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><channel><title>Chris Abraham &#187; resistance</title> <atom:link href="http://chrisabraham.com/tag/resistance/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><link>http://chrisabraham.com</link> <description>Because the Medium is the Message</description> <lastBuildDate>Sun, 27 May 2012 03:06:01 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2</generator> <xhtml:meta xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" name="robots" content="noindex" /> <item><title>I Resent Tropicana&#8217;s Rebranding as Fugly</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/27/i-resent-tropicanas-rebranding-as-fugly/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/27/i-resent-tropicanas-rebranding-as-fugly/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:10:10 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Branding]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Rebranding]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tropicana]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tropicana Rebranding]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Adage]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alien]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alienation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Aliens]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[arnell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category> <category><![CDATA[blogged]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brand]]></category> <category><![CDATA[change]]></category> <category><![CDATA[colors]]></category> <category><![CDATA[differentiator]]></category> <category><![CDATA[emotional bond]]></category> <category><![CDATA[environments]]></category> <category><![CDATA[evenings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[faces]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fugly]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[goode]]></category> <category><![CDATA[goodness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hypotheses]]></category> <category><![CDATA[kirkland]]></category> <category><![CDATA[labels]]></category> <category><![CDATA[leading brand]]></category> <category><![CDATA[likeness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[liking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[loyal customers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketability]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[neil campbell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[new york times]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[organism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[organizers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[organs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[outcry]]></category> <category><![CDATA[people]]></category> <category><![CDATA[presidencies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[presidency]]></category> <category><![CDATA[presidents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[private label]]></category> <category><![CDATA[private labels]]></category> <category><![CDATA[resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[safeway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shoulds]]></category> <category><![CDATA[top edge]]></category> <category><![CDATA[tops]]></category> <category><![CDATA[trader joe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category> <category><![CDATA[twittering]]></category> <category><![CDATA[twitters]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vocal group]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vocal minority]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/27/i-resent-tropicanas-rebranding-as-fugly/</guid> <description><![CDATA[I knew it sucked &#8212; and I knew it would fail. And it has, according to Shopper Culture,  Poor Shoppability Sinks Tropicana&#8217;s New Packaging: Find it quick, though, because they&#8217;re bringing back the old. Why the about face? An apparently small but vocal group decried the new packaging. According to Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" /></a></div><p><a
href="http://www.bizzia.com/brandcurve/files/2009/02/carton_no_tag-tropicana.jpg" target="_blank"></a></p><p
style="text-align: center"><a
href="http://www.bizzia.com/brandcurve/files/2009/02/carton_no_tag-tropicana.jpg" target="_blank"><img
src="http://www.bizzia.com/brandcurve/files/2009/02/carton_no_tag-tropicana.jpg" alt="carton no tag tropicana I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" width="275" height="555" title="I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" /></a></p><p><span
id="more-5583"></span></p><p>I knew it sucked &#8212; and I knew it would fail. And it has, according to <a
href="http://www.shopperculture.com/shopper_culture/2009/02/poor-shoppability-sinks-tropicanas-new-packaging.html">Shopper Culture</a>,  <a
href="http://www.shopperculture.com/shopper_culture/2009/02/poor-shoppability-sinks-tropicanas-new-packaging.html">Poor Shoppability Sinks Tropicana&#8217;s New Packaging</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Find it quick, though, because they&#8217;re bringing back the old.</p><p><a
href="http://www.shopperculture.com/.a/6a00e008cd6c2b883401127910941728a4-pi" target="_blank"><img
src="http://www.shopperculture.com/.a/6a00e008cd6c2b883401127910941728a4-500pi" alt=" I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px" title="Tropican old 6" border="0" /></a></p><p>Why the about face? An apparently small but vocal group decried the new packaging. According to Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, “We underestimated the deep emotional bond” their most loyal customers have with the brand. Really? Blogs, news, and Twitter reveal two other hypotheses.</p><p>First, the new packaging is just not <em>shoppable</em>. People have a hard time finding the brand, and when they do, they can&#8217;t differentiate among the varieties (no pulp, calcium, etc.). The words are small, and the color coding along the top edge can be hidden by the shelf above (see below).</p><p>Second, the new packaging &#8220;looks like a store brand&#8221;. Why is this a criticism, when these days private labels are seen as good values (Kirkland), good quality (365, Trader Joe&#8217;s), or even premium (Safeway O Organics)? Maybe a high-priced, market leading brand like Tropicana <em>shouldn&#8217;t </em>look like a private label&#8211;at least not yet.</p><p>Should Tropicana (or Arnell, who did the new design) have found a way to <em>evolve</em> the look rather than revolutionize it? Should they have resisted the outcry of the small, vocal minority? After all, they may alienate old customers, but could they gain a new generation of customers with the new look? At the least, they should have made the design more shoppable. Testing it in less-than-ideal environments (like the tightly spaced shelving above) might have helped.</p><p><a
href="http://www.shopperculture.com/.a/6a00e008cd6c2b88340112791096f428a4-pi" target="_blank" style="float: left"><img
src="http://www.shopperculture.com/.a/6a00e008cd6c2b88340112791096f428a4-120pi" alt=" I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px" title="Tropicana cap" border="0" /></a>They are keeping one change: the orange-shaped cap. Nice touch.</p><p>More of the <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/business/media/23adcol.html?em" target="_blank">story</a> at the <em>New York TImes</em>. And <a
href="http://adage.com/brightcove/single.php?bcpid=1370868150&amp;bctid=14167986001" target="_blank">watch</a> Peter Arnell describe the rationale behind the new design at AdAge.</p></blockquote><div
