{"id":655,"date":"2008-08-29T11:59:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T16:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=655"},"modified":"2008-09-24T23:38:22","modified_gmt":"2008-09-25T04:38:22","slug":"palin-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/08\/palin-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Palin Comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. Details are a <a title=\"News on Sarah Palin\" href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/news?hl=en&amp;ned=us&amp;q=Sarah+Palin&amp;btnG=Search+News\" target=\"_blank\">click away<\/a>, but here&#8217;s quick thoughts from the hour since the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>McCain just evened the <strong>Brick<\/strong> odds of winning. Once the primaries indicated the top candidates, I never saw him as beating Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., outside of calamitous news or solid scandal (both these men can beat down soft scandals).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s Iraq and Afghanistan &#8212; and now likely Russia.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s the early symptoms of an economic depression &#8212; let&#8217;s call it what it is &#8212; but at a time when it can be reversed in months not years.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s jumping gasoline prices with Detroit years away from making sensible cars &#8212; at a time when global warming effects seem to be accelerating.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>McCain just won a battle with a poor military tactic: He won the proverbial last battle, not looking to any of the likely future battles. The old battle is over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton&#8217;s supporters. If they haven&#8217;t endorsed Obama, they&#8217;re still progressive sorts, not likely to be wooed by a conservative, perky, intelligent lady. Conversely, war, economy and environment are not old battles, they&#8217;re current wars. Obama was looking ahead when he picked Sen. Joe Biden for his political and foreign policy acumen. If Obama was looking at the past, he never would have chosen a man with <a title=\"UK Politician Whom Biden Copied Welcomes VP Choice\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/ap\/2008\/08\/23\/europe\/EU-Britain-US-Elections.php\" target=\"_blank\">Biden&#8217;s history<\/a>. The Biden-Palin debate scheduled for Oct. 2 will prove the former&#8217;s tact: How can he flaunt her inexperience while avoiding the playground stigma of &#8220;hitting a girl&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>McCain just returned to his feisty, independent reputation, a plus in my book for these soon-to-be-hard times. Can you imagine his campaign managers and veteran GOP officials for continuous days begging him to pick anyone but Sarah Palin? Pleading, whining, threatening. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t wait for the tell-all, behind-the-scenes memoirs &#8212; coming late this winter if McCain-Palin lose and in the next decade if they win.<\/p>\n<p>-30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. Details are a click away, but here&#8217;s quick thoughts from the hour since the announcement. McCain just evened the Brick odds of winning. Once the primaries indicated the top candidates, I never saw him as beating Sen. Barack Obama, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":708,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/11\/pleading-the-first\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":0},"title":"Pleading the First","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\" Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News, Spin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/the-green-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":1},"title":"The Green Candidate","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Four years ago Charlie Rose interviewed Garrison Keillor, who said something so provocative that for a detectable millisecond Rose was speechless, a rarity. Keillor of course was on promoting A Prairie Home Companion, but early on they discussed the just-ended 2004 election, where the progressive Keillor nailed John Kerry's defeat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News, Spin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/06\/naders-nadir\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":2},"title":"Nader&#8217;s nadir","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, June 1, 2004. Ralph Nader won't hurt John Kerry, and if he does, the tall Brahmin will deserve the loss. Just like Al Gore. I don't believe Nader cost Gore the election. Nevermind the numbers and the Electoral College; the number indicate damage. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News, Spin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":372,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/11\/teddy-the-greatest-kennedy\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":3},"title":"Teddy, the Greatest Kennedy","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock When I clicked on C-SPAN2 midday Tuesday I did not know Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was giving a speech important enough to make the national news. He was criticizing George II's veto of a big domestic spending bill. Big Ted, Old Ted, swatting at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;American Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/06\/hang-on-hilly\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":4},"title":"Hang On, Hilly","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Be like Huck, Sen. Clinton: Hang in until the delegate count passes the point of no returns, when the opponent has that crystal majority of pledged delegate votes. Oh, that's coming up soon, isn't it. Republican campaign underdog and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday [May 8, 2008] that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News, Spin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/02\/fake-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":655,"position":5},"title":"Fake Off","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"When one goes for a hit of news, it's amazing how often it's been cut with spin. Not bias, not commentary, but flapdoodle. It's right after shipment where the purveyors can't help but allude to it so it stays. Example 1. Former President Clinton's tactics a few weeks ago while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News, Spin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}