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Archive for October 1st, 2008

2008-10-01

how palin lost my non-vote

So, I’m sympathetic to being frozen in the headlights, and I guess I can certainly disregard my current Obama-love-in as being a fairly emotional, culture-wars kind of choice. I was pretty upset with Palin’s convention speech, but I guess it’s the case that such things are aimed at the base. And, heck, sometimes I have days when I don’t remember the names of the papers I read.

But, dude, when you confuse federalism with its exact opposite: there you lose me permanently. If you’re supporting state’s rights, as Palin says she does in this clip, that means you’re opposed to federalism, not a supporter of it, as she then goes on to claim. Handy mnemonic: strong federal government is what the Federalist Papers were all about.

Goddammit: maybe Alaska should secede, and that way Palin would have to pass a real civics test for once in her life. Consider my non-vote clinched for the constitutional lawyer ticket.

Anyway, here’s my prediction for tomorrow’s debate: Palin will do okay for most of it, yet there’ll be two or three spectacular screw-ups which the Democrats will spit their coffee out at, and the Republicans will defensively (and somehow, vaguely convincingly) claim is all down to the evil, evil moderator. Swing-voters won’t care a jot either way, and Obama will continue to hold the lead.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

petit disclaimer:
My employer has enough opinions of its own, without having to have mine too.