More and more, it seems like John McCain did not do the right amount of thinking before selecting his vice-Presidential candidate. Sarah Palin has turned out to be an extremely polarizing figure, with a section of conservatives very enamored of her; a large section of the electorate however sees her a person who is certainly not presidential. Her view-points, her seemingly lack of grasp of international issues and the fact that if McCain became President, she would be next in line to be President (in case something happens to McCain, and he is 72 years old after all), all have combined to turn large sections of the electorate away from her.
It also seems clear that she has ambitions of her, and the support of sections of the conservative legion have only increased this level of ambition. Initially, when the McCain campaign seemed to be running close to the Obama campaign in terms of numbers, she would have accepted the lead of the McCain campaign to govern her activities, including a stifling press interaction. But as time passed by, and it seemed that McCain is on the verge of losing, Sarah is striking out. She is projecting that she was not comfortable with some of the campaign policies including a reduction in the direct attacks on Obama, that she was not comfortable with her careful and gradual introduction to the campaign. For her, the current campaign is just a springboard to get the public and the conservatives to get to know her as a national figure, not a Governor of a state on the edge of the country. Towards this end, she is also constantly projecting herself as a person representing small town America, the real America. This is also making the McCain campaign staffers see red:

continue reading "Tension in the McCain camp over Palin"

When John McCain selected the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin as his vice-Presidential candidate, it was initially seen as a master-stroke. After all, for conservatives who were dubious of his credentials given his many maverick policies, it was the presentation of a person who was everything that a good conservative should be. Family oriented, anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, believing Christian, and so on. And then she would also try and sway some of the women to her side.
However, things have not been turning out quite that way. It now seems quite obvious that John McCain did not really vet the nomination to the required detail. She is turning out to have quite a few skeleton’s in her closet. It was initially itself understood that she does not have national security credentials and any grasp of foreign affairs, but the long drawn out process for letting her give interviews, for letting the press ask her the tough questions (more like a thorough grilling that they give to candidates), all of them make it seem that she is just not ready for the post of being a person who is next in line to the President, and would act as the President in the case of any emergency.

continue reading "Sarah Palin’s new wardrobe and controversy"

The first debate between the 2 contenders ended in mostly a draw. Different media are reporting different winners, so you can guess as to how balanced the discussion was. Well, actually, both these contenders are seen to be great speakers, they know their points by now and so do their audiences. In such a close fight, it is almost impossible for either of them to say anything new or radically different from what they have spoken before, so even though the debate was interesting, it was abundantly clear that the debate would not have any clear winners. So, for example, if you take this CNN Report, it mentions that Obama was slightly higher in terms of a perceived debate winner, but not by too much, and the poll had more Democrats than Republicans.

Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night’s winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won. “It can be reasonably concluded, especially after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, that we witnessed a tie in Mississippi tonight,” CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib said. “But given the direction of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, a tie translates to a win for Obama.”

continue reading "First debate between McCain and Obama: No clear winners"