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Sarah Palin, the Republican race for President and the media

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by av .

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What is it about Sarah Palin that attracts all the press coverage from serious Republican candidates like Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, that we should be listening to? Our country is in bad shape, but the media is fascinated with her instead and her One Nation bus tour vacation.

She is such a distraction, I have to wonder why she is doing this if she loves this country so much. I think its personal greed and power and because she can. She's Sarah Palin, afterall, and she's using her personal attributes to mock the establishment. She isn't doing this country a favor.

AV

63 replies

by maxwell edison

Typical - the politics of personal destruction instead of focus on issues, ideals, and principle.

When will you people learn that you're being led like cattle to slaughter?

by santeewelding

That thing you make do with because you have no Everything to otherwise order the world of we.

Makes you feel any better, though, I agree with your synopsis, at that level.

by seanferd

The issues, come elections for office holders, are the people who are up for election or posturing in that direction. The issue is that the candidates are full of crap and a lot of folks seem to support them and their ridiculous positions on the issues. Hell, most of the issues are contrived in the first place.

Plenty of people are indeed sheeple. Your implications as to who the sheeple are is less than accurate. (Whether you were addressing AV, myself, or whomever may randomly read your post, in which you address no issues at all.)

by ansugisalas

However, if they agree with Max they're Tea Partiers, but it they disagree with him, they're sheeple.

Everybody's along for the ride.

by boxfiddler

I'm of the opinion we don't want to face our own greed and laziness. So we let the media run our politics.

Not a Dem or Rep will get my vote if there's a third party candidate on the ballot. Long-standing personal policy. I apply it at all levels of vote. Dems and Reps aren't going to pay attention to anything that doesn't hurt their pockets/power. A huge percentage of third party votes will likely get their attention.

Then, I'm generally an optimist.

by maxwell edison

Voting for a third-party candidate - especially for president - is about the dumbest thing a person can do. Like it or not, a majority party WILL win, and WILL control the agenda. And to vote for a third-party is ignoring reality. But I guess it makes you feel good.

P.S. Those people who voted for THEIR third-party candidate in Florida in 2000, were the very people who were MOST responsible for giving that election to GWB. It wasn't the courts, it was the third-party voters who cast their vote for Ralph Nader.

Like it or not, that's reality.

by boxfiddler

making me feel good. Nothing about politics makes me 'feel good'. I cannot, in good conscience, just keep voting for half-assed candidates with power/money machines behind their candidacy.

We're on a downhill slide, and that's because people vote their pockets, Dems and Reps know it, and the media plays us all. As far as I'm concerned, the system is corrupted beyond repair.

[i]Voting for a third-party candidate - especially for president - is about the dumbest thing a person can do. Like it or not, a majority party WILL win, and WILL control the agenda. And to vote for a third-party is ignoring reality.[/i]

That attitude just contributes to their power.

by charliespencer

"Those people who voted for THEIR third-party candidate in Florida in 2000, were the very people who were MOST responsible for giving that election to GWB."

They might have been the people responsible for giving FLORIDA to Bush. Just because that state was the last to certify its results doesn't mean it decided the outcome of a national election all by itself. Each of the other states that went for Bush were just as crucial as the last.

Just because a kicker misses a last-second field goal doesn't mean he's responsible for the missed scoring opportunities in the previous 59 minutes.

by nicknielsen

Those third-party voters are dismissed as immaterial, and considered "wasted" votes. The winning candidate then goes on to interpret his or her plurality as a "mandate", conveniently forgetting (or ignoring) that the majority of people voted for other candidates, further alienating the third-party voters. This, of course, is what the corporate masters want.

I think that, without major course corrections, one or the other of the two existing major parties will become the "third party" before 2020. I don't see it happening in 2012, but I think it will be possible as early as 2014. I'm hoping the marginal party is the Democrats, simply because, if it's the Republicans, it most likely means the Tea Party has achieved second-party status. Nothing against the Tea Party, but with hypocrisy and idiocy rampant in what passes for their platform, I think they can do more damage to the US, both economic and political, than anybody has ever conceived. I wonder who will play Nehemiah Scudder in that movie?

by charliespencer

Why does the media focus on the latest celebrity train wreck du jour at the expense of serious issues?

Because more people want to hear about Lindsey Lohan's latest court appearance and royal weddings than budget deficits and energy solutions. Wherever the audience goes, that's where the media goes, chasing it's advertising dollars source of income. Eyeballs equal money (just like here).

