Palin Poll
Lee on Aug 30 2008 at 11:37 am | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008
Rasmussen’s first Palin poll suggests that while many Americans still need more information to make a judgment, she’s already made a superior impression to Biden on the day of his selection by Obama.
Of enormous significance is the finding that she receives a 63% favorable rating from independents, and a 61% favorable rating from independent women.
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23 Responses to “Palin Poll”
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Superior to Biden..let’s see…an ex-beauty pagent winner…with a undergraduate degree in jounalism…who does not believe in global warming…who does believe a woman should have no control over her own body and for 9 months should be viewed as nothing more than a baby container…who’s main attributes seem to be stubborness and vicious competiveness… who has had next to no experience in goverment…who has a currently very messy family situation given that she had recently given birth to a downs syndrome baby, has a 17 year old daughter who is unwed and pregnant and is facing investigation for using her political office to smear her ex-brother-in-law and get him fired (he is in a custody battle with her sister)…who seems to be in bed with big oil… belonged to a 3rd party in 1994 that wanted to sececede from the United States…who is running for VP…whose running mate is 72 and is a cancer survivor…who has no foreign policy background and in fact has only been out of the country twice…who may become President of the country I love at a time when it faces the most complex foreign policy issues, economic issues and domestic issues it has in decades…Why does this sound like a totally unbelievably bad novel???? I for one am terrified and can not understand what Mr. McCain was thinking!!!!
well when you make up half truths and try to use McCain’s cancer and Palin’s child with down syndrome as attacks you make a good point. Though it’s probably not the one you were trying to make.
I don’t doubt at all that you’re terrified, Rebecca.
I’d try to comfort you with the thought that Sarah Palin undoubtedly believes that every woman should have absolute control over her own body and her own reproduction. Why in heaven’s name do you think she doesn’t?
Isn’t an unwanted pregnancy a testament to a complete and utter LACK of control over a woman’s own body and reproduction? Abortion is “damage control” in a situation where a woman’s autonomy, often times willingly, has been given up entirely. Slapping a bandaid on the fact that a woman either doesn’t have or doesn’t want to *bother* asserting control over her body and reproduction doesn’t make the fact that she didn’t have control over her own self go away! Heck, that’s like saying that a woman can be un-raped simply by removing the sperm… or something. It’s bull-sh*t.
If you have CONTROL over your body and your reproduction you don’t NEED an abortion because you ARE NOT PREGNANT.
And I’m absolutely certain that the strong woman Sarah Palin is is right on board 100% with a woman’s right to self-determination in ALL ways over her own life.
Oh… and as for the rest of that interesting screed…
At least with McCain/Palin the inexperienced person MIGHT not end up president.
At least with McCain/Palin we have room to HOPE.
“At least with McCain/Palin we have room to HOPE.”
You’re going to get us sued by the Obama campaign, Sy. That’s a clear infringement on their trademark: HOPE ™.
Women are not stupid - they aren’t just going to support ANY woman and its an insult that the McCain campaign would think they can pull something like this.
McCain barely knows Palin himself, meeting with her only the day before he chose her. At that, with such little experience, why would I want her so close to the presidency? Why would anyone? There were a variety of qualified candidates out there to choose from and McCain picked Palin PURELY as a political tactic to garner disgruntled Hillary supporters - sorry McPain, it wont work.
She cant even control her own daughter - how will she manage a country?
“McCain picked Palin PURELY as a political tactic to garner disgruntled Hillary supporters”
It seems to me that this is your rationale for picking Palin, rather than McCain’s. Now you can say the reasons McCain has stated for picking her are insufficient, or that what he perceives as strengths are actually negatives because you disagree with them, but you can’t just invent causalities for yourself and then argue that they’re McCain’s. That’s hardly fair as opponent.
I just watched Palin’s speech and realize that it is so obvious that she is nothing more than a puppet for the Republican Party. The speech was designed for her and she was just the puppet! The immature and sarcastic jabs and attacks on Obama were tasteless and tactless…no class! She even had the nerve to mock Obama’s work as a community organiizer, when he was the one fighting for people’s jobs, health care, rights etc. What a joke that she has her knocked up daughter’s boyfriend flown in from Alaska to sit there and hold her hand, it’s all for show. Palin is such an advocate for abstinence and now has a pregnant teenage daughter, maybe she should’ve talked to her daughter about birth control! She’s a joke…nothing more than a puppet!
