April 15th - Tea Party Day?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

Really? All the head bobs and winks just make me laugh. It doesn't win me over. I am not getting this "charisma" thing. She has had quite the opposite effect on me. The more I see/hear/read about her, the less I like her.

Yes, really. Why exactly do you think she is so popular when there are plenty of Republican pols who can express the same things as she has?

[KWhit]

Boobs.

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Boobs.

That's the only thing I can come up with, too.

[flere-imsaho]

I'm sorry, I still don't buy the idea of Palin quickly doing some mental calculus during the Couric interview about which periodicals she reads.

Given everything we know about her now, plus knowing that at the time the McCain campaign was trying to coach her, it really seems to me that the most likely scenario is that she froze because:

1. She doesn't actually read anything regularly (news-periodical-wise), getting her news from the TV instead

2. She felt (remember, this was before she rejected her "coaching") that it wouldn't be a great answer to say "none"

3. She wasn't quick on her feet enough to come up with a milquetoast answer, which is what these interviews are all about, after all.


Here's the interesting part, though: I'll bet that her most ardent supporters already suspected that she wouldn't do anything such as regularly read national news periodicals and that's one of the things they like about her. So why not just say that? Well, as I said, I think she was still suffering under some terrible coaching from the McCain campaign and felt she couldn't say that. Maybe she'd say something different now.

Or would she? Note her response to a more recent softball from friendly interviewer Glenn Beck: Beck Calls 'Bullcrap' On Palin's Non-Answer About Favorite Founding Father (VIDEO) | TPM LiveWire


Sarah Palin is a person with strident views, an incurious intellect and is a poor student of, well, everything. But this is exactly why her supporters like her. She believes in things and is willing (or gives the impression she is willing) to fight hard for them, even if the "facts" show that she's wrong.

Which illustrates the converse. The problem with educated people, to Palin's supporters and the Tea Partiers, is that they let "facts" have an inordinate amount of importance in their decision-making, as opposed to just belief.

I don't think this should be a new concept to anyone. Arguably most of the major decisions of the Bush presidency were based at least as much on belief as facts and data. Palin's just taking it a step further. This is also why it's not worth arguing with Tea Partiers. All your facts and logic and well-reasoned arguments mean nothing to their belief. You might as well be talking to a wall.

[DaddyTorgo]

Washington is probably the only one she knows. And he's not even really a "founding father" in the typical sense of the word.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Boobs.

Explain her and not Michelle Bachman, for one example, then.

[molson]

She's just dumb and she melts under pressure.

I mean, she's probably of above averge intelligence relative to the general population, but she has no academic background whatsoever, and she's completely out of her league intellectually at the national level.

She's also a pretty amazing success story, that story should have just ended as hugely popular and effective governor of Alaska. That's all a pretty cool story - it just went one step too far.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Explain her and not Michelle Bachman, for one example, then.

2 things:

1) Bachman has gotten a lot further than she should given her insanity and intellect, so she's likely had the benefit of the Boob Factor as well.

2) Michelle's boobs aren't as nice as Sarah's.

[JPhillips]

A good post by Marc Ambinder on Palin's appeal:

Getting Sarah Palin's Paradigm

"If the primaries were this year, I suspect she'd be nominated," a senior adviser to one of Sarah Palin's potential rivals confides. It's easy to see why: no one who's thinking of running beats the enthusiasm she generates among Republican activists. But there is more to the case for Palin than just the confluence of her personality and a vacuum within the Republican Party: there is a method to her management of her public image. It strongly hints that she has pretty much decided to run for president in 2012, unless something knocks her out of the race; it is more organized and structured that it appears; and it is something that Republican insiders, in particular, will ignore at their peril.

Next week, Palin will be a VIP guest of honor at the Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500. She'll walk among the campers and RVs set up infield. This summer, she's agreed to speak at an international bowling expo. In April, in Las Vegas, Palin will keynote the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers Convention at Caesar's Palace. She will make choices in Republican primaries -- she campaigned Sunday with Rick Perry, bearing a "Hi mom!" on her palm -- more on that in a bit -- and an eloquent jab at the President: "'We will proudly cling to our guns and our religion."