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border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt I Resent Tropicanas Rebranding as Fugly" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/27/i-resent-tropicanas-rebranding-as-fugly/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/23/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/23/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:03:27 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Defensive SEO]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marketing Pilgrim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Gray]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Online Reputation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Online Reputation Clean-up]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Online Reputation Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ORM]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Reputation Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search Engines]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO and Profit]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SEO Benefits]]></category> <category><![CDATA[SERM]]></category> <category><![CDATA[analogies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[analogy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[benefit]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Blogger]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brand]]></category> <category><![CDATA[checks]]></category> <category><![CDATA[discipline]]></category> <category><![CDATA[engineer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[excerpt]]></category> <category><![CDATA[excerpts]]></category> <category><![CDATA[grays]]></category> <category><![CDATA[jumbo jets]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[management client]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketability]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[new article]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[onli]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online]]></category> <category><![CDATA[optimization seo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[outreach]]></category> <category><![CDATA[outreaches]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pilgrim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[reputation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[reputation manager]]></category> <category><![CDATA[reputations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Search]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Service]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shoulds]]></category> <category><![CDATA[think]]></category> <category><![CDATA[umbrella]]></category> <category><![CDATA[using directories]]></category> <category><![CDATA[wee bit]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/23/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management/</guid> <description><![CDATA[I think you should check out Michael Gray new article, Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management, because it is a very interesting article &#8212; essential reading &#8212; I have only excerpted a wee bit of it here because I think you need to go over there and spend some time with the article, which [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
align="right" style="float: right; padding: 0px 0px 5px 5px;"><a
name="fb_share" type="button" share_url="http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/23/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management/"></a></div><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2009%2F02%2F23%2Fusing-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management%2F&media=&description=Using+Directories+for+Search+Engine+Reputation+Management" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management" /></a></div><p>I think you should check out <a
href="http://www.wolf-howl.com/about-graywolf/">Michael Gray</a> new article, <a
href="http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/02/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management">Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management</a>, because it is a very interesting article &#8212; essential reading &#8212; I have only excerpted a wee bit of it here because I think you need to go over there and spend some time with the article, which is really valuable and essential as a way of inoculating your brand in advance of anything going wrong.</p><blockquote><p>Search engine reputation management (SERM) is a growing discipline under the larger umbrella of search engine optimization (SEO). If you deal with client services, and you don’t already have at least one reputation management client, chances are you will in the very near future. The more tools or options you have at your disposal for this type of project, the easier the task will be. In this article I’m going to look at one of those tools; directories. (via <a
href="http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/02/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management">Marketing Pilgrim</a>)</p></blockquote><p>I think it is really important for me to start writing more on this topic.  I have written a few things on this topic: <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2008/02/01/i-online-reputation-manager/#title" title="Permalink to I, Online Reputation Manager" rel="bookmark">I, Online Reputation Manager</a>, <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2009/01/22/the-powerful-seo-benefits-of-blogger-pr-outreach/#title" title="Permalink to The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach" rel="bookmark">The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach</a>, <a
href="http://marketingconversation.com/2007/09/24/el-al-jumbo-jets-chaffing-and-flaring-the-skies/" rel="bookmark">An El Al Jumbo Jets Chaffing and Flaring the Skies Analogy</a>, <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/06/online-reputation-defense-resistance-is-futile/#title" title="Permalink to Online Reputation Defense: Resistance is Futile" rel="bookmark">Online Reputation Defense: Resistance is Futile</a>, <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2006/11/17/online-reputation-management/#title" title="Permalink to Online Reputation Management" rel="bookmark">Online Reputation Management</a>, and <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/online-reputation-management-needs-to-be-proactive/#title" title="Permalink to Online Reputation Management Needs to Be Proactive" rel="bookmark">Online Reputation Management Needs to Be Proactive</a>.</p><div
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href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2009%2F02%2F23%2Fusing-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management%2F&media=&description=Using+Directories+for+Search+Engine+Reputation+Management" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/23/using-directories-for-search-engine-reputation-management/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>BL Ochman Debunks Six Social Media Myths Over at Business Week</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/bl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/bl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:15:48 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[bl ochman]]></category> <category><![CDATA[business week]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Coach]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Enagement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Ethics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Insights]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Myths]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media News Release]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Optimization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Outreach]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media PR]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Press Release]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Reputation Management]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Strategies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Strategy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media Tipping Point]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Mediasphere]]></category> <category><![CDATA[What's Next]]></category> <category><![CDATA[What's Next Blog]]></category> 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<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category> <category><![CDATA[yahoo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[yhoo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/bl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week/</guid> <description><![CDATA[BL and I adore eachother so I was very excited to receive an email from her last night with a link to her latest article on Business Week, Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don&#8217;t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free &#8212; check it [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
