Why Palin is the Best VP Pick Ever

You may be surprised to hear me saying nice things about McCain’s vice-president pick, a candidate that I have been vocally against in the past.  Well, what can I say, hippies can change their stripes!

Except not really.  This VP pick is good only because it completely eradicates any warm, fuzzy feelings I might have had about McCain.  Not even a 2 hour recitation of the horrors he faced in a prison camp can  persuade me to vote for him now!

The list of offenses against Palin is especially long for a nature-loving hippie like myself.  My respect and admiration for wolves is well known to anyone reading and Alaska has had a population of them forever.  Under Mrs. Palin, the predator-kill programs run by Alaska’s Fish and Wildlife Services has expanded greatly and wolves aren’t the only one to suffer; grizzly bears ahave also been feeling the pressure as Palin caters to outdated ideas of predators as competitors to be killed rather than managed.

To make matters worse, she has opposed putting polar bears on the endangered species list, a clear sign that she is a global-warming denier and therefore would do nothing to SOLVE our energy crisis.  Even more disturbing, one of her primary goals is to open ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge) to oil drilling.  What would she do if given the keys to our other nationally protected spaces?  Sifting for gold in the Great Sand Dunes, maybe?

Her record in Alaska is apparently pretty dismal.  This post from citizens of Alaska lists some of her egregious charges and has a little more about her violent opposition to wolves in particular.

Not only does she have a complete disregard for the environment and consrvation, but she is also governor of a state where several legislators have been indicted for taking bribes from an oil company.  Do we really need another oil-baron in the White House when we’re clearly being taking for a ride by Exxon and Co.?  I, for one, respond with a vigorous NO!

Even if this was all well and good, she is as conservative as they come: anti-abortion, anti-gun control, pro-corporations and business and anti-regulation.

The irony of all this is that she has VERY little experience, a charge which McCain has repeatedly leveled against Obama.  She hasn’t even served in Congress: 2 years as governor of Alaska is her highest governmental experience.  I think this will put a very different tenor on McCain’s claims against Obama, or at least I hope it will.

The reason McCain picked her is easy to see.  First of all, he picked a woman as a way of saying “Ha ha look I have a minority on MY ticket, too!  And it’s a woman!  Hillary supporters: flock to me now!”  Palin is also fiscally conservative as well as environmentally conservative.  This will appeal to McCain’s base (and the oil companies who fund him).  She’s a former beauty queen, too, was voted “America’s Hottest Governor” by Wonkette magazine, which will let McCain have two trophy women on his arm: his VP and his wife.

Surprisingly, also, she has an 80% approval rating within her state, which makes me very, very, very nervous.  Hopefully, the cold just got to the Alaskans’ brains…I really wish I was more confident about this race.

UPDATE: I just learned from this post and this article that Palin ALSO supports allows teaching about creationism in schools.  This could only be worse if she had lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to start a war with a foreign country.

UPDATE 2: Here’s two more great posts about Palin from an Alaskan’s perspective.  It’s very enlightening.