i haven't been liveblogging, but...

[hermionesviolin]

srsly, CNN? At like 7:50am ET, Kiran said, "Breaking News: John McCain will announce his pick for VP within the next few hours." Um, we've all known for days that he was expected to name his pick today; that is not actually news. And Dana Bash is clearly not "working [their] sources" since you have her on the air every half hour to reiterate the same "news" about the plane that landed in Dayton at 10:07pm last night. (Yes, I know, clearly she has people doing that groundwork -- I'm more just sort of annoyed at how much repetition there is when you watch for more than a few minutes at a time.)

Sarah Palin? I don't even know what to think about that possibility. I can say, however, that I am so tired of the narrative that disaffected Hillary Clinton voters will all defect to McCain -- and that the Clintons sekritly hate Obama and don't want him to win the Presidency. CNN had Stephanie Miller and Mark Simone on via satellite, and I'll grant Simone the distrust of sincerity of any Clinton saying "It's not about me," and I would not be at all surprised if Hillary Clinton runs for President again, but to say that Clinton wants Obama to lose so she can run in 2012? That attributes to her crueler ends-justify-means (not quite the right term, but the best I can come up with) mentality than even I tend to subscribe to.

Comments

[dawllyllama.livejournal.com]

It's an insulting tactic if you ask me. We're expected to believe that women were voting for Hillary just because she's a woman? So throw another woman into the mix and they'll come running to McCain?! Once again, John McCain just proves how out of touch he is.

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I know women who were planning to vote for Hillary for simply that reason: she is a woman. Now that Hillary is out of the picture, they will either have to vote based on their beliefs or else they will vote for the candidate who will have a woman as his vice president.
There are probably people out there who will vote for Obama simply because he's black, too. Or for McCain because he's a war veteran. It's extremely rare in my experience that people will vote for someone because they actually want that person to win. For the most part, people tend to choose the lesser of two evils or else they go by their personal biases/party lines. It's very rare to find someone who does in-depth research and then makes their choice.

Then again, that's just my experience.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I'm curious: Were these women Dems for whom sex was the deciding factor in their choice between Obama and Clinton, or were they undecideds/independents for whom sex was the deciding factor in picking Clinton over both Obama and McCain? I feel like most Clinton supporters, even the ones who are still really upset about Clinton losing and don't like Obama that much, will hold their nose and vote for Obama in the fall because he's much closer to their vision of what the American Presidency should be than McCain is.

I mean, she said at the DNC (http://www.demconvention.com/hillary-rodham-clinton/):

Those are the reasons I ran for President. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

I agree that a lot of people just vote along party lines, but I feel like that's one of the big values of having major political parties -- that people who don't have the time/resources/whatever to really in-depth investigate all the candidates can vote for someone trusting that they're probably closer to their values/beliefs/etc. than the other candidate. (Of course this doesn't work during primaries, and it's still certainly problematic in general.)

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Let me begin this by stating something right out: I hate politics. Always have. Likely always will. I was raised by conservatives and am dating someone who has been an active supporter of Obama since he announced his candidacy.

And because I hate politics, I try not to talk politics. Dan talks about the issues and loves to discuss and debate strategies and such, but when it comes up in conversation, I say very little and listen some. I don't tend to learn what party lines people are walking because I truly do not care.

As much as I like freedom and democracy, I sometimes understand why people might think living under dictatorial rule might simplify things, particularly if that dictator agreed with what you believed. Thus I've often threatened to move to China. I won't, but I like to threaten it.

The truth is, until recently I was a conservative who was going to hold her nose and vote for Obama. But since Saddleback and the naming of Sarah Palin as McCain's running-mate, I'm actually far more impressed with the man than I had been. I'm looking forward to seeing what McCain/Palin can do.

[dawllyllama.livejournal.com]

Sarah Palin is not a woman. She's Pat Buchanan with breasts and a uterus.