align="right" style="float: right; padding: 0px 0px 5px 5px;"><a
name="fb_share" type="button" share_url="http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/bl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week/"></a></div><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2009%2F02%2F19%2Fbl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week%2F&media=&description=BL+Ochman+Debunks+Six+Social+Media+Myths+Over+at+Business+Week" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt BL Ochman Debunks Six Social Media Myths Over at Business Week" /></a></div><p>BL and I adore eachother so I was very excited to receive an email from her last night with a link to her latest article on Business Week, <a
href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090218_335887.htm">Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don&#8217;t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free</a> &#8212; check it out and check BL out over on her blog, <a
href="http://www.whatsnextblog.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">What&#8217;s Next Blog</a>. Oh, and when BL asks &#8220;how many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you&#8217;d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records,&#8221; I can proudly state that <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/case-studies">Abraham Harrison LLC</a> has the <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/services">expertise</a>, the <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/case-studies">experience</a>, and the <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/our-clients-past-and-present">track record</a> to boot!  Anyway, here&#8217;s the article:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><a
href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090218_335887.htm"><strong>Debunking Six Social Media Myths</strong></a></p><p>For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn&#8217;t putting itself out there, it ought to be.</p><p>But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.</p><p><strong>1. Social media is cheap, if not free.</strong> Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. These include Google&#8217;s (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=GOOG">GOOG</a>) video-sharing site YouTube, Yahoo&#8217;s (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=YHOO">YHOO</a>) photo-sharing site Flickr, the social-network building tool <a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=35135559">Ning</a>, and content aggregators such as <a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=24526784">Digg</a> and eBay&#8217;s (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=EBAY">EBAY</a>) StumbleUpon. Free blogging tools abound too; among them are WordPress, <a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=35962803">Twitter</a>, and <a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=41623982">FriendFeed</a>.</p><p>However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months. I&#8217;m sure companies have spent less, and I know they&#8217;ve spent more.</p><p>Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn&#8217;t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company&#8217;s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.</p><p>As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or <a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=20765463">Facebook</a> and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign. Complex functions add to programming and design costs.</p><p>A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google&#8217;s AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.</p><p><strong>2. Anyone can do it.</strong> A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus. Search the bios of Robert Scoble&#8217;s 56,838 Twitter followers using Tweepsearch (www.tweepsearch.com), an index of the bios of Twitter users, and you&#8217;ll find:</p><ul><li>4,273 Internet marketers</li><li>1,652 social media marketers</li><li>513 social media consultants</li><li>272 social media strategists</li><li>180 social media experts</li><li>98 social media gurus</li><li>58 Internet marketing gurus</li></ul><p>How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you&#8217;d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records.</p><p>A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.</p><p>Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.</p><p>It&#8217;s the rare video contest that gets as many as 2,000 entries. Many, like Denny&#8217;s (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=DENM">DENM</a>) <a
href="http://www.vote4real.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">recent disastrous effort</a>, get fewer than 10 entries. Apparently, 48 Denny&#8217;s breakfasts over four years wasn&#8217;t a big motivator.</p><p><strong>3. You can make a big splash in a short time.</strong> Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.</p><p>Social media is great if you&#8217;re already a star, but that doesn&#8217;t happen overnight. Amid the recent launch of my T-shirt design business, <a
href="http://www.pawfun.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">Pawfun.com</a>, I have relied heavily on my 4,000-plus Twitter <a
href="http://www.twitter.com/whatsnext" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">followers</a> and 120,000 readers of my <a
href="http://www.whatsnextblog.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">What&#8217;s Next Blog</a>, which I&#8217;ve updated as often as five times a day since 2003. Because that network already exists, with not one dollar spent on advertising, we were able to generate more traffic in our first three days than some major companies get after years online.</p><p><a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=92838">Zappos</a>Chief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=DELL">DELL</a>), JetBlue Airways (<a
href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=JBLU">JBLU</a>), the Chicago Bulls, and other love-&#8217;em-or-hate-&#8217;em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.</p><p>Tweets can be used to drive traffic to articles, Web sites, contests, videos, and so on—if people already care about your brand, or if you have a truly original idea that people will want to share with their followers.</p><p>One recent example of a Twitter-generated success is <a
href="http://www.savvyauntie.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">Savvy Auntie</a>, a community for aunts, godmothers, and &#8220;other women who love kids&#8221; that was launched six months ago by Melanie Notkin. She has counted on Twitter to drive traffic, help her find suppliers, products, and even investors. She developed a Twitter following before launching her business, then tapped into it for help when she launched.</p><p><strong>4. You can do it all in-house.</strong> Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience—a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.</p><p>It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.</p><p><strong>5. If you do something great, people will find it.</strong> Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you&#8217;ve got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse—one friend telling another, &#8220;Hey look at this!&#8221;</p><p><strong>6.  You can&#8217;t measure social media marketing results.</strong> You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including <a
href="http://www.google.com/trends" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">Google Trends</a>, Twitter search, Google Analytics, <a
href="http://www.backtype.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">BackType</a>, and <a
href="http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referrals/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">Compete</a>.</p><p>The tools are there. The gurus who know how to use and interpret them—not so much.</p><p
class="tagline"> Ochman, president of <a
href="http://www.whatsnextonline.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">Whatsnextonline.com</a>, has been creating new media marketing and online brand strategy since 1995 for companies including IBM, Ford, McGraw-Hill, Budget Car Rental, Stacksandstacks.com, and American Greetings. She tracks online marketing trends and campaigns in <a