Palin, writes Jonathan Raban in an excellent essay in the New York Review of Books, has an "exceptionally canny political instinct for connecting with her own kind." It has been noted that her conservatism is resentment-based, and is fueled and nourished by the specter of elite mistreatment. (Palin is savvy enough to tease back.) But it is more than that. More than a list of grievances, Palin mixes Nixonian derision for those who think they know better with an aspirational dimension that motivates the middle class to vote. Out of the tony leagues of Washington and New York, she is -- well, an Idahoan by birth, an exurbanite mother, able to expurgate the Republican Party of its own cosmopolitan tendencies. (This is one reason why the McCain campaign could not tend to her.) She is, as my friend @thetonylee says, "a hybrid of Nixon and Buchanan."

The only presidential candidate who is able to put the boots to Obama and get away with it. What's she running for? Not the question. What's she running against? Not just Rockefeller Republicanism and the media, or pointy-headed law lecturer presidents, or Katie Couric: she wants to relitigate a bunch of issues that once were settled but now seem to be unraveling. The unrestricted embrace of immigration and the dilution of an American culture. Overweening Greenism. A complicated socially engineered tax code. A much larger role for government (embraced by the president who said that the era of Big Government Was Over and his successor, who was a Republican). The rule of experts. Even the concept of bipartisanship itself.

In Searching for Whitopia, Rich Benjamin defines of a geo-racial balkanization that gives Palin-like candidates a natural base: towns like Couer d'Alene Idaho, with a "diversified economic base," a pro-business regulatory environment, a commitment to "quality of life" issues, and -- a 95% ethnic homogeneity. Coeur D'Aleners were migrants from the California of the 1990s; they live now in Colorado and the suburbs of Phoenix and are slowly pushing their way around the Sunbelt. Benjamin notes the "cultural, ancestral and implicitly racial" bond to their communities. The new residents come looking for land and living space; the long-time residents just want as little disruption as possible. Right now, there is enormous disruption. It is the same disruption that Democrats believe redounds to their benefit; depressed wages, exotic financial deals, government spending cuts (which feeds the disruption), what one Palin watcher calls the "downstream effects" of a country that has lived beyond its means for 60 years.

George W. Bush never spoke this language. He was an evangelical convert, more influenced by his advisers Catholicism than by, say, Palin's Assembly of God charismatics. She is pure in ways the rich son of Connecticut could never dream of.

These simple folk of Idaho aren't so simple. They get their news from talk radio and new media; and Palin speaks in 140-word epigrams: fragments that are icky to the ears of more polished speakers but convey meta-data -- she understands this. What's most appealing about Palin to these exurbanites, I think, is that the big Elite Crucible tore her apart -- and she rose again, stood up, straightened her dress, and is now confronting her tormentors. When it was pointed out that Palin had scribbled some policy points on to her hand during the Tea Party Q and A, she was widely mocked. The next day, Palin wrote "Hi Mom!" on her palm. Palin doesn't like to be mocked, but she doesn't like to be beaten, either.

Not a single other Republican presidential candidate can build a crowd like Palin, can run against something like Palin (be it Washington, the media, the McCain campaign or Obama); no one speaks to the resentment/aspirational conservatives like she does; no one's life has better exemplified the way they perceive their struggle against the elite. We like to think about presidential primaries in paradigms, but candidates who fit with the times often find ways to completely subvert established paradigms.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by KWhit

2 things:

1) Bachman has gotten a lot further than she should given her insanity and intellect, so she's likely had the benefit of the Boob Factor as well.

2) Michelle's boobs aren't as nice as Sarah's.

Bachman went to my alma mater which depresses me everytime I see her in the news saying some dumb thing.

[lungs]

In sort of a twisted way, I'd honestly like to see what kind of hypothetical path a President Bachmann would take this country in.

President Palin would be one thing, but President Bachmann?

Or maybe we can see a woman power Republican ticket of Palin/Bachmann

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

A good post by Marc Ambinder on Palin's appeal:

Damn, this paragraph is one of the best summaries I've ever seen of just about anything.

