I’m a liberal Republican, an oxymoron I know. I plan to switch to the Democratic party as soon as this election cycle is over.
But even if I were a conservative Republican, I could not vote for John McCain because of his choice of running mate, Sarah Palin, the first-term governor of Alaska, a state that has a smaller population than Barack Obama’s Congressional District in Illinois.
Her abysmal lack of knowledge of foreign policy, domestic policy, the economy, landmark Supreme Court cases, American history, and the U.S. Constitution has become blatantly apparent over the last 5 weeks and is truly frightening. Palin’s interviews with Katie Couric (scroll to the bottom of the page to see all the videos) show she is clearly not ready to assume the Presidency. Every time someone asks her a question, she can’t answer it in a meaningful way. She isn’t ready for the game show “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” let alone the Presidency.
During the VP debate on October 2 against Senator Joe Biden, she didn’t answer Gwen Ifill’s questions. Gwen Ifill was the debate moderator. Palin stuck to her talking points. She didn’t stick her foot in her mouth, which was quite a success for her. She even bluntly said she wasn’t going to answer questions the way anyone wanted her to. It scares me that someone asking for that much power won’t give straight answers about how his or her ticket plans to lead the country.
What really scares me is her desire to emulate Dick Cheney and expand on his actions if she becomes Vice-President. In the debate she spoke of the “flexibility” in the U.S. Constitution of the role of the VP in the Legislative branch as well as the Executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government.
The Vice-President has two powers according to the Constitution, and I quote:
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
– U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 3The Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
– U.S. Constitution, 12th Amendment.
The VP is available for advice and counsel to the President and members of Congress. The VP can certainly work in unison with the President to carry out his or her policies. But the VP has no power of his or her own except as quoted above.
Joe Biden rightly said at the debate that Dick Cheney is the most dangerous Vice-President this country has ever had.
Dick Cheney hasn’t gotten away with most of his shenanigans. He’s ended up in court more than any VP in history for overstepping his Constitutional boundaries. Cheney has still managed to use his private industry connections to intimidate many inside and outside of the government, and he has gotten big government contracts for some of his private industry friends.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want another Dick Cheney as VP, especially not one who thinks the powers of the VP should be expanded further than Cheney tried to push them!
To me, John McCain showed extremely poor judgement by choosing such an inexperienced and ignorant VP running mate. Because of this horrible lack of judgement, he is showing he is not fit to be the President of the United States.
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