href="http://www.whatsnextblog.com/" onclick="popup(this.href,770,600);return false;" target="popup">What&#8217;s Next Blog</a>.</p></blockquote><p></p><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2009%2F02%2F19%2Fbl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week%2F&media=&description=BL+Ochman+Debunks+Six+Social+Media+Myths+Over+at+Business+Week" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt BL Ochman Debunks Six Social Media Myths Over at Business Week" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/19/bl-ochman-debunks-six-social-media-myths-over-at-business-week/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>The Merkur XR4Ti Was My Kind of Car (RIP)</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/18/the-merkur-xr4ti-was-my-kind-of-car-rip/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/18/the-merkur-xr4ti-was-my-kind-of-car-rip/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:10:17 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Ford Merkur]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Merkur XR4Ti]]></category> <category><![CDATA[american audience]]></category> <category><![CDATA[audience]]></category> <category><![CDATA[audiences]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bob]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bob lutz]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bobs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[car]]></category> <category><![CDATA[car lover]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cars]]></category> <category><![CDATA[contributer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[death touch]]></category> <category><![CDATA[europe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[europe cars]]></category> <category><![CDATA[european cars]]></category> <category><![CDATA[european models]]></category> <category><![CDATA[europeans]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ford]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fruition]]></category> <category><![CDATA[independent rear suspension]]></category> <category><![CDATA[jalopnik]]></category> <category><![CDATA[kindness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[merkur]]></category> <category><![CDATA[models]]></category> <category><![CDATA[oddball]]></category> <category><![CDATA[onli]]></category> <category><![CDATA[probability]]></category> <category><![CDATA[resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[svo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[turbocharged]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2009/02/18/the-merkur-xr4ti-was-my-kind-of-car-rip/</guid> <description><![CDATA[I have to admit that the oddball Merkur XR4Ti, which was my type of car and an attempt by Ford to import its European models to the US, failing horribly and probably a contributing factor to Ford&#8217;s apparent resistance to ever try importing its quirky European cars to the US ever again. (Via Jalopnik): Merkur, [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt The Merkur XR4Ti Was My Kind of Car (RIP)" /></a></div><p><center><img
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/02/German_For_Awesome.jpg" style="display: block" width="504" height="342" title="The Merkur XR4Ti Was My Kind of Car (RIP)" alt="German For Awesome The Merkur XR4Ti Was My Kind of Car (RIP)" /></center><br
/> I have to admit that the oddball <a
href="http://jalopnik.com/cars/down-on-the-street/1987-merkur-xr4ti-318614.php" target="_blank">Merkur XR4Ti</a>, which was my type of car and an attempt by Ford to import its European models to the US, failing horribly and probably a contributing factor to Ford&#8217;s apparent resistance to ever try importing its <a
href="http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars">quirky European cars</a> to the US ever again. (Via <a
href="http://jalopnik.com/tag/qotd/?id=5155714">Jalopnik</a>):</p><blockquote><p>Merkur, Ford&#8217;s attempt at bringing Ford of Europe cars to an American audience, lasted only four years (1985 to 1989). Despite its short life, it did bring the <a
href="http://jalopnik.com/cars/down-on-the-street/1987-merkur-xr4ti-318614.php">Merkur XR4Ti</a> to the US. It has everything a weird car lover could want: turbocharged fourbanger (the Lima 2.3 from the Turbobird and SVO), RWD, five-speed manual tranny, an independent-rear suspension and a strange European look. Despite the cool looks and Karmann construction it wasn&#8217;t enough to carry Merkur to fruition. Unfortunately, it has the death-touch of <a
href="http://jalopnik.com/tag/bob-lutz/?id=238546">Bob Lutz</a>.</p></blockquote><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2009%2F02%2F18%2Fthe-merkur-xr4ti-was-my-kind-of-car-rip%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fcache.gawker.com%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fjalopnik%2F2009%2F02%2FGerman_For_Awesome.jpg&description=The+Merkur+XR4Ti+Was+My+Kind+of+Car+%28RIP%29" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
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Debates]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Presidential Election]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Presidential Endorsements]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Presidential Poll]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Presidential Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sarah Palin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Vice Presidency]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vice president]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Vice Presidential Debate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[8 years]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ACT]]></category> <category><![CDATA[activists]]></category> <category><![CDATA[actors]]></category> <category><![CDATA[actuall]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advocacy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[affirmation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[aim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alaska supreme court]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[amazement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ammunition]]></category> <category><![CDATA[animals]]></category> <category><![CDATA[arrogance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[assed]]></category> <category><![CDATA[asses]]></category> <category><![CDATA[assets]]></category> <category><![CDATA[attitude]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Babies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[balls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Barack]]></category> <category><![CDATA[batten]]></category> <category><![CDATA[beatings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bedding]]></category> <category><![CDATA[beens]]></category> <category><![CDATA[beers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Berlin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[berliner]]></category> <category><![CDATA[berliners]]></category> <category><![CDATA[billions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bitterness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bliss]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bob]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bobs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bomb]]></category> <category><![CDATA[boots]]></category> <category><![CDATA[border]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bottoms]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brain]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brains]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brilliant