Political Chat At Interview Chatter - Sarah Palin For Vice President?
August 30, 2008 by Darlene McDaniel
Filed under Careers
Before I get into my thoughts on Senator McCain’s choice for Vice President, I want to talk about the Vice Presidential job description. What does the Vice President of the United States get to do? Sarah Palin isn’t sure what the job requires, so I thought I would take a look.
Job Description courtesy of Wikipedia
The formal powers and role of the vice president are limited by the Constitution to becoming President in the event of the death or resignation of the President and acting as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate. As President of the Senate, the Vice President has two primary duties: to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over and certify the official vote count of the U.S. Electoral College. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheney’s tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority.
Readiness to run the country?
Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska is 44 years old. Her political career in Alaska began in the PTA and she stair stepped her way into the Governor’s mansion. That is pretty impressive to me. Given her range of experience in Alaska as Mayor (2-terms) and Governor she certainly has some skills and abilities to run this country. The national issues we face, the national stage, dealing with the media scrutiny maybe the immediate concern for Sarah Palin.
One of the more valid questions I continue to hear concerning Sarah Palin, is her readiness to run this country should something happen to Senator McCain. That is a valid question, and as “hiring managers”, voters, I believe it is a question to consider before casting your vote for this ticket.
Should a Novice run this country?
Here is another question for you to consider before November 4th. Should a novice run this great country? In a word “NO”. That is one of my concerns with Obama, but I am equally concerned about Sarah Palin. She is a novice as well. Why would we allow a beginner to run this country? I don’t care which party ticket you are considering. Convince me that a novice should be running this country. If you work for a fairly large company and your HR department just hired a brand new entry level employee. Someone with maybe two years experience in your industry. The CEO dies, and you decide that the new employee with two years experience is the best candidate to take the helm at your company as the new CEO. Who does that? Really? Maybe a start-up company that is begun by a novice (See the story of Facebook). But American Express, AT&T, Wells Fargo Bank, GE, NBC, CBS, - you get my drift - these companies are not going looking within their ranks for the least experienced person to take over the organization. They will do a thorough search to find the best candidate, someone with experience, vision, integrity, experience, passion, experience, - again you get my drift. Here is a question for you - Why should we/would we hire a novice to run this country? Feel free to scroll down and leave a comment, I looking for someone to convince me that I should vote for either of these presidential tickets. Your thoughts and opinions are welcome!
Picture Credit: I Draw Pictures
1) Gov. of Alaska, for less than two years (Dec. 2006-to date): during which time she embarked on the construction of a natural gas pipeline. (Side note: Husband is employed by British Petroleum.)
2) Prior to being Gov. she held office on the Wasilla City Council (Population 5,470) for two terms (1992–1996), as well as being Mayor of Wasilla (refer to population please) for two terms (1996-2002).
3) Foreign policy experience consists of having lived in Idaho as well as Alaska (which according to a Fox News reporter is after all “next door to Russia”)
4) This year she came under investigation by the Republican controlled legislature about the possibility that she acted unethically by firing Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, because he refused to fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
5) Fought against having the Polar Bear put on the endangered species list.
6) Life time member of the NRA.
7) Proud to have a high school aged son who has enlisted in the army and is supposedly going off to Iraq. (100 more years of war)
8) A Pentecostal who has fought for Creationism to be taught in school and actively endorsed Pat Robertson in 1988.
9) A few weeks ago, on camera, she said that someone would have to tell her what it is the VP actually does.
Imagine they actually win… and then the geriatric President McCain up and dies on us … and then … we have… President Palin… with ALL that experience I’ve just listed?
Yet McCain claims Sen. Obama is too inexperienced??!!
Is that not the pot calling the kettle black?!
One more thing… The pro-lifers are going to just LOVE Gov. Palin’s pregnant 17 year old daughter. So much for teaching abstinence only in school!
She’s the icing on the cake to Gov. Palin’s downs syndrome baby. THEY made the right choice…. “Choice” being the appropriate word, of course.
Poor ignorant child…. nothing more than a pawn in both her mother’s and Sen. McCain’s career. Because there’s no way he didn’t know about this before making his VP choice!
Crazy as a Fox… no?!
I cannot believe John McCain made this choice. I believe he thought this would be the WOMAN to push his ticket over the finish line.
Sara Palin does not have the experience and in her own words, “Is not sure what the VP does”.
Why would a mother with a 4 month old special needs child and a pregnant teenager without a high school education put her family in this position. Her abstience education did not work at home. What makes the US think she can have her finger on the buttom and run this country?
Ethics investigation, minimal experience, fishing violation, DUI for husband, and a vote for the bridge to nowhere? Is McCain out of his mind. This is just the gift that keeps on giving. The Geezer and Gidget will not make it. McCain needs to send the Clampets back home and he needs to check out of politics.
Christian-right leaders and conservative stalwarts have praised the decision of Bristol Palin, the daughter of Governor Sarah Palin, to carry her child to term. She is 17 and conceived this child out of wedlock. Now imagine she wasn’t the daughter of a prominent Republican politician but an average person. Now imagine she was black.
What do you think conservatives would have to say about her? “Typical, urban youth with no sense of responsibility raised with loose morals who plans to depend on the state to take care of her child.” You know it. It’s not within dispute. That’s exactly what they would say.
Barack Obama has told everyone to lay off this because it is a personal, family matter. Yes, but it also has public policy ramifications. Governor Palin is for abstinence only education. Well, that obviously didn’t work.
Has she learned her lesson? Will she now amend her policy position on this matter given her personal record of failure in implementing this ridiculous stance?
Notice I am not blaming Bristol . Quite the opposite. People like me are the ones that defend the Bristol ’s of the world. It is conservatives like James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh and yes, Governor Palin who usually attack people who find themselves in Bristol ’s situation. They demand a dogmatic adherence to moral strictures and chastise and belittle women who have children out of wedlock. Especially if they are women of color.
Which brings us back to Obama. Do you think the Republicans would lay off of Obama if his 17 year-old daughter had gotten pregnant out of wedlock? You know the answer to that question. Everyone does.
“This is what the permissive liberal attitude gets you. If you allow your children to think everything is acceptable, they have no boundaries. They wind up getting themselves in trouble like this. It’s a predictable result of the liberal lifestyle.”
And that’s before the subtle and not so subtle racial implications are brought into this. There is a constant double-standard of how black and white people and politicians are covered in this country. When a young black girl gets pregnant, she’s looking to get money from welfare. When a young white woman gets pregnant, she made an unfortunate mistake and her family is being supportive in trying to help the make the best of it.
Cindy McCain was addicted to drugs and stole from her own charity to feed her addiction Now what do you think the Republicans would have done if Michelle Obama had done that? How do you think the press would have covered it? You think they would have called it a simple mistake and moved on?
When presented with these examples, no matter who you are, you know in your heart that this double standard exists. All of this is not said to condemn Bristol Palin or Cindy McCain. This is to get you to think twice about your own assumptions about the next time you hear a story of a young African-American woman who got pregnant in the inner city or a minority who got addicted to drugs and committed a crime to feed that addiction.
There but for the grace of God go Bristol Palin and Cindy McCain