I Think I'm Kind Of Insulted
I've been poking away at assessments of both major candidates' VP picks, slated to be posted at rose-knows.net in the next day or two.
I keep getting sidetracked. Something's bothering me about the whole thing.
At first, I thought it might be Obama picking Joe Biden over me. But that's not it: If Barack wasn't going to go with me for the reasons I laid out, then most other sets of priorities do point straight to Biden.
Then I realized that the unease had set in right after John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate -- when his campaign started sending out that very clear message that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters should vote for their ticket for the sole reason that John McCain had picked a female running mate.
Um. Wow. I think I'm kind of insulted.
As it happens, I voted for Obama in the primaries. But I'm still offended by the notion that a candidate's campaign things so little of a huge chunk of the electorate that they'll try to entice those people to vote for a ticket with views diametrically opposed to theirs -- first, because Obama didn't pick a woman; and, second, because McCain did.
The pick of Sarah Palin was clearly reverse-engineered by looking at the groups of likely Republican voters whose support for the candidate wasn't quite up to historical levels: Her voting record is right in line with what the evangelical community likes to see; she's a gun-owning mom with a kid in the military; and she's, y'know, a chick. Obviously, it was more important to fill in the demographic gaps than it was to pick someone qualified for the job. (Maybe I'm being overly snarky, but I've been on a job hunt of my own long enough to know that in the real world, her resume never would have made it past screening.)
You know who else is probably feeling kind of insulted? Parents of kids with Down syndrome. Sarah Palin's decision to go ahead and have a kid is being hailed by certain segments of the evangelical community as the greatest, bravest, most amazing decision ever. That clearly implies that people with Down syndrome are somehow "undesirable," so undesirable that people who are staunchly anti-abortion have a stack of "Get out of hell free" cards at the ready for just such occasions.
I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive.
I am, after all, a woman. You know us chicks.
Apparently, we're all the same.
...Okay, rant over. More sober assessment to follow on Rose Knows.
I keep getting sidetracked. Something's bothering me about the whole thing.
At first, I thought it might be Obama picking Joe Biden over me. But that's not it: If Barack wasn't going to go with me for the reasons I laid out, then most other sets of priorities do point straight to Biden.
Then I realized that the unease had set in right after John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate -- when his campaign started sending out that very clear message that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters should vote for their ticket for the sole reason that John McCain had picked a female running mate.
Um. Wow. I think I'm kind of insulted.
As it happens, I voted for Obama in the primaries. But I'm still offended by the notion that a candidate's campaign things so little of a huge chunk of the electorate that they'll try to entice those people to vote for a ticket with views diametrically opposed to theirs -- first, because Obama didn't pick a woman; and, second, because McCain did.
The pick of Sarah Palin was clearly reverse-engineered by looking at the groups of likely Republican voters whose support for the candidate wasn't quite up to historical levels: Her voting record is right in line with what the evangelical community likes to see; she's a gun-owning mom with a kid in the military; and she's, y'know, a chick. Obviously, it was more important to fill in the demographic gaps than it was to pick someone qualified for the job. (Maybe I'm being overly snarky, but I've been on a job hunt of my own long enough to know that in the real world, her resume never would have made it past screening.)
You know who else is probably feeling kind of insulted? Parents of kids with Down syndrome. Sarah Palin's decision to go ahead and have a kid is being hailed by certain segments of the evangelical community as the greatest, bravest, most amazing decision ever. That clearly implies that people with Down syndrome are somehow "undesirable," so undesirable that people who are staunchly anti-abortion have a stack of "Get out of hell free" cards at the ready for just such occasions.
I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive.
I am, after all, a woman. You know us chicks.
Apparently, we're all the same.
...Okay, rant over. More sober assessment to follow on Rose Knows.
posted by Rose at
1:44 PM
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