collection]]></category> <category><![CDATA[buddies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bush]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bushes]]></category> <category><![CDATA[campaigning]]></category> <category><![CDATA[campaigns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[camping]]></category> <category><![CDATA[canada]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cbs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cells]]></category> <category><![CDATA[change]]></category> <category><![CDATA[chefs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Children]]></category> <category><![CDATA[choices]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Chris]]></category> <category><![CDATA[citizen]]></category> <category><![CDATA[clintons]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cmon]]></category> <category><![CDATA[coach]]></category> <category><![CDATA[collaborator]]></category> <category><![CDATA[colleague]]></category> <category><![CDATA[colleagues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[collectives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[colors]]></category> <category><![CDATA[commentator]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Comments]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Community]]></category> <category><![CDATA[complexity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[confidant]]></category> <category><![CDATA[confidence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[congress]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conservatives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[contributer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[controversy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[couples]]></category> <category><![CDATA[crap]]></category> <category><![CDATA[crossings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[crowd]]></category> <category><![CDATA[crowds]]></category> <category><![CDATA[daughters]]></category> <category><![CDATA[debate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[debates]]></category> <category><![CDATA[decisions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[decline]]></category> <category><![CDATA[delaware]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Democrat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category> <category><![CDATA[desire]]></category> <category><![CDATA[desires]]></category> <category><![CDATA[desperation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[diligence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[diplomats]]></category> <category><![CDATA[disasters]]></category> <category><![CDATA[docs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dogs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[dole]]></category> <category><![CDATA[dollarization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[doom]]></category> <category><![CDATA[doubt]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drinking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[drinks]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ebay]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Education]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category> <category><![CDATA[elephant]]></category> <category><![CDATA[elite]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Email]]></category> <category><![CDATA[embrace]]></category> <category><![CDATA[emergence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[English]]></category> <category><![CDATA[evenings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[exaggeration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[excitement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category> <category><![CDATA[existance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[existence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[expectation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[experiences]]></category> <category><![CDATA[extent]]></category> <category><![CDATA[faces]]></category> <category><![CDATA[failure]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fairness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[faith]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Family]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fear]]></category> <category><![CDATA[feelings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[femininity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[feminist]]></category> <category><![CDATA[feminists]]></category> <category><![CDATA[follower]]></category> <category><![CDATA[followers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fool]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fools]]></category> <category><![CDATA[free]]></category> <category><![CDATA[freedom]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fri]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Friends]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fries]]></category> <category><![CDATA[game]]></category> <category><![CDATA[generations]]></category> <category><![CDATA[giant]]></category> <category><![CDATA[giants]]></category> <category><![CDATA[girls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[glasses]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Globalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[god]]></category> <category><![CDATA[goodness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gore]]></category> <category><![CDATA[greed]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Green]]></category> <category><![CDATA[guns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[happiness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Harvard]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hatches]]></category> <category><![CDATA[head in the 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isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2008/10/10/sarah-palin-comment-thread-par-excellence/</guid> <description><![CDATA[If you have not been keeping on top of all of the great comments streaming in to the AH Poll entitled &#8220;If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be competent to be President?&#8221; you are really missing out! Some of them are the most insightful, thoughtful, and brilliant collection of thoughts representing [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F10%2F10%2Fsarah-palin-comment-thread-par-excellence%2F&media=&description=Sarah+Palin+Comment+Thread+Par+Excellence" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Sarah Palin Comment Thread Par Excellence" /></a></div><p>If you have not been keeping on top of all of the great comments streaming in to the <a
href="http://ahpoll.com">AH Poll</a> entitled <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/palin/">&#8220;If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be competent to be President?&#8221;</a> you are really missing out!  Some of them are the most insightful, thoughtful, and brilliant collection of thoughts representing the best and the worst of the right and the left! Roll up your sleeves and batten your hatches because you&#8217;re going to have one hell of a ride. Oh, also, these comments are in reverse-chronological order so the most recent are at the top. If you want to keep track of them live, please <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/palin/#comments">go visit them where they love and breathe</a>. Read below for the most amazing Sarah Palin comment thread of the Internets!<br
/> <span
id="more-5087"></span></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-147">Palin = MORON</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://sogetthis.com" rel="nofollow">Anonymous</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/10/2008 &#8211; 12:58.</div><div><p>Only  a complete moron would vote for a Republican after the past 8 years of  idiocy. McCain is a Bush croney and Palin is just an idiot.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/147">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/147/Palin-MORON">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-146"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-146">reply to KB in IA</a></div><div> Submitted by ab (not verified) on Fri, 10/10/2008 &#8211; 08:52.</div><div><p>KB,<br
/> Sorry, I don&#8217;t usually reply to these remarks, but I couldn&#8217;t resist&#8230;&#8230;..<br
/> What message of &#8220;hate&#8221; are you talking about?<br
/> If someone doesn&#8217;t agree with your worldview, that doesn&#8217;t<br
/> mean they hate. Where is your tolerance?<br