The only presidential candidate who is able to put the boots to Obama and get away with it. What's she running for? Not the question. What's she running against? Not just Rockefeller Republicanism and the media, or pointy-headed law lecturer presidents, or Katie Couric: she wants to relitigate a bunch of issues that once were settled but now seem to be unraveling. The unrestricted embrace of immigration and the dilution of an American culture. Overweening Greenism. A complicated socially engineered tax code. A much larger role for government (embraced by the president who said that the era of Big Government Was Over and his successor, who was a Republican). The rule of experts. Even the concept of bipartisanship itself.

I've read it three times marveling at seeing someone -- on either side of the aisle, in any profession -- actually manage to pull most of the relevant strands together that well. I'm pretty much awestruck by how much he gathered into a reasonably sized paragraph.

Anyone who doesn't understand Palin's appeal but legitimately wants to, no matter what they think about it personally but genuinely wants to understand what people are looking for & seem to be finding in her, he's hit the marks incredibly well.

I don't say this often but it gets my highest praise: damn, I wish I had written that (especially since I spent a lot of yesterday trying & didn't even come close to doing it this well).

[RainMaker]

I honestly don't think she would understand what half those issues are. Perhaps the people that are propping her up want that and are pushing it, but I still contend she's a puppet that has a lot of powerful people pulling strings on.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I honestly don't think she would understand what half those issues are. Perhaps the people that are propping her up want that and are pushing it, but I still contend she's a puppet that has a lot of powerful people pulling strings on.

Kinda reminds me of that Obi Wan Kenobi quote: "Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?"

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

You don't get out much, do you?

His speech was the standard dark people are ruining the country bit. He held out from calling them spics and n------, but insinuated as much.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

His speech was the standard dark people are ruining the country bit. He held out from calling them spics and n------, but insinuated as much.

Pretty much. You know, I don't travel in the South much I'll admit (out of personal choice), but if that is really the way it still is down there...that explains a whole lot - none of it good.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I honestly don't think she would understand what half those issues are. Perhaps the people that are propping her up want that and are pushing it, but I still contend she's a puppet that has a lot of powerful people pulling strings on.

If she manages to address those items to my satisfaction then I don't care if she came from here

and has this living inside her

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

His speech was the standard dark people are ruining the country bit. He held out from calling them spics and n------, but insinuated as much.

Here's what I know, his description of Obama voters was so spot on that it made me wonder whether he visited Athens, GA on election day.

"people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

[panerd]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

His speech was the standard dark people are ruining the country bit. He held out from calling them spics and n------, but insinuated as much.

Who? Harry Reid?

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Here's what I know, his description of Obama voters was so spot on that it made me wonder whether he visited Athens, GA on election day.

Really Jon? C'mon...I'd expect more from you than that.

What % of Obama voters do you think could not spell the word "vote?"

I'm willing to bet...considering it's a 4 letter word, that it's probably miniscule.

[cartman]

Well, since Jon's spelling of 'vote' includes '(R)', and he believes that the least intelligent Republican voter is infinitely smarter than any Democratic voter, he probably thinks he is 100% correct.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

What % of Obama voters do you think could not spell the word "vote?"

Of the ones in Athens? Probably 2/3rds.

IIRC I commented about that on election day, it was truly one of the more disturbing scenes I've ever seen & did much to reinforce my already strong support for considerable limitations on voter eligibility.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by panerd

Who? Harry Reid?

LOL

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Of the ones in Athens? Probably 2/3rds.

IIRC I commented about that on election day, it was truly one of the more disturbing scenes I've ever seen & did much to reinforce my already strong support for considerable limitations on voter eligibility.

I know you're just trying to make a point here, but you've clearly lost it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

I know you're just trying to make a point here, but you've clearly lost it.

In hindsight, I should have bolded the "2/3rds" part.

