Spring Break
Give Sarah Palin a break
Sara Petersen
Issue date: 9/8/08 Section: Opinion
Fight fire with fire. I'm not overly fond of clichés, but fighting fire with fire is what John McCain is now doing.
In case you haven't noticed, Sen. Barack Obama doesn't fit the profile of men who've run for president lately. First of all, Obama is a black man, and black men, for some reason, haven't turned up on the presidential ballot often in the past 200 years.
Secondly, Obama's campaign reeks of the word "change." It's splashed across campaign ads, and his speeches are littered with the word.
If Obama receives an immense amount of feedback from his ideas for change, McCain may want to duplicate that. McCain needed to find a running mate who would cause a complete state of political chaos and add zest to his campaign. He found a young woman who would appeal to the younger generation and to Hillary supporters.
Not only is Sarah Palin a young woman, but she's also the second woman in history to be a vice presidential candidate. Has McCain started to bring change to this presidential race? I believe the answer is yes.
In retrospect, McCain did not appeal to the younger generation. They are already sold on Obama. The Hillary supporters aren't exactly in love with Palin either, mainly because of her anti-abortion stance and the fact that McCain chose her primarily because she's a woman. Palin is attacked with other issues - she has a pregnant daughter, she has a young child with Down syndrome, she's young, and she has been the governor of Alaska, a state with a very low population, for not even two years.
All of these problems with Palin have been talked to death already in the last week, but does anyone know what Palin did while in office? She invested $5 billion in state savings, instituted a senior benefits program for low-income Alaskan senior citizens and created Alaska's Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to oversee and provide maintenance of oil and gas equipment, along with many other things.
Yes, Palin supports offshore drilling, but she's a friend of the environment, because many people from Alaska are nature freaks. Yes, Palin is for abstinence-only sex education. Yes, Palin is anti-abortion, but Roe v. Wade and sex education are not the largest issues the country faces. Regarding her inexperience, the speaker of the house does more than the vice president. The only thing I've heard about Cheney is he mistook a hunting partner as a target and he's a little too friendly with large companies. I may be biased, but Palin was a journalist, and I can't find anything wrong with that.
Scandals arise, such as her pregnant daughter. The family lives in Alaska, a state with a little more than 670,000 people. What else is there to do besides drink beer and have sex? Also please remember, our beloved John F. Kennedy had a number of affairs while he was in office and that didn't stop him from being a great president.
While everybody is picking at Palin, I haven't seen an enormous amount of stories condemning Sen. Joe Biden, who received five deferments during Vietnam because he stayed in school and was then disqualified from service because he had asthma as a teenager.
Even though it may sound like I'm advocating Sarah Palin, I'm not. She is incredibly inexperienced, but McCain needed a running mate to cause a stir, and that is exactly what Palin is doing.
Sara Petersen is a junior public relations major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at speter4@kent.edu.
In case you haven't noticed, Sen. Barack Obama doesn't fit the profile of men who've run for president lately. First of all, Obama is a black man, and black men, for some reason, haven't turned up on the presidential ballot often in the past 200 years.
Secondly, Obama's campaign reeks of the word "change." It's splashed across campaign ads, and his speeches are littered with the word.
If Obama receives an immense amount of feedback from his ideas for change, McCain may want to duplicate that. McCain needed to find a running mate who would cause a complete state of political chaos and add zest to his campaign. He found a young woman who would appeal to the younger generation and to Hillary supporters.
Not only is Sarah Palin a young woman, but she's also the second woman in history to be a vice presidential candidate. Has McCain started to bring change to this presidential race? I believe the answer is yes.
In retrospect, McCain did not appeal to the younger generation. They are already sold on Obama. The Hillary supporters aren't exactly in love with Palin either, mainly because of her anti-abortion stance and the fact that McCain chose her primarily because she's a woman. Palin is attacked with other issues - she has a pregnant daughter, she has a young child with Down syndrome, she's young, and she has been the governor of Alaska, a state with a very low population, for not even two years.
All of these problems with Palin have been talked to death already in the last week, but does anyone know what Palin did while in office? She invested $5 billion in state savings, instituted a senior benefits program for low-income Alaskan senior citizens and created Alaska's Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to oversee and provide maintenance of oil and gas equipment, along with many other things.
Yes, Palin supports offshore drilling, but she's a friend of the environment, because many people from Alaska are nature freaks. Yes, Palin is for abstinence-only sex education. Yes, Palin is anti-abortion, but Roe v. Wade and sex education are not the largest issues the country faces. Regarding her inexperience, the speaker of the house does more than the vice president. The only thing I've heard about Cheney is he mistook a hunting partner as a target and he's a little too friendly with large companies. I may be biased, but Palin was a journalist, and I can't find anything wrong with that.
Scandals arise, such as her pregnant daughter. The family lives in Alaska, a state with a little more than 670,000 people. What else is there to do besides drink beer and have sex? Also please remember, our beloved John F. Kennedy had a number of affairs while he was in office and that didn't stop him from being a great president.
While everybody is picking at Palin, I haven't seen an enormous amount of stories condemning Sen. Joe Biden, who received five deferments during Vietnam because he stayed in school and was then disqualified from service because he had asthma as a teenager.
Even though it may sound like I'm advocating Sarah Palin, I'm not. She is incredibly inexperienced, but McCain needed a running mate to cause a stir, and that is exactly what Palin is doing.
Sara Petersen is a junior public relations major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at speter4@kent.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 6 of 9
We HATE you, Sarah Palin
posted 9/08/08 @ 10:11 AM EST
Where does she get off thinking she can be vice president of the United States? Up against the one million years in the Senate her opponent, Joe Biden, has logged in between expensive rides at taxpayer expense on the Acela, what can she offer? Mayor of a town of six people and ten caribou [sneer]? Miss Congeniality [sneer, sneer]? Bastar-baby grandma [sneer, sneer, sneer]? Poster chick for "family values" [sneer, sneer, sneer, sneer]?
Sorry, I'm running out of sneers. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 9/08/08 @ 2:28 PM EST
Aw...aren't you cute! You can run, but you can't hide, sweet-pea! "Now", as Paul Harvey is so fond of saying, "for the rest of the story", eh?
~~~Sigh. (Continued…)
AJ
posted 9/08/08 @ 5:08 PM EST
Are you 5 years old? Do even pay attention to the news? Do you know what politics is? I'll give Sarah Palin a break when she drops out of the VP position and goes back to Alaska. (Continued…)
Tom
posted 9/08/08 @ 5:42 PM EST
Biden will take Palin to the cleaners, but even though Palin is this soon to be mother in law of a redneck the GOP will complain that Biden will be too mean on her, probably due to his vast intellect and knowledge of American politics. (Continued…)
Rick S
posted 9/09/08 @ 12:15 AM EST
"Regarding her inexperience, the speaker of the house does more than the vice president."
You haven't paid much attention to this administration. Cheney has been DEEPLY involved in the Iraq War and other bumblings of the Bush administration. (Continued…)
Salon's dominatrix/bestiality photoshop of Palin
posted 9/10/08 @ 11:07 AM EST
When challenged by a strong, self-made woman, what has the mainstream media done? They've painted her as:
A hick
A slut
A bubble-headed beauty queen
A bad mother
And when it became apparent that Palin had performed well and had positively impacted the race for Republicans, how did the little boys at Salon react? They photoshopped her as a dominatrix and pictured her toying with bestiality. (Continued…)
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