Now you know why the media focuses on the irrelevant. Your question should have been, "Why do the masses care about celebrities?" I don't have an answer to that one.

by av .

They're not reporting the real news. Yeah, its advertising dollars for them, but there is also a large audience of people like me that want to hear "real news" about things that matter to this country. If I tune into Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert, I expect to hear about Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, but if I listen to a news channel like CNN or MSNBC, I expect to hear plain old news. Lately, I'm listening to stories about Sarah Palin's Magical Mystery Tour. Her pizza party with Donald Trump. Her clam bake . . . . . blah, blah, blah.

I have to hand it to her, she knows how to bait the mainstream media. Sarah Palin is pretty vindictive. I think it goes back to her old vendetta with Katie Couric. She's out to discredit the "Lamestream Media" and doing a good job at it. She won't even tell them where she's going everyday so they have to follow her bus in motorcades. She controls them. She knows their achilles heel is celebrity and shes taking advantage of it. That tactic is such a turn off to me. It reminds me of "WINNING".

People need celebrities, but not so much on a news channel.

AV

by charliespencer

"If I tune into Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert, I expect to hear about Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, but if I listen to a news channel like CNN or MSNBC, I expect to hear plain old news."

Why do your expectations differ? What in your opinion makes CNN or MSNBC different from Comedy Central? The first two call themselves 'news channels'; that doesn't mean they ARE news channels. MTV originally stood for 'Music Television', but they practically invented the 'reality show' as we know it today. Calling an act 'ethnic cleansing' doesn't mean it isn't genocide. Calling a frozen drink at the burger joint a 'shake' doesn't mean there's any milk in it.

One of the problems with 24-hour 'news' channels is that they have to fill ... 24 hours. Most days there isn't enough 'hard' news to fill that time span, and Joe Coachpotato wouldn't want to watch it if there was. We used to pump Headline News into the cafeteria here; I noticed that EVERY time I looked at it, there a graphic that said 'Breaking Story', regardless of the content.

You're listening to what they tell you they are; hasn't their content convinced you they're anything but?

by maxwell edison

GWB received 537 more Florida votes than Al Gore, thus GWB won Florida. Had Al Gore won Florida instead of GWB, Gore would have had more electoral votes than GWB, thus winning the presidency.

Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, collected 97,000 votes in Florida. If Nader was not on the ballot, and/or those 97,000 people chose to not throw their vote away on a lost cause of a third party candidate, who do you think most of them would have cast their vote for?

Florida could have been first to certify or last; it doesn't matter.

I???m surprised you didn???t know this.

by ansugisalas

Palmetto is saying that another state could've saved the world as well... are you saying that Florida was the only state where the third-party margin was greater than the GWB lead?

Where do you stand, yourself? As a libertarian, wouldn't you rather have a Libertarian candidate, rather than a mainstream professional republican with a bible-thumper showed up his/her behind?

by maxwell edison

I stand alongside the realist in me knowing that we have a firmly entrenched two-party system, upon which are built all the legislative rules and procedures. An occasional third-party candidate might win a congressional seat on rare occasion, but unless that person is a member of the majority party, the chance of getting any significant legislation passed (or previous legislation repealed) falls somewhere between slim and none. And Slim isn't taking any calls! What the third-party and/or independent people fail to realize or acknowledge is that the majority party DOES control Congress. Nothing will change that, regardless of how hard they wish to believe otherwise.

As such, the best way to get libertarian principles back into government is not through the support of a third party, or a fringe party, or an independent candidate, but rather through changing one of the two main parties from within. The Tea Party movement (a movement, not a political party) is taking giant strides in that regard by making a significant dent in the Republican Party.

A couple of libertarian candidates actually ran on the Republican ticket in the last primary elections and won the seats. If they had run as the Libertarian Party candidate, they simply wouldn't have had a chance in hell of winning, thereby having ZERO chance to implement significant reforms. The Republican Party used to conform more closely to traditional American libertarian principles, but since 1964, they've been on a road taking the party closer to Democratic Party (and socialist) ideals.

by charliespencer

had gone the other way, Gore would have won instead. Bush carried 30 states and won by 5 electoral votes. 21 of those 30 states had more than electoral votes than that five-vote margin. Had any of them gone the other way, Florida would have been irrelevant.

No single state of those 30 put Bush in office all by itself.

by jck

If George Washington and other forefathers of this nation had taken the same attitude that you can't buck the powers that be, we'd never have been free from England.