If John Mc Cain was truly a Maverick, he would’ve chosen his buddy Lieberman. Instead he APPEASED to his party and had them pick Palin for him…she was only a political strategy pick.
well he did mock her work as a mayor. so you really don’t have a point there.
and how do you know she didn’t? Kids are going to have sex these days. Good to know you’re attacking her family though.
“Kids are going to have sex these days.”
True, but an unexpected teenage pregnancy and a shotgun wedding aren’t exactly new developments in the human experience. Ask Barack Obama, no? Perhaps Alex wishes a teenaged, unmarried Ann Dunham had used birth control, but I suspect not.
Everytime I hear a republican speak positively about Palin, it’s like they are desperately trying to convince themselves that this is a good pick. *Please*, can someone just own up to the simple truth that she is so vastly unqualified in every respect to be vice president, let alone president? Can’t you just kind of say..”well…yeah…we know. But it’s hard to admit.”
Ya know….like…say…these two conservative commentators.
Now, if, like her, you believe that Creationism should be taught in schools, that Roe V Wade should be overturned, that global warming is not caused by humans, that we should drill in ANWAR, etc., then yes, she is your candidate. By all means go forth with confidence. But for those who don’t actually believe these things, and many Republicans don’t….*why would you be supporting her??* How, genuinely, truly and honestly, can you picture this woman a heartbeat away from the presidency? On paper, divorced from party affiliation, would you think to say ..”Hm…yes….this is clearly the best choice for this position.” Really? Really and truly?
*Please*, can someone just own up to the simple truth that she is so vastly unqualified in every respect to be vice president, let alone president?”
No Daniel, I’m afraid we can’t lie to you however politely you ask (and your tone is appreciated). It’s a personal failing perhaps, but I’m just not very good at distributing palliatives for the prejudicial. She isn’t even “vastly under-qualified” in a singular sense. In comparative terms with the Democratic presidential nominee the presumption becomes preposterous. There it stands and you can’t get around it if the election is a choice between the two tickets. This is why so many advocates for the Obama campaign have left this argument behind in favor of sexual slander and libel against her family. They’re more vicious than you, but in a sad way wiser.
As for your subsequent policy objections, which is it? Does she stand for nothing, or too much? You can’t have both.
And yes “really”…and even more than that. Far more.
Obama’s Education:
Columbia University
B.A. Political Science with specialization in international relations
Thesis topic: Soviet nuclear disarmament
Harvard Law School
J.D. magna cum laude 1988-1991
President, Harvard Law Review
Palin’s Education:
B.A. in journalism from the University of Idaho. Not accredited by the ACEJMC — American Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Winner: Obama.
Obama’s Business Experience:
1993-2002 Worked as an associate attorney with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Represented non-profits and private individuals in urban development projects, voting rights cases, and wrongful firings. Filed major suit that forced the state of Illinois to enforce the Motor Voter Law and successfully argued a wrongful firing case before the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Palin’s Business Experience:
BUSINESS: Worked as sports reporter for two Anchorage television stations; owned with her husband a snowmobile, watercraft, ATV business from 1994-97. Husband is a North Slope oil field worker.
Winner: Obama
Obama’s Previous Experience:
1983-1984 Writer/Researcher for Business International Corporation. Helped companies understand overseas markets in the “Financing Foreign Operations” service and wrote for the “Business International Money Report”
1984-1985 Community Organizer for New York Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), promoting personal, community, and government reform at City College in Harlem.
1985-1988 Director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland on Chicago’s South Side. While director grew the DCP staff from 1 to 13 and their budget from $70,000 to $400,000.
1992 Led Chicago’s Project Vote! push. This effort resulted in a record number of voter registrations, over 600,000 in Chicago.
Illinois Senate 1996-2004
chairman, Health and Human Services Committee
Spearheaded a successful bipartisan effort in Illinois to pass the broadest ethics-reform legislation by any state in 25 years, and also gained bipartisan support for his successful bills reforming death penalty interrogations and ending racial profiling by police. Worked with the Republican-led effort to reform welfare
Also sponsored successful bills expanding tax credits and child-care subsidies for low-income working families, protecting overtime pay for workers, expanding health care for children, and providing job skills training for juveniles
US Senate 2004-Present
Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs
Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Member, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Member, Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Shares responsibility for the bipartisan Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, requiring full online disclosure of all entities receiving federal funds, and the bipartisan Lugar-Obama Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2006, deepening non-proliferation work with WMD and including surface-to-air missiles, land mines, and other weapons that may be used by terrorists
Barack Obama has introduced nearly 300 bills during his time in the U.S. Senate, and cosponsored close to 1,000 others.