/> AB</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/146">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/146/reply-KB-IA">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-145"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-145">Palin</a></div><div> Submitted by Walter Arndt (not verified) on Thu, 10/09/2008 &#8211; 22:23.</div><div><p>Only a person with his head in the sand would vote for a democrat.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/145">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/145/Palin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-144"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-144">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by KB in IA (not verified) on Thu, 10/09/2008 &#8211; 21:54.</div><div><p>Things  might get interesting soon, since the Alaska Supreme Court said today  that the investigation known as Troopergate could proceed, dashing the  hopes of the McCain/Palin campaign to stonewall it until after the  election (article at <a
href="http://www.adn.com" title="www.adn.com">www.adn.com</a>).  Amazing that someone CURRENTLY under investigation for misuse of public  office, could be stirring up crowds with a message of hate.  Mind-boggling that someone who had to attend 5 or 6 different colleges  before getting a degree in journalism, can try to make a bogeyman out  of someone who graduated with honors from Harvard Law. I hope Alaska  gets their Governor back soon&#8230;if they even want her back.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/144">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/144/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-143"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-143">Re: Palin</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 10/09/2008 &#8211; 18:06.</div><div><p>Are  you as crazy as she is? It IS the republican party that has messed up  this Country over the last 8 yrs. We may not get out of this mess we  are in. Take your head out of the sand. Obama IS the best selection  this election.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/143">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/143/Re-Palin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-142"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-142">Qualified?</a></div><div> Submitted by  Leo (not verified) on Thu, 10/09/2008 &#8211; 17:17.</div><div><p>Mrs.  Palin is much more qualified to be President than Obama who has done  absolutely nothing but organize thugs in ACORN! She could save this  Country from Socialism and all the corruption the Democrats are up to.  He is not capable of telling the truth and Hollywood and the Media are  doing their best to cover for him. He is not qualified to be a Senator  and should be on trial for treason.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/142">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/142/Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-141"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-141">Pailin </a></div><div> Submitted by GE Mayer (not verified) on Thu, 10/09/2008 &#8211; 16:53.</div><div><p>Not  only is Palin not qualified to be Vice President much less President, I  am incensed, that John McCain would insult my intellegence by picking  such a &#8220;newby&#8221; above several well qualified, experienced women who have  served the country and the Republican party.<br
/> I expect my Comander in Chief to Carefully sellect an individual more  qualified than him/herself to take over. It shows John&#8217;s thinking.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/141">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/141/Pailin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-140"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-140">Palin?  Presidential material?  No, doggone it!</a></div><div> Submitted by Krissi (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/2008 &#8211; 21:35.</div><div><p>While  I admire Sarah Palin&#8217;s spunk and determination, I think that she is  completely out of her league as not only a vice president but also a  president. If people would take a good look at her record, they&#8217;d see  that she doesn&#8217;t even have a good grasp of the issues.</p><p>In addition, she&#8217;s been caught in numerous lies and distortions. For  example, she did not sell a jet on eBay &#8212; she tried but failed; the  jet was sold later to a private buyer. She did not leave the town of  Wasilla financially sound; she left it in debt. She says she;ll be a  strong supporter of kids with needs. In truth, Palin actually slashed  funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%.</p><p>And her famous, &#8220;I told the Congress &#8220;thanks, but no thanks,&#8221; for  that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, we&#8217;d build it  ourselves&#8221; line? More spin. Congress&#8217; requirement that funds be spent  on that bridge (aka the &#8216;earmark&#8217;) were removed before Sarah Palin  became governor. She was, therefore, in no position to tell Congress  anything about the bridge, one way or the other. During her campaign,  she said she supported funding for the bridge.</p><p>There are more examples, of the fibs and many examples of her poor  insight into our nation&#8217;s problems. I could list them all, but I  encourage you to do your own homework (forwarded emails DO NO COUNT)!</p><p>If MCCain and Palin win this election, I&#8217;ll probably be hoping for a lengthy, overseas assignment &#8212; maybe four years or more!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/140">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/140/Palin-Presidential-material-No-doggone-it">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-139"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-139">Palin is Failin</a></div><div> Submitted by GA for Brains in the White House (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/2008 &#8211; 21:02.</div><div><p>W &#8211; below C student<br
/> McCain &#8211; at the bottom of his class<br
/> Are we really electing the best? Shouldn&#8217;t we elect someone better than  we are? And someone not ready for the assisted living home? Someone who  can remember the name of his opponent instead of calling him &#8220;that  one&#8221;. McCain left right away after the debate &#8211; seniors do go to bed  early, probably past his bedtime. As for integrity, check out McCain&#8217;s  involvement in the S&#038;L bailout, he was right there along side W&#8217;s  brother Neil. All working to steal investors&#8217; money. Just like King  Henry is doing now, rewarding his Wall St. buddies.</p><p><strong>And we wonder why this happens to us???</strong></p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/139">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/139/Palin-Failin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-138"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-138">Palin</a></div><div> Submitted by Ed Sherrill (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/2008 &#8211; 10:49.</div><div><p>Not  only is Sarah Palin competent to become President, she is idealogically  and tempermentally better suited to be President than John McCain.  Republicans are going to be very sorry thet chose McCain over Mitt  Romney. I only pray the Democrates don&#8217;t screw up the country so bad  over the next four years that it can&#8217;t be fixed.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/138">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/138/Palin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-136"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-136">Is she for real?</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/07/2008 &#8211; 22:13.</div><div><p>If  Joe Biden winked at the camera 5-6 times during the debate, wouldn&#8217;t we  be calling him a pervert? Come on people, get serious. Sarah Palin is a  joke &#8212; an embarrassment to Americans who take our politics &#8212; and the  plight of our country &#8212; seriously.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/136">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/136/she-real">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-134"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-134">Is Sarah Palin Qualified to be President?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.selfhelpdaily.com" rel="nofollow">Joi</a> (not verified) on Tue, 10/07/2008 &#8211; 13:34.