I also agree that the system is broken beyond repair. Proof of that was Bob Barr walking into the Libertarian Party and being made their candidate. Any "independent" party would have shunned a bought-and-sold, life-long Republican politician like him. Even the "independent" parties get corrupted by the system.

I didn't get to vote for the people I wanted to be put into office. Either the parties didn't make them their candidate, or teamed them up with some nob.

I had to vote for the lesser of the evils last time.

by robo_dev

People are stuck in this 'us versus them' mindset where somehow anything other than 'my party' is evil and must be smothered, covered, burned, and buried.

Meanwhile, those who are really in control, people like the Koch brothers, or the legions of lobbyists employed by the drug companies are killing us and quietly poisoning our air and water all the while laughing at the peasants and their heated red-versus-blue versus independent versus tea-party debates.

There is no red, there is no blue, there is only green ($).

The people do not have the power, nor do most of the officials we elect. It is the lobbyists and the special interest groups funded by big oil, big pharma, and big agriculture.

Sarah Palin is the embodiment of what's wrong with America. The fact that people have contributed nearly $6M to her campaign this year is simply sad.

We are a nation which has many easily distracted sheep who gaze in wonder at whatever is put in front of them.

Yet these are mean sheep with a need to feed on hate and arrogance and the 'us versus them' mentality.
This is simply wrong for this country.

Sarah's platform is a hollow and cynical one based on "you're wrong and I'm right". Like a mean dog that chases cars, she attacks, growls, and bites. But dogs that chase cars do not know how to drive the car once they catch it.

She is a one-trick-pony whose main skill seems to be look pretty and mock your enemies. While those may be useful skills if you're high school cheerleader, they would be of limited value as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

by jck

that sometimes...even the meanest-looking, hardest-biting dog out there...gets run over by the car. ;)

You're spot on....except for maybe "big agriculture". There is no big agriculture. Most of that was bought up in the 80s and 90s by corporates like RJR Nabisco, et al., to "streamline" their "supply chain", or was moved offshore (McDonald's beef supply going to Brazil, etc). But, agriculture is 1/8 of what it was 25-30 years ago. The "family farm" is a dying thing anymore.

Big banking might fit in there better tho. Check out the profits from the past 12-18 months for the big 5 bailout banks sometime. They're doing almost as well as the big 5 oil companies.

P.S.- check out who the top 25 non-individual contributors were to both of the two major parties last cycle. ;)

by seanferd

xcept for maybe "big agriculture". There is no big agriculture. Most of that was bought up in the 80s and 90s by corporates like RJR Nabisco, et al., to "streamline" their "supply chain", or was moved offshore (McDonald's beef supply going to Brazil, etc). But, agriculture is 1/8 of what it was 25-30 years ago. The "family farm" is a dying thing anymore.

Uh, you just described Big Agro. Family farms were never Big Agro, and they have had little power and a dwindling existence since WWII.

Big Corporate pretty much covers the lot.

by jck

Back in the 70s when I was a kid, there were tons of 20k+ acre farms in Oklahoma owned by horse ranchers, etc. In fact on the highway between Roff and Sulphur, there was a chicken farm that was guaranteed to make you roll up your windows cause of the smell from the several huge henhouses where the egg laying was happening along the highway.

Those mostly started disappearing in the 1990s before I left OK.

But, I do know personally that some big family farms are still around. One person I know quite well is from a family whose cattle ranch has been in her family since the 1880s, and they are one of the largest beef suppliers for Outback and other restaurants.

Family farms, at one time in the latter half of the 20th century, were big agro. The 1980s is when you really started seeing the family farm struggle...both big and small. That's why Farm Aid came about.

Willie wasn't trying to increase Del Monte or Green Giant's profits. That's for sure.

by seanferd

Sure, the Eighties were bad for family farms, but WWII and after were worse. There was an active effort to consolidate farming into corporations - and a lot of the family farms were farmed by the same families, but not owned or truly run by the families.

Usually, when I hear about Big Agro, beasts like ADM are what is being referred to.

Now I understand your definition, yep, I agree.

by jck

I just never consider ADM or Monsanto so much as "agro" (meaning agriculture)...cause they aren't really wholly/majority focused on agricultural.

To me, ADM is just a bioengineering company that focuses on bioenhancement developments. And, Monsanto is a company I think of when I think of waterproofing chemicals and 1980s socks. :^0

Cargill I think of more as agricultural, because in growing up they were so prevalent around the farms and feedstores I would be at along with other agriculture-related company brands like International, John Deere, et. al. Of course, I haven't keep too much track of them since my family hasn't been into farming since my great-grandfather died and his family gave up his horse ranching/training business.