In complete seriousness? Given that roughly one voter in three in that line was, at best, functionally illiterate (demonstrated by the conversations in the line, the number of people that my wife & I had to help fill out their little slip you hand over to the person to move through the line, and the steady stream of people getting helpers to go behind the curtain with them) I'd say there's a very good chance that at least a quarter of them couldn't have spelled vote unless you spotted them the "e".

DT, it had been a long while since I'd seen anyone actually "make their mark" instead of signing their name. I saw it more than once that day.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Here's what I know, his description of Obama voters was so spot on that it made me wonder whether he visited Athens, GA on election day.

Obama won the vote on all levels of education. In fact, there was an 18% gap in those with postgraduate degrees. The Red states which McCain won are in fact the states that rank the lowest in education in our country. While your viewpoint in Athens may have been different, from a national standpoint, the statistics tell a completely different story.

If Tancredo is talking about education level, it shows that he is unable to read a simple exit poll and should be one of those made ineligible to vote by his standards. But I think we both know he wasn't talking about education level.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Obama won the vote on all levels of education. In fact, there was an 18% gap in those with postgraduate degrees. The Red states which McCain won are in fact the states that rank the lowest in education in our country. While your viewpoint in Athens may have been different, from a national standpoint, the statistics tell a completely different story.

If Tancredo is talking about education level, it shows that he is unable to read a simple exit poll and should be one of those made ineligible to vote by his standards. But I think we both know he wasn't talking about education level.

+1 for RainMaker bringing the logic to the discussion.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

+1 for RainMaker bringing the logic to the discussion.

Heck, I'll give him a +1 for bringing us back to my "educated idiots" reference from yesterday.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

+1 for RainMaker bringing the logic to the discussion.

-10 for STILL trying to get him to let the facts get in the way of his preconcieved notions. Has he not read this board before?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Heck, I'll give him a +1 for bringing us back to my "educated idiots" reference from yesterday.

So what is the criteria for a non-idiot? Success in the real world? Obama won by 6% in people who made $200,000 ore more a year. The blue states are considerably more succesful financially than the red states.

What statistics are to be used here in determining this intelligence? If Tancredo is right, we have a ton of PHDs making a lot of money who can't spell the word vote.

[miked]

Come on now, you know his answer to that is race.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Of the ones in Athens? Probably 2/3rds.

IIRC I commented about that on election day, it was truly one of the more disturbing scenes I've ever seen & did much to reinforce my already strong support for considerable limitations on voter eligibility.

Odd that you'd make an argument for a minimum educational standard for voting when you also argue that "experts" don't know what they are talking about and regular folks' instincts are often a better predictor of what's right.

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

What statistics are to be used here in determining this intelligence? If Tancredo is right, we have a ton of PHDs making a lot of money who can't spell the word vote.

Those are the elite that we cannot trust and must seek to destroy.

[lighthousekeeper]

What % of Obama voters do you think could not spell the word "vote?"

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Of the ones in Athens? Probably 2/3rds.

IIRC I commented about that on election day, it was truly one of the more disturbing scenes I've ever seen & did much to reinforce my already strong support for considerable limitations on voter eligibility.

typical right-wing elitism.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Odd that you'd make an argument for a minimum educational standard for voting when you also argue that "experts" don't know what they are talking about and regular folks' instincts are often a better predictor of what's right.

Re-read what I said

strong support for considerable limitations on voter eligibility.

Education might be part, but definitely not all, of the eligibility requirement.

[RainMaker]

Which is exactly what I said from the start. His speech wasn't on education, it was on race. Going on about how they're ruining the country is basically what you find out of most white supremacist literature and speeches these days.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Which is exactly what I said from the start. His speech wasn't on education, it was on race. Going on about how they're ruining the country is basically what you find out of most white supremacist literature and speeches these days.

Yawn. Do you honestly think that me or Tancredo give a flying fuck what color somebody is if they're on the right side of key points? Or for that matter that color is going to outweigh being dead wrong consistently?

