@H2O MAN,
I have no information on that point.
@ebrown p,
Quote: Is there a way to find out how many that tuned in to hear McCain fell asleep?
I never liked McCain much; rather disliked him,
but I gotta admit, that was a good speech; good conservative speech.
I liked it a lot.
David
@OmSigDAVID,
I think that a lot of the attention and notice that Palin is generating is due to her physical attractiveness. She's a very photogenic candidate. She looks great on magazine covers. Let's face it, most of our female politicians are not former beauty contestants, so, in that regard, her resume is unique. All things being equal, physical attractiveness is a bonus for any candidate--male or female.
But style, and visual image, is a more complicated factor for a female candidate. How many ways can John McCain wear his hair? Do we really notice his ties? Women candidates do have to give more consideration to the way they look--clothes, makeup, hair--probably because they have so many choices to make when compared to their male counterparts.
So, Sarah Palin is a great VP pick in terms of her attractive physical appeal. Her style is also causing some ripples of discussion, and some are already copying her, particularly those glasses.
Quote:
From the Los Angeles Times
Sarah Palin's style: the issue at hand
Until time reveals more of the Alaska governor's substance, we can't help but study the Republican VP nominee's style.
By Booth Moore
Times Fashion Critic
September 7, 2008
WHAT TO do about the war, what to do about the economy, what to do about those rimless glasses and that saucy updo? Style has never been more important than it is in this election. That's not just because this high-stakes political contest is being watched by a tabloid and celebrity-obsessed culture. It's also because this election now has so many powerful women on the national stage who are putting their message across with vastly different style strategies.
For months, we've seen how polarizing style can be, dissecting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's gender-neutral pantsuits, Cindy McCain's $300,000 Oscar de la Renta-and-diamonds convention outfit and Michelle Obama's throwback Jackie O. shift dresses. But in a little more than a week, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 44, has stolen the campaign's style spotlight, causing a run on Kawasaki 704 eyeglass frames and upswept hairstyles.
Fashion can be a potent tool for packaging a candidate (or "co-candidate," as political spouses take on more substantial roles). And though men can speak volumes just by washing the gray out of their hair, or choosing to wear makeup on TV, women have bigger challenges. Keeping the focus on the issues, not the clothes or their looks. Projecting authority while seeming approachable, not elitist. If you're a woman in the spotlight of a high-profile race, the issue quickly becomes: What changes are you willing to make to your appearance to get people to take you seriously? And in a savvy, YouTube-aware way, how will you use style to telegraph your essence?
A beauty queen turned politician by way of the PTA, Palin has a style strategy that's quite clever. In an interview in Vogue magazine in February, when rumors of her as a possible VP candidate were only whispers, the Alaska governor said she was trying to be "as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses." (Never mind that she was appearing in Vogue, bastion of the fashion obsessed, which Clinton famously refused to do when she was campaigning for president.)
Barely a blip on the political radar before now, Palin has to go the extra mile to hone her VP style. But far from uglifying herself, she plays up her sexuality. And this early on, Palin is already playing the image game like a pro. When Sen. John McCain accepted the nomination Thursday night, she wore a black satin jacket that dipped just low enough in front so you could see some cleavage. In this political marriage, Palin clearly knows she's the trophy.
Her hair is a study in contrasts, carefree and "done" at the same time. The untidiness of her updo has a can-do spirit that says, "I have more important things to do than worry about my hair, so I just twirled it into this clip so I could get to the real business of governing and shooting caribou and having babies and taking them to hockey practice."
The bouffant in the front, which appears to be teased from underneath, is more traditional, to appeal to the GOP base and those big donors from Houston who've been known to fly with their hairstylists on their private planes. And yet, you get the feeling that at the end of the day, she could shake out that lustrous mane (longer than any other major female U.S. political figure's) and get it on with her man.
She wears skirts that are quite form-fitting and often goes without stockings. As ZZ Top might say, she's got legs, and she knows how to use 'em. When Sen. John McCain introduced her at an Aug. 29 campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, she was wearing open-toed red patent leather shoes. The only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick, she said in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday. She could have added to that joke the black pencil skirt and shiny, oyster-colored jacket she wore that night, a more modern take on Clinton's power pantsuit. It looked darn good.
Which is not to say that style is a substitute for substance. But because she's a relative unknown, style is a lot of what we know about Palin right now. No doubt, in coming days her positions on the issues will eclipse our fascination with the brand of eyeglasses she wears. If they didn't, that would be the worst double standard of all.
Of course, if she went on Meet the Press, or started to do some meaningful interviews, we wouldn't be focusing on the more superficial things about her.
@Lambchop,
She coud have gone out and robbed a BANK,
but that cannot
logically, nor FAIRLY, be held against any other human being,
unless she was in on the caper.
David
@Green Witch,
Ahhh you underestimate us! Christians that is....even an evangelical one.
I, (actually my whole family) have been for Obama from the beginning. Mc Cain put the nail in the coffin when he dug up Sarah Palin to pander to both women and Christians. I'm insulted by his choice and by the way, I would happily vote for a woman. Some of us believe that to be Pro Life means from conception to grave....which means.....you take care of the life that already exists too. War is not pro life. Poverty is not pro life. Inadequate health care is not pro life. Google Sojourners or the Simple Way. You may be surprised at who many of us are.
@Psalm131MLS,
Are you casting stones at Sarah?
@Psalm131MLS,
A nice peice which i had printed for posterity.
Thanks
Rama
FYI
Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Redux
Oct. 7, 2008 | "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. ("Keep up the good work," Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")
Rate this story with Reddit:
Thanks for your support.
AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. "She's Alaskan to the bone ... she sounds just like Joe Vogler."
So who are these America-haters that the Palins are pallin' around with?
Before his strange murder in 1993, party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, "When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don't have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we're ready to die."
This quote is from "Coming Into the Country," by John McPhee, who traipsed around Alaska's remote gold mining country with Vogler for his 1991 book. The violent-tempered secessionist vowed to McPhee that if any federal official tried to stop him from polluting Alaska's rivers with his earth-moving equipment, he would "run over him with a Cat and turn mosquitoes loose on him while he dies."
Vogler wasn't just a blowhard either. He put his secessionist ideas into action, working to build AIP membership to 20,000 -- an impressive figure by Alaska standards -- and to elect party member Walter Hickel as governor in 1990.
Vogler's greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States "tyranny" before the entire world and to demand Alaska's freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.
That's right ... Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.
AIP leaders allege that Vogler, who was murdered that year by a fellow secessionist, was taken out by powerful forces in the U.S. before he could reach his U.N. platform. "The United States government would have been deeply embarrassed," by Vogler's U.N. speech, darkly suggests Clark. "And we can't have that, can we?"
The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama's tenuous connection to graying, '60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins' connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.
Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.
Where's the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama's fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.
Joe(and you thought Bush was bad, go for Moose-alini??)Nation
@Joe Nation,
I been wondering when this would bubble to the surface.
Thanks Joe...
From TPM: "#
McCain is one pathetic man for going against his original promise to keep this a clean campaign, but now that he's gone back on that and ...
tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_who_is_the_real_barack.php
@cicerone imposter,
McCain and his running "mate" are pathetic. Why can't more Americans see this?