I just can't think of ADM or Monsanto as "big agro" though. It doesn't seem like their primary business is agriculture itself, but instead the science of engineering genetic/chemical modifiers of agricultural elements.

Of course from what I read, ADM is getting most of their profits from the US government. So, I guess we all are giving to big agro. :^0

by robo_dev

Big Agriculture refers to companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and meat companies such as Tyson Foods, and the biotech seed giant Monsanto.

These are a galaxy away from a family farm or even a large regional farm. And while a true capitalist would claim they are simply more efficient than a local farmer, therefore they have the right to run the local farmer out of business, there are some who would argue otherwise.

These are industrial farms which employ millions of undocumented workers under harsh conditions, use more hormones, pesticides, and inhumane animal treatment methods, and spend billions on lobbying.

True or False: there was a House Bill introduced by big-ag lobbyists which was introduced to criminalize organic farming? True. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s425:

Consider places like the windowless shed on a typical Tyson broiler farm that is approximately 42 by 400 feet (120 m) and holds around 24,000 chickens. They clean out the excrement every 18 months, and they have been guilty of 20 felony violations of the clean water act for dumping untreated sewage into waterways. Of course it has been documented that about 1/3 of their workforce is undocumented workers.....

Companies like Cargill have been involved in everything from child trafficking for farm labor, deforestation in Brazil, to killing Americans with eColi-tainted beef.

Other than that.....

by jamesrl

My father grew up on a farm, and I grew up surrounded by farmers.

But when I go back to my dad's old stomping grounds, few of them are left.

Big companies like ADM though are large and powerful corporations. When Canadian Conservative PM Brian Mulroney left office one of his first board of director jobs was with Archer Daniels Midland.

by ansugisalas

=Evil
That's how it seems.
"This bill is sponsored by Evil Agro, this one by Evil Oil... this one by Evil Tobacco and Evil Agro in unison"...
That would put some honesty into the system ;)

by jck

that ADM and Cargill and Monsanto are large...but, they're also not just ag. They're conglomerates. Monsanto is more known for polymers than ag. ADM is more known for their business biochemicals now than ag. Cargill is the closest thing to a real, whole ag business. Yet, they are even diversified into transportation and metals now too.

And, I can't argue with you about how all of them typically do business. I know Tyson, Perdue, et al., have been found guilty of lots of ecological, safety and labor violations. It really makes me sick too, because you'll see videos that show terrible conditions within their facilities. Then, Congressmen who openly cringe at the videos while watching them will just give them a $10k fine. Which for a company like Cargill whose revenues are $100B+...thats nothing...other than firing one illegal worker and making the others work harder.

Big Ag to me was folks like I grew up around who had 50k acre ranches where they raised cattle for processing, grew/bailed/sold hay, and had huge fields of grains that were either locally marketable or mass sold to commercial/government for distribution or even made into do-it-yourself places for locals to come in and pick their own food.

I remember one local farm who had about 500 acres or so of areas they had as a self-service place where you could go pick your own corn, carrots, etc., and save money over what you paid at the store.

And to be honest, I hope not to have to worry about all that soon. If I get my way, I'll grow my own food when I have another house. I'll just get like 20 acres or so, and then get my milk and eggs and meat from local farmers here where I moved.

Either way, I'm moving away from "modern convenience".

by robo_dev

But hopefully you have high speed internet.

i mean I can live without indoor plumbing, hot water, or refrigeration, but to have to use dial-up or satellite for internet would be too much.

by ansugisalas

The ancient archetype of the tiller, sower and reaper - combined with a concept of family which was taken for granted just a hundred years ago, but which now seems quite odd. People living and toiling and eventually dying together, surrounded by the wilds, with neighbors on the horizon or beyond.

by hal 9000

We are seeing coverage of that bus tour here.

Now that is a scary thought that the AU Media has to cover it as well. :^0

Col

by av .

Thats why the Tea Party is such an important movement, but I see it from another perspective. I'm a moderate Republican and I kinda don't like the extremism that I see in the Republican party, as a result of the inclusion of the more libertarian principles of the Tea Party. They have taken over a chunk of the Republican party so they have viability, but they are unwavering in their principles. The lack of unity and unwillingness to compromise is a big problem for the Republican party. Its a fight from within for their identity and I'm not sure where it will end up, but I hope the party goes back to the center.