But just for fun, check out this Esquire magazine piece from June 08. Amusing read with the political leanings of five avowed racists (four white, one black) in advance of the election
Why White Supremacists Support Barack Obama - Esquire
If you haven't read it before, trust me, you aren't likely to be able to predict the outcomes or the commentary

edit to add: Well, you couldn't have predicted it if the linkage didn't give the results away

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Re-read what I said



Education might be part, but definitely not all, of the eligibility requirement.

i think we can all pretty accurately imagine what the rest of it would be.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Yawn. Do you honestly think that me or Tancredo give a flying fuck what color somebody is if they're on the right side of key points?

Honestly...Yes I do. And you haven't really done much of anything over the course of my time here to convince me otherwise (not that of course you convincing me of that should matter a flying fuck of course...just saying).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Honestly...Yes I do. And you haven't really done much of anything over the course of my time here to convince me otherwise (not that of course you convincing me of that should matter a flying fuck of course...just saying).

Then you really haven't been paying attention. Being right about the right things is pretty much at the top of my list (hence my criticism of Bush II on immigration for example, and the lack of faith in Tancredo for being dead wrong on drug laws which reduces him to "right at times" but leaves me cold short on full endorsement)

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Then you really haven't been paying attention. Being right about the right things is pretty much at the top of my list (hence my criticism of Bush II on immigration for example, and the lack of faith in Tancredo for being dead wrong on drug laws which reduces him to "right at times" but leaves me cold short on full endorsement)

again - you're not denying it, you're just saying it's not on the top of your list.

[flere-imsaho]

Look people, we've been over this:

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

If Jon was being honest, I'd think he's admit to effectively being a xenophobic totalitarian. I'm pretty sure he's posted at least once about being very much in favor of top-down government control structures (i.e. totalitarianism). Others have called Jon a fascist, but unless I'm mistaken in my assessment of him, he doesn't really think exactly along the lines of a fascist.

Though you probably are a bit of a sociopath, Jon. At the very least a pretty curmudgeonly misanthrope.

Plus, for context:

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Jon favors killing people who download music. The list of people he'd happy wish dead has to be in the billions.

I almost always disagree with Jon's conclusions, and clearly I have a very different worldview from him, but one thing Jon is, perhaps more than anyone else on this board, is logically consistent in his views.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Education might be part, but definitely not all, of the eligibility requirement.

I'm going to guess:

1. Able to pass a moderately difficult civics test

2. Citizenship

3. Not a felon

4. Property ownership?

More? I am curious, Jon.

[JPhillips]

I don't think it's that complicated.

1) Votes the way Jon thinks they should vote.

I don't know how to reliably determine that, but I'd bet the end goal is to deny voting rights to those that vote differently from Jon.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I'm going to guess:

1. Able to pass a moderately difficult civics test

2. Citizenship

3. Not a felon

4. Property ownership?

More? I am curious, Jon.

You did pretty well there, especially since I would have expected most people to have overlooked #3 on their first pass through. I'd likely raise the age limit by some amount & definitely eliminate eligibility for those on the non-retirement dole.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I don't think it's that complicated.

1) Votes the way Jon thinks they should vote.

I don't know how to reliably determine that, but I'd bet the end goal is to deny voting rights to those that vote differently from Jon.

This also works quite well for me. I'm all about the moderately benevolent dictatorship as long as I'm the dictator.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

You did pretty well there

So, items #1 - #3 I could get behind as criteria. I think the problem with using property ownership as a criteria is that it probably inadvertently eliminates a lot of people in a way that's inconsistent with the other criteria. For instance, the bar for home ownership in the cities is much higher... ah, I see where you're going here.

I'd likely raise the age limit by some amount

Do we also put in an age cap? Or do we use the requirement "able to pass a civics test" as a way to weed out the senile?

definitely eliminate eligibility for those on the non-retirement dole.

Interesting. How far do you go here? Any form of welfare? Why allow those who are subsisting on social security? What about being the recipient of tax breaks?

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

This also works quite well for me. I'm all about the moderately benevolent dictatorship as long as I'm the dictator.

If you were the dictator I think it's more likely we'd have a moderately malevolent dicatorship.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

moderately malevolent

methinx you're being too understated

[flere-imsaho]

I only wanted to change one word. Otherwise it's not as clever.