Is Palin a positive or a negative for the GOP ticket?

If you wish to terrorize others, to move them with fear into your religious/political views and ideologies, you are a terrorist.

 

I'm going to say this again. The Democrats and the media would have had a field day with Romney. He was a governor that ran Massachusetts somewhere to the left of John Kerry. He left the commonwealth (commonpoverty?) with enormous new social programs, and no money to pay for them. When Barney Bubble starts talking about a "new dose of Keynesianism", he learned it from Mitt Romney. And then when he entered the Presidential race, he tried to portray himself as the conservative. I don't know what the the catchword would be, flip-flopper is worn out, but Democrats are unoriginal so they might still use it, but Romney would have been hit with it daily.

 

Agree with you, but (amazingly) he would have been a better choice than Palin. Hindsight usually has good vision and we can see choosing Palin cost McCain so much credibility that he lost any chance to win.

I didn't think any choice for VP could have turned me against McCain more than Romney, but Palin has done exactly that. I'll pitch in to buy her a one-way plane ticket back to Juneau.

 

Palin strikes again.

Not that the GOP cares about science so much to begin with, but this certainly does not help.

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tick....tick....tick

Sara Palin's 15 minutes will be up shortly and I'm thankful for that.

 

^ Context for the video: Palin was giving a policy speech on her devotion to providing funding for programs for children with special needs, including autism, Down Syndrome (from which her own son Trig suffers), etc., by cutting funding to useless "pet projects" like fruit fly research (in Paris, France, no less. oh nooeezz the French!!!!!11!).

A potential VP of the most technologically advanced country in the world had no clue that the two are related.

 

Yeah, the newsweek guy in that video summed it up: if you mock "fruit fly research," you either, (1) don't have a science advisor, or (2) have a speechwriter who doesn't know what they're doing.

I will go with #1, as McCain has not named (as far as I know) a scientific advisory group. That's very important to this voter. Palin mocking fundamental genetics work was shocking to behold, and I'm no fan of hers. That's just amazing to hear someone do that in 2008. It would have been shocking in 1978, in fact.

 

We already know Palin doesn't possess the gene that tells her when to be embarrassed, B-Bob. Now we know she doesn't possess the curiosity of, well, of a fruit fly. And that may be a slam at all of the world's fruit flies.

 

I think Palin has turned into a net negative for McCain but all of the potential VP candidates had their negative. McCain truly pulled a maverick move with Palin and, pun fully intended, it was a ballsy move on his part. There is a reason though why maverick moves don't often work and I think this is one of those cases.

 

Do we really need research to put lipstick on fruitflies?

 

Holy crap....

I don't even know what more to say that I or anyone else hasn't already said...this woman is an embarassment. An absolute embarassment to this country.

 

Hitchens weighs in again...

http://slate.com/id/2203120/

 

Off topic:

B-Bob,

I've seen you state in a few places that you are impressed with Obama's scientific advisory team. I was impressed by Schwarzenegger/Obama climate change advisor Dan Kammen on last week's Frontline .

Without divulging any confidences, any chance you'd share who else among the advisors you find reputable?

 

Kammen is indeed the bomb -- just a very bright, balanced guy.

I am very taken with Harold Varmus (sp), for the bioscience advice. That's a great pick.

 

The look on McCain's face in those videos is just priceless.

 

Cool; thanks for the reply. I didn't realize a Nobel laureate would slum as NIH director.

Doubling the budget for scientific research? Truly the anti-Palin.

 

That fruit fly comment by Palin is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard in a long long time. How stupid can she get?

Genetics would be years and years behind if not for study of fruit flies.

 

LOL. It does underscore the extent to which he is not ego-driven. He's on his path for the right reasons.