This is way too scary for Moi.

Too many Americans are educated to resent the A students, avoid over-achievers, ridicule intelligent thinkers, and pay little or no attention to talented performers. The average American prefers someone with whom he or she can “identify” — a C student, someone who masks muddled thinking with common cliches, those cursed with mediocre talent, and ordinary folk like the guy (or gal) next door who just gets by.

i’m an a student, iq of 165 [like einstein!] and a former over-achiever, but none of this qualifies me to be president of the united states, or even mayor of two egg. i really like all those qualities in obama, i’d love to see them in all our presidents, but plenty of capable executives and diplomats did not necessarily do well in school, or display blazing talent.

and that budget that’s so awash in oil money it runs itself [and therefore any beauty queen could preside over it without fear of messing it up]?

Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska’s Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry

and it’s a pretty hefty tax, too:

How the windfall tax works
The tax is imposed on the net profit earned on each barrel of oil pumped from state lands, after deducting costs for production and transportation.

The tax is set at its highest rate in Prudhoe Bay, where the state takes 25 percent of the net profit of a barrel when its price is at or below $52.

The percentage then escalates as oil prices rise over that benchmark.

obama has said he’s in favor of enacting a windfall profits tax, but sarah palin has already done it.

obama, otoh, when he was in the illinois senate ‘stood up to’ the nuclear power industry by getting a law passed for voluntary reporting of the release of radioactive cooling water into the environment, and he ‘stood up to’ insurance companies in illinois by spending more tax dollars to buy more private insurance for more low-income people, rather than actually working towards enacting a statewide single-payer public plan.

color me unimpressed with the talented, over-achieving, smart dude so far.

Palin’s positions on abortion are likely to decrease, not increase, the number of disaffected Clinton supporters taking a look at McCain. She may not even be able to deliver Alaska’s three electoral votes, given that Obama currently holds about a three-point lead in Alaska over McCain, and also given the likelihood that Obama and the DNC are going to be blanketing the airwaves in Alaska with every scrap of information about the ethics investigation that they can dig up. (Apparently, it’s not terribly widely known in the state yet.)

Palin’s experiential base pales by comparison to that of Obama, much less that of Joe Biden. Yes, she’s been governor of Alaska for eighteen months. That isn’t by any stretch of the imagination enough experience to be able to deal with the complexities of politics at the state level, much less the vastly more complicated politics of national and international issues.

As far as her conservatism goes, that may mollify the Republican base somewhat. But it will not likely play well with independents. Eighty percent of voters think this country is heading in the wrong direction. I find it unlikely that many of them are going to vote for a ticket that embodies more of the same BS that we’ve been subjected to for the last eight years. Even the contrast between Palin’s age and that of McCain has been cause for concern. McCain just had his 72nd birthday, and has not been in the greatest of health recently. Is Sarah Palin really the kind of person we want being a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land? I sure don’t think so, and I have a hard time believing that many voters will do so, either.

Yes, I’ve seen quite a bit of blatant sexism in response to the pick–and it’s pissed the hell out of me, too. I’ve been arguing against it wherever I’ve seen it since the pick was announced. But the fact that a few pinheads have been resorting to cheap shots does not, in and of itself, invalidate all the legitimate criticisms that can be leveled against Ms. Palin. Nor, I think, is it likely to do much to turn off voters, considering it’s exactly the sort of thing that the Republicans routinely say about anybody not on their team. For once, they’re taking it in the teeth instead of dishing it out.

this is actually quite in line with what a lot of old-time southern democrats were too at one time. very religious, but very firm believers in the separation of church and state, unlike what the democratic party seems to have morphed into this time around.

obama’s plan to increase the size and reach of bush’s faith-based intiative is just plain creepy, and while obama himself seems to hold mild views on abortion and gays, black theology [and i’m generalizing rather egregiously here, i realize that] is not any more friendly towards gays, “loose” women, and some other societal outcasts, than are most other religions/sects/denominations.

and it used to be considered a liberal value that people were free to state their personal views when asked.

also, it looks like i flubbed my link above on the gay partner benefits article.

I know that you know I never once mentioned, or for that matter considered recommending, Tim Kaine to anyone for so much as an instant. So, I understand your question to be more generally addressed to the amorphous Veep Shortlist Leakers. I cannot answer for them. Over the past six weeks or more, they let loose with plenty of head fakes and many patently ridiculous suggestions.

