Sarah Palin To Speak In Less Than Ideal Circumstances

There has been a lot of talk of lot surrounding Sarah Palin, John McCain’s pick for the Vice Presidential nod. In a previous post I indicated that I felt she provides some balance to the ticket and I still feel that way. The down side is, given McCain’s age and health, I personally do not want someone as inexperienced as Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. I think the two of them would work well together but if it ever came to the point where over the next four years she would be running the country, I would have concerns.

I found it humorous that the Republican talking heads claim that she has more experience than Barack Obama. I am not suggest he has a lot of experience and it is up to you to decide if he is qualified to run the country but don’t insult my intelligence by claiming she has more experience than he.

Obviously, there have been a number of issues that have already arisen concerning Sarah Palin. Despite what McCain says, despite what Palin says and despite what Obama and his people say, the fact that Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant is absolutely news worthy.

Of course candidates and their families deserve to have private lives (although in today’s political society, that is not the way it works). Still this is newsworthy given Palin’s record. Palin believes schools should not teach sex education and that it should be left up to the parents to teach their children abstinence. Obviously, by her own standards, Palin failed. Of course the final decision is always up to the individual. I am not suggesting that Palin should be monitoring her 17 year old daughter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Still, she, Sarah Palin, is the one who made this an issue. How can she tell the people of Alaska that they are responsible for making sure their unmarried children don’t have sex when she can’t even prevent her daughter from having sex (and getting pregnant). To me, that is the story.

Other issues regarding Palin have also come out during the campaign and she has not even been in the National eye for a week. What amazes me about this is, despite what is coming out, it appears that people are ignoring it and giving her a free pass. A friend of mine suggested that McCain could not get out of this well, so he should get out of it quickly and drop her from the ticket.

I don’t claim to know how the entire public feels about this but, from what I can tell, most don’t seem to care. The Republicans are not letting it distract them and it seems that McCain will keep her on. I am excited to hear her speech tonight, amidst all this craziness. All public speakers, at times, speak in less than ideal circumstances. While the convention is a favorable and welcoming atmosphere for Palin to speak, given all of the issues, we will not only learn something about Palin’s character tonight, we will learn something about her public speaking abilities.