</div><div><p>To  be sure, Sarah Palin doesn&#8217;t deserve the crucifixion the media and  entertainment world are giving her (and her family). McCain might  deserve some of it, after all &#8211; he picked her. Why? She&#8217;s female. I  admire the man completely &#8211; he is an American hero and I can&#8217;t even  begin to imagine the hell this brave man endured.</p><p>However, when it came to choose running mates, I belive Obama chose  one that was best for the country and McCain chose one (he thought) was  best for the campaign.</p><p>I THINK that he lost the race with his choice.  I KNOW he lost my vote.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/134">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/134/Sarah-Palin-Qualified-be-President">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-133"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-133">Surprising VP choice</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow">olivier blanchard</a> (not verified) on Tue, 10/07/2008 &#8211; 13:30.</div><div><p>Hindsight  is always 20/20. Perhaps Gov. Palin&#8217;s weaknesses weren&#8217;t 100% obvious  to Sen. McCain when he picked her. (So much for due diligence, I  guess.) Did he want a dynamic, charismatic, family-friendly VP  running-mate? Of course. And she fit the bill&#8230; on the surface, at  least. But honestly, weren&#8217;t there better choices (male or female) for  the job? Competent, charismatic, appealing, worldly Republican  governors or senators? People he actually knows and trusts? 30 years in  politics, and he can&#8217;t think of a single person he has worked with who  would be a better choice for a running mate? He goes with a complete  stranger? I find that bizarre. Irresponsible, even. I just don&#8217;t get  it. There are plenty of smart, competent, experienced women in the  Republican Party who would have made a great running mate.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/133">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/133/Surprising-VP-choice">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-132"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-132">Don&#8217;t confuse appeal with competence</a></div><div> Submitted by DBStevens (not verified) on Tue, 10/07/2008 &#8211; 12:21.</div><div><p>Too  many people in this country confuse personal appeal with competence,  and make decisions based on who&#8217;s the most charming or even who&#8217;s  sexiest. Or they make decisions based on generalities such as &#8220;we need  a woman in the White House.&#8221; A COMPETENT woman in the White House would  be a great asset to this country. There is no doubt of that.</p><p>But we can&#8217;t decide the leaders of our country based on a visceral  reaction to her charm and folksy demeanor (there is a lot of doubt as  to the sincerity of that demeanor anyway&#8230;she shows signs of being  rather ruthless). During these times of uncertainty and fear, it&#8217;s  natural to want some comfort, to feel that the person leading our  country is down-to-earth and &#8220;real.&#8217; We felt good about Bush and people  like Rudy Guiliani for a short time right after 9/11. They appealed to  our emotions and need for reassurance. But that demeanor means nothing.  It&#8217;s the actions that matter, and in the time following 9/11, both Bush  and Guiliani&#8217;s true nature was revealed&#8230; incompetence and  self-serving.</p><p>Sarah Palin acts cute and has a pretty face. That&#8217;s perfect for  president of the PTA. But has not gained enough experience to be  president of a country. The job of Vice-President or President is NOT  an &#8220;on-the-job-training&#8221; type of job. Being Mayor of a tiny town in a  remote state, then Governer of that remote, sparsely populated state  (670,000, way smaller than a city like El Paso, TX) is not enough  experience to lead a country whose every move has global implications.  Palin treated the job of Governer like a telecommuting job, she worked  form her hown home for 86% of the year.</p><p>No matter how intelligent she may seem to be, no matter how  ambitious or driven she may seem, and ESPECIALLY no matter how pretty  or charming she is, she is not ready for the responsibilities of a job  like President. Without experience, without having the time to really  begin to understand the nature of national and global dealings on every  level, no matter how much coaching or guidance she would receive, Palin  would either crumble under pressure or make very bad decisions with  repercussions that could shake this country and its international  stature to the core. Or she wouldn&#8217;t act quickly enough at  all&#8230;stalling and deflecting decisions (as she does with many  questions, or with such events as the investigation dubbeed  &#8220;Troopergate&#8221;).</p><p>I also worry about the demands of her family. During times of her  family&#8217;s need, do we want someone faced with the dilemma of either  neglecting her family&#8217;s needs because of her duties as Vice-President,  or neglecting the VP duties because of her family&#8217;s needs? Neither of  those are good choices&#8230;.Sarah Palin has too many personal  responsibilities.</p><p>Palin also shows all the signs of behavior very similar to  Bush&#8217;s&#8230;including a tendency toward cronyism, abuse of power, and  self-serving decisions that flout the law.</p><p>She even mispronounces the word &#8220;nuclear&#8221; just like Bush. Certainly  that&#8217;s a small point, and that pronunciation is commonly recognized as  a sub-standard metathesis of the word, but it&#8217;s very annoying to listen  to.</p><p>So wake up American. Move your responses from your gut to your  brains, and make sure you understand the repercussions of your vote.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/132">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/132/Dont-confuse-appeal-competence">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-131"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-131">I&#8217;m moving&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.andyosier.com" rel="nofollow">Andy Osier</a> (not verified) on Tue, 10/07/2008 &#8211; 10:15.</div><div><p>John  McCain himself isn&#8217;t capable of running the country; I shudder to think  of the train wreck a Palin administration would be. If they win, I&#8217;m  seriously considering a moving. How&#8217;s the January weather in Berlin,  Chris?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/131">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/131/Im-moving">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-130"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-130">Big State&#8230;&#8230;little experience!</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/126" rel="nofollow">Anonymous</a> (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 18:11.</div><div><p>Granted, we&#8217;ve got plenty to worry about at home!<br
/> But we&#8217;re talking about a Governor of a state bordered by 2 foreign  countries, Palin is the proud NEW owner of a passport! (barely 1 year)<br
/> The world is smaller than ever and so is our standing in it. We don&#8217;t  need &#8220;a little Wasilla in Washington&#8221;. We already have a narrow minded  view of the world with our current administration.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/130">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/130/Big-Statelittle-experience">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-129"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-129">Palin for presidnet?</a></div><div> Submitted by Joyce (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 16:49.</div><div><p>She  would call on the brightest brains in the Republican party, put them in  positions of power and support, and do her best to do the best she  could for her country. She&#8217;s an acheiver and would never accept failure  for herself. She has Condeleesa, Romneys, Huckabees and several others  who want to serve and members to help and advise her. Her history shows  that she uses support and advise to guide her towards her goals and  accomplishments. She would take the credit for it too.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/129">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/129/Palin-presidnet">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-128"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-128">Re: If McCain dies is America Screwed?