I know no more about Tim Kaine than one can read on Wikipedia: Admitted to Harvard Law School and graduated in 1983. Engaged in private practice of law for 17 years specializing in Federal Fair Housing civil rights cases; taught legal ethics at Richmond Law School for six years, elected to the city council and later served as mayor of Richmond (pop. 200,000+) for a total of seven years; was elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and served for four full years, then was elected Governor and has been serving in that capacity for the last 20 months. He speaks Spanish fluently as well as English and did missionary work with the Jesuits in Honduras for a year.

All in all, I think, a fairly impressive academic background, resume, and skill set. But, still, I did not recommend Tim Kaine and probably would not do so if the job were still open because there are so many even better qualified choices available to Barack Obama.

As for Sarah Palin…. She belongs to a Pentecostal church and, in Dday’s words at Hullabaloo, “She is a creationist-loving anti-choice, environment-despoiling gift to the fundie right… .”

She finished in second place in the Miss Alaska Beauty contest. (1984). Earned a Bachelor’s degree in Using a Pica Stick from the University of Idaho (1987). Worked as an Anchorage TV sports reporter “for a short time” and set fish nets for her husband occasionally. She was elected city councilwoman in the very small town of Wasilla (pop. 5,470) and served from 1992-96. Elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she survived a recall petition and was reelected in 2002. Lost a statewide election for Lieutenant Governor, and then was appointed and served as Ethics Chairman of the Alaska State Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for less than two years. She resigned in protest over the lack of ethics in state government and became the named complainant — represented by we-don’t-know- who-lawyers — in two ethics complaints against the incumbent governor and one of his cronies. Elected governor herself in 2006 against very weak opposition, she has served for 18-20 months. She is widely regarded as a “hands-off” governor. She offices most of the time in Anchorage while the legislature and the rest of state government meets in Juneau. The state budget is a no-brainer since Alaska is rich with unspent oil revenues and there are no taxes. She was for the “bridge to nowhere” before she was against it. Less than two months ago, she mentioned in an interview (viewable everywhere on the Internet Tubes these days) that she doesn’t know what the Vice President of the United States does.

All in all, to be frank with you, a below-average resume. She has had a run-of- the-mine political career to this point that could be matched by anywhere from a hundred to a couple of thousand or more people in every one of the fifty states. This is not to say she is a bad person, just that she has not yet shown anything to truly distinguish her from the multitudes. To be sure, her role in the ethics complaints offers some indication of either personal courage or smart lawyering-up. But she, herself, is now emboiled in an ethics case of her own over abuse of power allegations that she and her staff improperly interceded to have the state’s Public Safety Commissioner fired for his refusal to punish her ex-brother-in-law cop a second time by firing him over assertions he had physically abused a child.

That is it, to this point, except for other unverified allegations in the air over her complicated family life and, of course, her rigid right-wing views over a number of issues from Creationism in the classroom to contraception as equivalent to abortion which is, she contends, equivalent to murder.

I’ll leave it to others to compare the education, learning, governmental experience, proven capabilities, character, and principles of the two politicians you mention.

What I can say in praise of Obama is that he didn’t name Kaine or Palin as the answer to the most important question a candidate for president can be asked to decide. That’s a huge plus, as far as I am concerned. Neither of them is within light years of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Bill Richardson, or … dare I say it? Even Mitt Romney who, for all of his many faults, governed Massachusetts for four years without completely burning the place down.

McCain, on the other hand, selected Jane Q. Palin. Bryan, you would have been a better pick.

I agree with you, Bryan; mock her at our peril, but I do think we should see this as a test of the executive decisions John McCain will make as president, and that’s not comforting.

(Tim Kaine may have been a “reasonable VP choice,” but in the end, he wasn’t chosen. That tells you something about Mr. Obama’s decision-making.)

John, why was Tim Kaine of Virginia a reasonable VP choice for the junior Senator from Illinois, but Sarah Palin a terrible choice for the senior Senator from Arizona?

Too many Americans are educated to resent the A students, avoid over-achievers, ridicule intelligent thinkers, and pay little or no attention to talented performers. The average American prefers someone with whom he or she can “identify” — a C student, someone who masks muddled thinking with common cliches, those cursed with mediocre talent, and ordinary folk like the guy (or gal) next door who just gets by.

How else explain the popularity of “American Idol”?

Sarah Palin looks just like them. It’s seductive to fantasize her sudden ‘success’ as theirs. The banal victorious! A Nobody Just Like Me prevails!

Very self-affirming. Like voting for yourself.