An Opinion Piece

Y'know seeing as I usually wear Carmex and not lipstick am I to be considered a pitbull? And seeing as I'm sure to hear that joke (?) forty million times I'm going on record as saying I was sick of it before I heard her speech tonight, because they said that same exact quote this morning on Good Morning America. Recycled quips? Yawn.

I tend not to get at all overly involved in presidential politics, I'm not part of the electoral college or anything...
Tonight was the first and only part of the conventions that I plan to watch. I will try to catch a debate but truth be told, at this point, I'm not thrilled with either candidate.

But Sarah Palin has kind of captured my attention. And god bless John McCain for picking someone who can at least be the subject of controversy and conversation. I mean, his campaign folks didn't know that the daughter's boyfriend had a facebook/myspace page that said he doesn't want kids? Seriously? That's awesome.

I thought her speech started out fairly well tonight. No distracting dangle earrings so that was good. She spoke first as a mother and honestly, I didn't want it to pander to my emotions but it did and congratulations speech writers...it worked. So there was that.

But then, with the whole let's drill and provide our own oil and gas so we can not be dependent on foreign suppliers and I know northern Alaska and we've got plenty? She also said something about how Alaska turned down federal funding for a bridge to nowhere and that if they were going to build a bridge they'd build it the Alaskans would do it themselves. Hello, Ms. Palin but good luck funding roadway construction projects (honest work not fake bridges) without the help of the federal government. (And seeing as my husband's company was banned from bidding on projects that received any federal funding dollars? I can tell you first hand that pretty much nixed public roadwork for them. And rightly so.)

I didn't see Obama's speech, and I suppose it doesn't matter because either way I want to say I'm also sick of those verbal jabs against the opponent. Community organizer, again & again? Oh and hey - maybe Obama didn't use the word victory (except while alluding to his campaign) in his speech about the war because the war has no foreseeable "victory" in sight.

In one remark she commented about Obama not authoring any laws or decisions or something. Which to me, would effectively add more government? Right? Well then a few sentences later she states that Obama wanting more government is a bad, bad thing for us all. Which is it? More laws/regulation/decisions = more government and not enacting them should be a plus. (on the other hand, maybe he IS lazy and indecisive) so thanks for that contradiction.

But then I sort of find myself wanting to like her, even though I don't agree with half of the things she represents. I like the total outsider vibe she's got going for her. And the mom thing, I can't deny it. She seems pretty human and down to earth. Or at least the p.r. people have me snowed into thinking that.

In the back of my mind though, there are a few sticking points:

I'm so glad that if my seventeen year old daughter got pregnant that she at least has a choice as to how she'd want to proceed. And marriage? I can't imagine encouraging it.

Drilling in Alaska? If she's not into wasteful spending I don't quite grasp that. Is the end result worth the impact? A relative minuscule amount of oil seems like the biggest wasteful spending pork barrel type of thing that could be imagined.

She's apparently in favor of aerial hunting of wolves so there will be more moose. Now, I'm not sure if Alaska needs more moose or if the hunting lobby in Maine wants more moose but that's not the point. Aerial hunting is just not sporting or really even effective population control. Think of all the airplane fuel and oil you could save if you hunted them the old fashioned way, on foot. Not that she believes that humans have really impacted global warming or anything, though.

I sort of tuned out the whole worship McCain portion of the speech, like she's going to say anything bad or surprising - plus I wanted to iron the kid's clothes for school tomorrow.

So that's it. My report on the speech. I'm thinking that you sort of have to view her as president. I mean, McCain's mom is still kicking around but I wonder if 76 is just too old. I lean towards hell yes he's too old. And she'll be there, ready to replace him. Scary but at least it's got me kind of interested too.

Which is more than I can say for Obama and Biden.

Updated to add: GMA's fact checking crew was reporting this morning that Palin was totally for the federal funds for the bridge either while she was running for governor or prior to that (while she was mayor, I'm assuming) and then, when she was governor she came out against the project. But only AFTER the offer for the federal funds was taken away and was no longer an option. It's all about the spin, I suppose.