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Earth To “Real” America: Palin Is Not One Of You
By Joshua Rosenstock | October 24, 2008
Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?
Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staffer. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.
Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?â€, was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi’s payment as “Personnel Svc/Equipment.â€
Your taxpayer dollars hard at work. Remember, Senator McCain opted for public financing, which means you and I just paid for Sarah Palin’s hair and designer clothes. This from the candidate that promises to cut wasteful spending in Washington.
Topics: 2008, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin |
October 24th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
wake up people!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Hello?????????????? NONE OF THEM ARE!!!
…AND WE KNOW WHAT THEY REALLY THINK OF US AS WELL!!
Despite our personal prejudices, and Steve Levine’s very personal points of view to the contrary with respect to selected individuals, there ARE thinking people writing here.
They are the same thinking people who supported Adlai Stevenson in his run against Eisenhower. Only Stevenson realized he needed a majority to win. He even said so publicly. Given Steve Levine’s philosophy, Stevenson would have lost. I suppose that’s why he did. Everyone else voted for IKE!
October 25th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
If I understand your latest post (and you have a talent for obfuscation that doesn’t always make that easy,) you’ve misunderstood my point of view.
I’ve ALWAYS felt there are thinking people writing here; that’s why I enjoy taking part in the conversation.
It’s the Sarah Palins and Michele Bachmanns of the world — and their ignorant followers — who should be barred from voting.
Stevenson lost because there were too many of those people, and not enough thinkers.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Your point of view is crystal clear and without any confusion or misunderstanding on my part. You would leave the running of this country to a cadre of egalitarian, effete snobs, no better that what we have had in the past.
The discussions which began herein months ago, particularly from the track that Josh was following, contained a hope for true campaign reform. At the end of the day we have Obama, not withstanding his call for ‘change’, the recipient of campaign contributions far in excess of his opponent who chose the ‘limit’ course.
At the end of the day, Obama remains no more than a typical, cut from the same bolt, obfuscative, untruthful, and untrustworthy political candidate who, if elected, will have been so, for all the wrong reasons, by the same constituency to whom you would deny the vote.
If his opponent loses, he will have done so because ‘there were too many of those people and not enough thinkers.’
October 26th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
If you see Obama as a typical, obfuscative untruthful and untrustworthy candidate,and McCain as being supported by thinkers, then we have nothing further to discuss.
It’s not a valid reason, but for what it’s worth, with each passing day, more and more of McCain’s supporters are seeing through the sham of his candidacy and abandoning his sinking ship. And I’m delighted that the McCain myth is finally being shattered.
But I’m still disappointed, because I thought you were smart enough to see that.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
You come to a conclusion I did not make. I see significant and relevant pluses and minuses on both tickets. McCain’s VP choice was a debacle. Obama’s should be standing in HIS place.
My first impressions of Obama were that he had been for a long long time, studying JFK’s “shtick” from A-Z, much as an actor might preparing for a role as the former president, because it was the kind of thing which would suck in the gullible unthinking voters whom you decry. I consider him a ‘charismatic leader’, the kind of which real thinking people need to be wary of. But, as you ( and Stevenson) have so well observed, real thinking people don’t elect presidents.
It is pathetic that this citizenry cannot field a slate of strong candidates of subtance, who have the wherewithal to make a good case for their candidacies through solid, information based discussions of issues.
Instead, we continue to be assailed by useless political rhetoric of absolutely no substance
and that we are having to make a choice from this lot. These ‘debates’ are a fiasco. I’ve said before, and elsewhere..they have contempt for us and know they can serve us pie in the sky and we will eat it ravenously.
We are like the keepers who walk behind the elephants in the circus, carrying a broom and a dust pan.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
D__, your allusion to elephants in the circus was unintentionally a perfect metaphor for all the vile, stinking lies John McCain and the Republican Party have been dropping in the public commons. No one has done more to deflect information-based discussion of the issues in this campaign than they.
I suggest you ditch the broom and dust pan, and let them eat their own poisonous shit.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Thus, as a postscript to that diabribe of mine, I have no clear cut choice in these candidates. Palin has no business being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Obama’s view of the national or global priorities do n not speak to my needs or my present station. In my honest opinion, once all the airy persiflage has cleared, he is the answer to the “messianic prophecy” of a person, other than a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and preferable a person of color, as President.
