Monday, September 1, 2008

A lag of ONLY 24 years

Saturday morning I was on the Cape. My cell phone rang; it was a reporter from the Poughkeepsie Journal wanting my reaction to McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate.
I told the reporter that i did not know here,BUT vice presidential candidates in the past have only had at most a plus or minus 2% impact--the minus 2% was for Nixon's choice of Spiro Agnew,the plus 2% was for the FIRST major party choice of Geraldine Ferraro to run on Mondale's ticket in 1984.
And, as of today, news surveys have shown NO significant movement of voters towards the McCain camp.
While we may may more attention to who the vice presidential candidate is, credit Cheney for this, I do not believe that Palin will have the desired affect.
Palin will not attract women voters--she is NOT a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. Just because she is a woman,does not mean women will vote for her. Women are not monoliths that McCain, and other men, think we are.
She does solidify McCain's conservative religious right camp more than he does. The Evangelicals are ecstatic!

Here is NOW's statement re:Palin http://www.now.org/press/08-08/08-29.html

4 comments:

Julie McQuain said...

The negligent, gimicky, completely political and offensive central idea in McCain's VP pick is that one skirt is the same as the next, and any skirt'll do.

Gary Bischoff said...

Another important point about McCain's VP choice is that he is obviously pandering for votes. This will help energize "the base", and attract moderate women. The choice was not made with any thought of her ability to govern. Obama's VP is perfectly capable of stepping into the oval office, and adds depth and experience to the ticket.

Gary Bischoff

ralph in saugerties said...

I took Julie's advice and came to the blog because I have strong opinions on many issues and the Repuglican choice for VP certainly is no exeption.
Unfortunately reading Dr. Jams blog I was cofronted with the following, "and other men" comment, and lost interest as she accused me of the behavior she demonstrated therewith.
But spose I should carry on so here goes. Two possibilities for the choice of the AK governor: 1. To insult the American people further than their leadership has over the past 8 years; or 2. To see how far the Repugs can go with their absurdities and still be elected.

Dr. JAM said...

Ralph: I did not accuse you of being like McCain and other men who think one woman is interchangeable with all women. I said "other men" because there are (unfortuately a lot of ) other men who think of women as a monolith. BUT there are also men who realize that women like men are not all alike. . . and, men who are feminists.
I would like to think that the men of UCDW are of the enlightened variety :)