Etc.
Palin’s Previous Experience:
Two terms on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 8,500).
- Two terms as mayor of Wasilla.
- Campaigned for the office of lieutenant-governor. Lost.
- In 2006, elected governor of Alaska with a little more than 100,000 votes. Sworn into office Dec. 4, 2006.
-Ethics Commissioner of Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission 2003-4
-Pushed for ethics Bill.
(if there is more, I am open to learning what)
Winner: Obama.
Please contradict me. Again, if you do believe in the policies I mentioned above, then by all means vote for her–I won’t debate your beliefs in things regarding abortion, Creationism, etc. but *experience, preparedness, education, etc*….Come right on.
Daniel you’re not even to the point of equitable comparison in your reaseach, which would allow you to plead for contradiction. Right off the bat you list Obama’s complete biography from education to specific legislation and completely fail to list Palin’s for comparative purposes. You’ve done half the work required to create a weighted comparison –the half that details your favored candidate– and thus only demonstrated profound bias, or perhaps even a lack of interest which is even worse really. It’s not like you couldn’t have compiled genuinely equivalent dataset from the lengthy list of policies and actions in even the Wikipedia entry.
More comprehensively, his entire legislative experience is inequivalent to Sarah’s executive experience. You’re to contest that introducing amendments to legislative bills is equivalent to someone who has formulated policy and signed bills into law? At the risk of sounding a little condescending, are you familiar with the duties of the presidency?
I didn’t like Rebecca’s comment either. I thought it was nasty and belligerent.
I very much like Sarah Palin. I think the point made that everyone focuses on her large family as a reason why she shouldn’t run was met well with the response that, “No one ever dares say that to a man!”, and it’s soooo true.
In today’s world, especially with the democratic spending and taxes that have no end, the death of the stay-at-home Mom has been realized. When Obama’s camp attacks on these grounds, him and his ilk all need a nice big mirror to point the finger in front of.
Sarah Palin is a breath of fresh air. I’ll be supporting her 100% and the damn the polls who didn’t ask the working women but instead, got their information from impressionable college kids.
Dear Daniel,
You forgot to add Obama’s Muslim education in Indonesia. His Marxist influence in college that he flocked to and sought out and his Islamic association in and outside of his campaign. I think after the 2006 speech that was just dug up on YouTube, it’s safe to now say that Obama is not a real Christian of any good standing, and no, that would not include his Black Liberation Theology Church that is racist and anti-American — but, you could rightly throw on his resume you have there.
If choosing a President, I don’t care about his skin-color, but he better damn well be pro-American and not get up there like Obama did and shame people for being Americans.
No, no, no! Damn Obama and damn his socialist politics! And that goes for you too, Rev. Wright, Farrakhan, Ayers, Islamic terrorism and all of your ilk who are bent on destroying this country. Don’t think we’re so stupid we can see right through this.
Well Michelle, Barack Obama may have many disagreeable characteristics, but he’s certainly not a Marxist or a Muslim. He’s made specific statements of endorsement for the market economy and has written and spoken extensively on his Christian beliefs. There’s no persuasive evidence that he’s lying about that either.
Obama is in many ways a very conventional social democrat. For some reason though, there is a tendency on the part of both the right and left to want to artificially transform him into something more than he is. I’m really not sure why. I don’t understand the Obama love or hate cults given his past record, or his policy proposals.
I should note that Palin is no less qualified than vice president hopeful Tim Kaine, nor actual vice president nominee John Edwards.
Lee–
I just read the entire Wikipedia article (which is notoriously inaccurate, but we’ll use it in this case). There are a smattering of accomplishments I could include in her tenure as Governor that could be added to my list above, granted. But not much. Why is this “executive” experience so lauded? The fact that she *signed* a bill into law is somehow more weighty than those who wrote the bill? That’s her job…to sign or not. But the authors of said bill have the hard work. As to having been in charge as evidence of her readiness to lead…I don’t buy it. My high school basketball coach was a leader of sorts. It doesn’t mean he was ready or qualified to lead an orchestra. I would rather take someone with a music degree who had never conducted than the basketball coach.
