The flood of attention has gone to her pointy little head. If her ego wasn’t big enough before, it’s humongous now. I was bemused but not altogther shocked when she questioned Her Master’s decision to quit campaigning in Michigan, and did so in a public forum. She’s gotten a taste of the big kid’s Koolaid and she ain’t goin back.

If there is justice in this world, she will continue to soak up the attention and her head will simply explode. As for McCain, his head apparently exploded a while ago, as there is nothing to indicate that he’s using it now.

It’s hard to predict what the next 4 years will hold. But angry, declining empires tend to gravitate toward sneering pitbulls.

I don’t mean this year—it’s my opinion that the masses have no idea just how fucked we are at the moment and still imagine that someone will pull a rabbit out of the hat and make things better. I think Obama will win this election, and he and the Dems will expend tons of political capital cleaning up the mess the GOP has made. But it’s very much an open question (in my mind, at least) whether or not they can pull it off.

I think the horrendous financial mess means many of Obama’s plans (like health care) may have to go by the wayside no matter how sincerely he wants to make it happen. We may be in for several years of austerity and hard times. Maybe SP has more political savvy than we give her credit for. Perhaps she comprehends the magnitude of the economic crisis and ruinous international entanglements and sees that there’s no way it’s gonna get cleaned up in a mere four years.

Maybe she’s planting the seeds for a future reappearance, when she can accuse President Obama and the Dems of stabbing our troops in the back by denying them “victory” in Iraq and accusing the Dems of ruining the economy by “killing jobs,” etc. If things still suck 4 years from now, people will be a lot angrier and more receptive to that sort of message than they appear to be now, and Bush’s perfidy will have faded into history for many of them.

So maybe Palin is setting up for 2012. Or maybe she’s just a dumb douchenozzle who is reading Schmidt’s talking points. I dunno.

Man, I left MSNBC on in the bedroom and they were running a live feed of a Palin rally (I think Florida).  From my desk out in the living room it sounded like the Worst.Cock.Fight.Ever. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that level of booing, yelling and theatrical groaning before at a political event. And when you layer that fucking voice hurling redmeatisms onto the ugliness, I just can’t imagine that this garbage is playing well with indies/undecideds.  Most of them are sick of frothy partisanship, right? Good christ, I hope so, because the Palin shtick is dwelling way deep in the gutter.

Or maybe she’s just a dumb douchenozzle who is reading Schmidt’s talking points.

I’m running with that one for the moment, but you make some very good points. If Obama wins, he’s got to be exceptionally good at leveling with the American people about what an economic shitstorm we’re in and communicate in easy-to-understand terms how difficult it’s going to be to get out of it.  I think he’s more than capable of it.  McCain, not at all.

I think he’s more than capable of it.  McCain, not at all.

There is nothing in the record of either Palin or McCain to indicate that they are capable of deep, intellectual thought on any matter.

Palin especially.  Her modus operandi throughout her career has been to use people to get ahead and then stab them in the back when she didn’t need them anymore.  And proclaim herself a “reformer” because of it.

McCain has had connections to dubious people his whole career and has primarily stayed out of trouble (post Keating 5) by reminding everyone that he is a war hero and, by definition, a person of “character”.

McCain’s “plans” for health insurance (end employer provided plans), the economy (fairytale) and education (federally mandated school vouchers) show that he doesn’t have any comprehension of how to solve the complex problems we are facing.  He just re-gurgitates conservative Republican talking points.

Obama does have the intellectual depth, by far.  We just have to hope he can put together meaningful legislation to achieve the changes needed.  Considering that his campaign is, and has been all along, a superbly disciplined, well organized machine (while McCain’s is pretty much of a shambles right now) I tend to think he can, if not rescue the country, get the ship steadily turning in the right direction.  (And right now that’s the little mantra I say to myself at night so I can get to sleep!)

Public education should be defined as one in which our public support for a child’s education follows that child into the school the parent chooses.

He believes all federal financial support must be predicated on providing parents the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing school.

Choice is the best way to protect children against a failing bureaucracy. But parents must have more control over the money.

These are quotes from John McCain’s educational proposals off of his website under the “issues” tab.  I honestly haven’t ever heard anyone bring this up but if this isn’t a proposal for federally mandated school vouchers, I don’t know what would be.  If you’re not a parent with school age children, “vouchers” refers to the ability to take your “share” of tax money supporting public schools and have it applied against tuition at the private schools you decide to send your children to.  Aside from the fact that you didn’t personally pony up all of these tax dollars, this also results in public funding for religious schools making it, shall we say, a controversial (?) issue.

Just sharing.  I was planning to write more about this issue a couple of weeks ago then the economy decided to collapse (or at least we heard it was going to) so figured people wouldn’t really notice.  But as things settle down I think this is information worthy of spreading.  Vouchers are HUGELY controversial in states where they have been proposed and McCain is actually suggesting federal funding for public schools should be withdrawn from school districts in states without voucher plans.

I hope that Obama doesn’t back too far off of the health care thing, though, for the simple reason that if the Dems do manage to get any significant healthcare reform through, they will OWN Congress for several years to come. The GOP knows it, which is why they’re terrified of passing that legislation. Of course, it’s gonna be a tough needle to thread for the next four years, but we can’t afford four more years of do-nothing tough talk from pampered coddled idiots like McCain and Palin.

I don’t see Palin making it out of this one with a career in politics. She may be the next Coulter or the next WWF hot honey but there’s just way too much out there about her now for her to be taken seriously on a national level. Ah but what did marindenver say? “right now that’s the little mantra I say to myself at night so I can get to sleep!”