He is the ’savior’ to all to whom he speaks, for what ever reasons they hear him.
I might remind you, that the last presidential candidate who saw his mandate as “bring us together”, was Richard M. Nixon. So much for his legacy.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
….and, with all deference to Vince, whose background, experiences and opinions I value and respect even though we may not always agree….my position is, and will always be, whether elephant or donkey, it is stll the same excrement. We have yet to learn how to effectively throw it back at them and have THEM eat it. The wind always seems to blow in our direction.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
If “we continue to be assailed by useless political rhetoric of absolutely no substance,”
and if we are devoid of “solid, information based discussions of the issues,” it’s because candidates have learned that a large portion of our pathetically ignorant and lazy public responds to the former and isn’t capable of understanding the latter.
Which is the point I’ve been making.
And which is why we have campaigns that feature mindless chanting by the voters (”Drill, baby drill”) and scurrilous, irrelevant pandering by McCain (”Obama doesn’t see America the same way you do.”)
We get the government we deserve.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
If that is your point, well taken and reaffirmed. Where you and I part company is your philosophy of disenfranchisement which you have been very forceful about.
Regrettably, people go about daily, busy about their lives and the need to survive. They don’t want to think at the end of the day. Instead of Charlie Rose, they prefer the mindless banter of Letterman et al. Then they succumb to the classic campaign proscriptions which almost always reached their most fevered pitches the week before Election Day.
Your political bias doesn’t allow for the chanting in the other party’s backyard. The gambit is the same throughout along with the shills who coach the throngs.
The new political dawn has yet to break. It cannot be expected on the heels of either of these two men. It has to come from a well-spring having no traditional ties to either political machine. Think you that Obama is not entrenched in the political machine..think again. I don’t buy it.
I followed his candidacy very closely as I did McCain’s They are both apparently the best this country has to offer at the moment. This disappoints me greatly. With respect to Obama, in that he is your bone of contention, I am very impressed with his coming up. He offered much inspiration in his inaugural address, but there’s something missing because he is not speaking to ME and I certainly DO HEAR HIM. I also hear McCain, and his message offers me more that does Obama’s, and that’s what makes this horserace.
At the end of the day it is not the lofty ideals of national and global interests that sways people, but rather individual lives, homes and families which elect presidents. If Obama prevails, we will watch with interest and see if he earns my support. But not at this time.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
My observation is that McCain has HAD no message, other than that Obama “is not ready to be president.”
Mr. Straight Talk has offered us fear and negativity, and has not provided a rationale for why HE should be elected president.
I see in Obama the potential for greatness, and if he wins, I believe he’ll earn your admiration and support.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
We have yet but to turn another page.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Speaking of loathsome Republican lies, the Bible-thumping “Christian”, Palin, can’t seem to open her mouth without lying.
She says the $35 (that’s right, $35) wedding ring she paid for herself (!), hurts her finger when she shakes hands, so Todd keeps it in his pocket when she’s pressing flesh.
Pardon me, but people wear their wedding ring on their left hand, not their right, the one they shake hands with.
Imagine how her handlers must cringe when she says she’s going to speak without the media “filter”.
This is not someone we want as vice president.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/10/26/palin-wardrobe-controversy-heightens-todd-is-a-cheapo/
October 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
….and the current Michelle Obama video making the rounds on YouTube may give some pause about who should be First Lady.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
A comment or two on this interesting conversation:
On 10/26, it was charged here that I would “leave the running of this country to a cadre of egalitarian, effete snobs, no better that what we have had in the past.”
Earlier, I had been accused of being an elitist, because I would deny the vote to ignorant, uninformed citizens.
Since elitism is the opposite of egalitarianism, and since my critics can’t have it both ways, I’ll plead guilty to the more accurate elitism charge.
As for the claim that I would “leave the running of the country to a cadre of…effete snobs”…
According to both Merriam AND Webster (as well as Funk AND Wagnalls), to be effete is to be lacking in vigor, to be decadent, to be worn out, sterile.
The people I would put in charge are, by definition, vital, engaged, well-informed and passionate.
Elitists we may be, but there’s nothing effete about us at all.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Semantics not with standing your analysis remains subject to your point of view as is mine. I look forward to your candidacy for office. Unfortunately as with Stevenson,you will likely not achieve the majority you require to prevail.