himself on.

At the Republican National Convention, Mrs. Palin also brought up her decision to refuse an abortion and carry her fifth child, Trig to term, despite learning that he would be born with down syndrome as further evidence of her conservative credentials. Although this narrative has energized a previously wary conservative base that is critical in John McCain’s efforts to win against his opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in November it has also proven to be ample fodder for newspapers and liberal bloggers eager to vet and scrutinize Mrs. Palin.

For example, Mrs. Palin’s politically shrewd attempts to claim the feminist, trailblazing mantle of former candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, Hillary Clinton, speaking of the “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” and railing against sexism in the media, are contradicted by her own previous statements labeling Mrs. Clinton’s charges of the very same sexism in the media “whine” at a Newsweek panel. When Mrs. Palin speaks of both her and John McCain’s extensive records fighting wasteful “pork barrel spending”, she ignores her initial support of the “The Bridge to Nowhere”, a 250 million dollar bridge servicing approximately fifty people that has been used by Mr. McCain himself as the foremost example of wasteful government spending. Mrs. Palin, in her first term as mayor of Wasilla, even began the practice of flying to Washington D.C. to lobby for spending, collecting earmarks to the tune of $27 million dollars for a town with a population of little over 9000 people. Despite running on a promise of reforming ethics and taking on the corrupt Republican party establishment of Alaska, Mrs. Palin herself is embroiled in an ethics investigation as to whether or not she improperly attempted to use her position as governor to get her state trooper ex brother in law, Mike Wooten, fired after a heated divorce with Mrs. Palin’s sister.

Her conservative values might prove to be somewhat extreme for the moderate voters the McCain campaign is eyeing since Mrs. Palin, a firm believer in the teaching of creationism in public schools, attempted to ban certain books she found obscene from the Wasilla town library, firing the librarian when she refused to comply with Mrs. Palin’s demands. In addition, Mrs. Palin, who received her passport only a year ago, has little to no foreign policy experience, undercutting Mr. McCain’s attacks on Mr.Obama’s readiness to be commander in chief. The McCain campaign counters that Mrs. Palin’s expertise lies in energy policy but Mrs. Palin has offered little but the refrain “drill, drill drill-all the way.” Mrs. Palin is firmly anti gay marriage and opposes affirmative action.

Mrs. Palin’s family has also morphed into a political controversy recently amid discoveries that her 17 year old daughter Bristol was pregnant and her husband Todd is a former member of an Alaskan secessionist movement whose motto is “Alaska first, Alaska always.” Mrs. Palin, herself, attended the Alaskan Independence Party’s 1994 convention and wished them good luck at their 2006 convention.  Others note that it appears that Mrs. Palin’s repeated insistence on abstinence only sex education has seemed to fail. Others, such as The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, have pointed out the cognitive dissonance required in the Palins asking for privacy to make a choice about Bristol’s pregnancy and Mrs. Palin’s stance on abortion, which denies that choice to all families, even in cases of rape or incest. Conservatives are furiously attempting to tout Mrs. Palin’s maverick image and have co-opted Mr. Obama’s message of change.

Ultimately, it appears that Sarah Palin is above all, a rash and impetuous choice for Vice President  considering that she is less than a heartbeat away from becoming the nation’s first female President if the 72 year old cancer survivor at the top of the ticket happens to be elected. Mr. McCain’s chief adviser Steve Schmidt was caught with an open mic suggesting that choosing Mrs.Palin was simply a political gambit, many would agree.

-Vman (Someone who was scared by her RNC speech)