Obama is vastly more educated, in matters foreign, economic and domestic. That sort of education is invaluable–it teaches discernment, research, nuance, and analysis– though it seems in America that most people get intimidated by higher education and flock to someone who is more “like them”, calling someone who went to Harvard elitist. Personally, in business, I surround myself with people smarter than me—my accountant, my financial adviser, my doctor. We all want *them* to be top of their class when possible, but when it comes to the selection for Vice-President (potentially president), the American people would be comfortable with some with a BA in Journalism from a non accredited school in Idaho. Scary.
Please educate me as to how Palin’s brief tenure as Governor qualifies her more than Obama. Educate me as to how her running a snowmobile shop qualifies her economically. Educate me as to how her absolute lack of knowledge regarding foreign policy and international relations qualifies her.
Or is it just that, like so many I hear speak on this, you just “like her”.
“Why is this “executive” experience so lauded?”
Well, civics lessons aren’t quite why I got into blogging, but why not? It’s a friendly enough chat.
At the most basic level the governor is exactly what the name applies, he or she runs the government. The leadership of the bureaucracy, the direction of the policy apparatus in everything from commerce and trade to cultural enterprise, the appointment of officials for every faculty of the state, the commander-in-chief of the coercive capacity of the state, the power of oversight over the judiciary through clemency right, the command of the budget, on and on. It requires no imagination at all to recognize that a governorship is the presidency in miniature in almost every respect, and experience gained therein, is naturally highly useful for a president.
On a deeper level, it’s a position of singular leadership and unique public accountability. A legislator is by definition, a contributor. He or she is one among many. Responsibility is diversified and policy advocacy consists largely of endorsement, most frequently against or at the behest of the governor’s policy. Most resolutions passed in the United States Senate (including so many of the aggregate in your Obama list) are in essence commentary (if you will) and efforts at revision on areas of executive purview. The governor is inevitably charged with shaping the course of policy from origination to direction to law. It is not possible for a legislator to exercise sole authority or responsibility for the decisions of a voting body of equals. At best, one can serve in a leadership capacity to influence what bills are brought to a vote, but naturally this not within Mr. Obama’s experience. Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi, would have credible claims to this kind of leadership…and yet for them it is still not executive power and executive responsibility by a long shot. For it’s the governor who ultimately decides what becomes law and what does not. A legislature can pass on anything to his or her desk, but the governor is accountable for what is executed.
Or is it just that, like so many I hear speak on this, you just “like her”.
Well, I certainly like her there’s no doubt, but that’s obviously not being used by me to militate against requisite experience, ideas, or merit, which she demonstrably possesses in ample supply. Particularly as I note, in a comparative sense (which is the only genuinely relevant evaluation process in a democracy).
Lee, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis, tho I cannot in any way agree. Being in the position of Gov of Alaska, while by definition “executive” experience, still does not qualify her in all the other arenas I have mentioned which have not been addressed: education, foreign policy *knowledge* (let alone experience), economic knowledge and experience.
And could you please comment on the duplicity of the Republican/Conservative position on her as so hilariously ( yet accurately) shown in this clip?
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=184086
“I appreciate your thoughtful analysis”
You do me too kind a service. This is elementary stuff as far as I’m concerned. As to your interest in education, educational reform was one of the central planks of her election campaign for governor. In fact, as I recall she implemented a plan increasing education spending in Alaska by a billion dollars each year. A significant investment to say the least. On foreign policy that is indeed traditionally the problem for governors, you end up as you do with Sarah, talking about trade principally. Governors tend to avoid foreign policy discussion you’ll find. This is the key area in my opinion for pressing Sarah for answers on.
As for economic policy, this is a great strength of Palin’s experience as governor, a state with a fantastically high growth rate, not unaffected by Palin’s efforts in deregulation, job growth promotion, spending reduction, tax policy reform and of course, all that experience in energy issues.
“And could you please comment on the duplicity of the Republican/Conservative position on her as so hilariously ( yet accurately) shown in this clip?”
Well, it seems Mr. Rove changed his position in a highly disingenuous and frankly rather stupid fashion. His original assessment was completely incorrect. Keep in mind though I’m from a faction on the right that’s been arguing for Palin since early 2007, so at no point were we in agreement on this matter. The establishment of the Republican party was and is very much against this choice. For me though, that only speaks further to the wisdom of it.
It’s certainly no secret that the political strategies of the Bush administration aren’t favored by the McCain campaign, to put it charitably. Democrats like to argue the opposite of course, this would tend to go some ways to disproving the allegation, no?