AV

by santeewelding

Your subject is slight. No staying power. No import. No humor, even, to relieve it of tedium. In fact, what you do, is to carp. Happens, when you hang it on principle of lower sort.

by santeewelding

They admit in number to a free-for-all of gradation and hierarchy -- political, religious; adherents carping, clambering over one another; blowing each other up.

Should clue you that there is something amiss with the whole affair of Principle: their number.

There can't be One, for sake of definition: standing before all other. According to you, of course.

Or, is it Max?

Hard to tell with all the back and forth.

by ansugisalas

makes going too far a matter of time, so does principle make betrayal inevitable - and no-one can object, after all, it was a matter of principle.

by ansugisalas

Kinda don't like the extremism in the Republican party?
Whatever's ever been wrong about extremism?
Never heard it said like that before... you're saying you're kind of a moderate?
But don't worry, we can fix that... we only have to scoop out those brains you're lugging about.

:p

by jck

OMG...quick...some put on some booty-shaking club music, turn the lights down, and let's see what happens! ]:)

by seanferd

They all are just making it up as they go along, anyway, hoping you are just as ignorant and stupid as they are.

by av .

The difference IMO is that CNN and MSNBC are supposed to be news channels and Comedy Central makes fun of the news.

But, you're right. Lately, the lines have been blurred and anything goes. I listen to MSNBC sometimes and I've always heard Richard Engel reporting from Libya or Egypt during the first 15 minutes of the 9am news. Lately I'm hearing about Sarah Palin and her Magical Mystery Bus Tour. Richard Engel got bumped down further in the hour. WTF? CNN is better than MSNBC because they don't dwell on her quite as much. I think she's done an excellent job of turning the next Presidential election into a reality TV show about her.

Oh, the "breaking news" thing, it drives me up a wall. On XM, CNN plays a jingle before they announce their breaking news. I'm expecting to hear something earthshaking and then you get "Sarah Palin is having pizza with Donald Trump in NYC."

The funniest thing lately is "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. He is absolutely fascinated with Sarah Palin and determined to figure out her game plan. I get to listen to it on the way home from work. He always has some good guests, but he's starting to turn "Glenn Beckish". :^0

AV

by av .

I'm really surprised how every discussion on his show seems to include her. I personally don't think she's that relevant right now, if ever.

AV

by seanferd

that Maxwell identified with the Teabaggers. I thought he was more well-thought-out than that.

Or maybe there are sane TP members somewhere of which I am unaware.

by ansugisalas

line, hook and sinker.
lest he be disingenuous in saying so, but I'd rather not believe that, it would force a severe degradation.

by seanferd

in whatever respects, but not an evil, manipulative dumbass.

That's what I thought.

unwillingness to compromise

Pfft. No, everyone else has to compromise with them, so they just keep moving to the right to keep themselves differentiated. They'd call Reagan (their holy saint) a socialist, were he in office today.

by jck

Maybe not 10 or 15 or 40Mbps, but I'll have something more than dialup.

But, I am leaning more toward not having television. It's pretty useless. For what I pay per month for satellite, I could go out and buy most of the programming I watch on DVD or watch the movies I view on Netflix.

I use a phone rarely, and only use a cell phone to talk to my niece or my parents or, on great rare occasion, when a friend calls/texts me.

I don't Twitter. I get on Facebook on a frequency between twice a week and once a month because it doesn't really interest me to know everyone's business and their life goings-on. I have a MySpace account, but it's anonymous and I only have 1 friend on it and my niece. I don't use LinkedIn or anything else social.

I don't need to be "connected", and when I call people "friend" it really means something special...hence why I despise Facebook's abuse of the word.

Oh well...the most important thing in my life right now is a woman. All things work out, I'll be hitched in a couple more years and making kids and helping manage her family business and the practice she'll have there, and maybe doing some PC work for other businesses in the area.

And thankfully, it won't be in some rat-filled, traffic-clogged, rage-inducing metro...

by charliespencer

"...I kinda don't like the extremism that I see in the Republican party,"

It reminds me of recent decades when the party was most interested in appeasing religious conservatives. So-called 'family values' were the uncompromisable plank in the platform, with more emphasis on defining 'family' than 'values'.

by ansugisalas

I've never seen a person talking in that particular way and not be drunk.
She also reminds me of my mother-in-law... more evidence, and nuff said.

by jp85257

Umm, ohhh, Obama, umm, ehh, umm, is much, umm, ohh, hmm, better at speaking than umm, ehh, umm, Palin.

by jck

*puts on "Get Down Tonight" by KC and the Sunshine Band*

I hope Sarah likes disco and some Boone's Farm. :^0

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