</a></div><div> Submitted by Allison (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 15:10.</div><div><p>Palin  is the only person that does not have someone dictating what she says  about policy and does not try to appear to have all of the answers. She  certainly knows how to find the answers. She has integrity, and knows  truth when she sees it and definitely has mankind&#8217;s best interests as  her priority. These are some of the things that make her the best  candidate for the job. I am sick and tired of politicians with agendas!  She is a real person that is capable of any good, or decent task put  before her. She will also employ the same type of people to work beside  and under her. The point that she is not capable of selling us down  stream for a special interest group, or her own pocket, or fame makes  her my choice in a leader &#8211; regardless of the presence of McCain.  Allison</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/128">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/128/Re-If-McCain-dies-America-Screwed">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-127"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-127">Re: If McCain dies is America Screwed?</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 15:08.</div><div><p>Palin  is the only person that does not have someone dictating what she says  about policy and does not try to appear to have all of the answers. She  certainly knows how to find the answers. She has integrity, and knows  truth when she sees it and definitely has mankind&#8217;s best interests as  her priority. These are some of the things that make her the best  candidate for the job. I am sick and tired of politicians with agendas!  She is a real person that is capable of any good, or decent task put  before her. She will also employ the same type of people to work beside  and under her. The point that she is not capable of selling us down  stream for a special interest group, or her own pocket, or fame makes  her my choice in a leader &#8211; regardless of the presence of McCain.  Allison</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/127">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/127/Re-If-McCain-dies-America-Screwed">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-126"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-126">Re: Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 12:47.</div><div><p>She didn&#8217;t ride in on her &#8220;own merits&#8221; She rode in on her SEX. PERIOD.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/126">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/126/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-125"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-125">If McCain dies is America Screwed?</a></div><div> Submitted by RisingFromDecadence (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 12:17.</div><div><p>It&#8217;s  the most frightening and compelling reason to not elect McCain to date.  It&#8217; clear that the choice was to win vs. what&#8217;s right for the country.  And it saddens me that with so many strong female candidates out there  McCain has landed on this choice. It speaks volumes of his lack of  sound judgement and doesn&#8217;t do justice to the feminist movement.</p><p>I couldn&#8217;t agree more with &#8220;Double Standard&#8217;s&#8221; comments about  education, and intelligence vs. the &#8220;experience&#8221; of a low-population  governor. Has it somehow become a negative trait for our president to  be articulate well educated and even published?</p><p>I think its safe to now say, like every great civilization, America  has grown from it&#8217;s indestructible, can-do &#8220;adolescence,&#8221; and has  entered it&#8217;s &#8220;decadent&#8221; period of greed, fear, fat and a lack of clear  vision. America needs a president who will bring intelligence, a new  vision, and optimism so that we don&#8217;t lose the real values we&#8217;ve grown  up to believe are American such as truth, innovation, compassion,  charity and vision.</p><p>Our values as a nation should not be confused with same sex  marriages or religious agendas. I seem to remember from my grade school  social studies classes that America was born as a nation with the  purpose and promise of many freedoms. Personal choice values are not to  be mixed with National values. Growing up, this difference has been why  I&#8217;ve been so proud to be an American. In the last 8 years much has  changed. I believe that only with the leadership of Obama will we be  able to regain our credibility and our course as a nation. Most  importantly, America could be &#8220;Proud Again.&#8221;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/125">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/125/If-McCain-dies-America-Screwed">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-124"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-124">Answer the question</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://ascannerbrightly.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Jaz-Michael King</a> (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 10:40.</div><div><p>As  an unbiased, unable-to-vote immigrant, can I point out that as usual,  from either of your minimalist two sides, when the question is simply  If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be  competent to be President?&#8221;, the arguments spin off to why the opponent  isn&#8217;t. Maybe that will be the next question, but like I wanted to yell  at Palin while watching the debate&#8230; answer the question posed to you.</p><p>Everyone has their weak points, and in some respects, Obama, who has  considerably more than two years in the US Senate as his experience (he  was a state senator, you know) has plenty. However, I think there&#8217;s a  good reason hockey moms and joe sixpacks don&#8217;t run. No-one wants  regular folk in charge. You all want a ruling elite no matter how much  you profess to the contrary.</p><p>There are plenty of strong, competent women on both sides of the aisle in the USA. Gov. Palin is not one of them.</p><p>She is not qualified because she is not qualified. Being as  unqualified as anyone you wish to compare her to does not make her  qualified. Her inabilty to answer a straight question makes her  unqualified. I personally believe the fact she is the kind of person  who can compete in a beauty contest makes her unqualified. And as of  today, her assertion that Obama&#8217;s political career started off in the  living room of a terrorist (all of a sudden, he&#8217;s been a politician a  lot longer than two years according to the Republicans) has pulled her  from the absurd to the surreal.</p><p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, Obama seems to pander to some vaporous &#8220;change&#8221; mentality, but that wasn&#8217;t the question.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/124">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/124/Answer-question">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-123"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-123">Palin Unqualified</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous jones (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 &#8211; 09:16.</div><div><p>The  difference between Obama and Palin is that Obama thinks. He&#8217;s smart  enough to go to Harvard, graduate high enough in his class to be  president of the Harvard Law Review there. He&#8217;s a thinker who doesn&#8217;t  shoot from the hip. He knows the Constitution inside and out and knows  if something is just a whim to increase his own power compared to a  great idea which would help millions of people (think fairer taxes,  health insurance coverage). Palin bankrupted Wasilla which is now 23.5  MILLION dollars in debt. She has no idea of what real issues are out  there&#8212;she doesn&#8217;t have any idea of what to do in a financial  situation, a diplomatic situation or anything beyond her own home. She  shows no compassion for others who are not in her situation (religious,  financial, educational, political) and has no international experience.  We do not need another DOPE in the White House. McCain has shown very  poor judgment in choosing an under-educated (a BA is like a high school  degree these days) fool rather than a smart, intellectually  sophisticated worthy VP candidate. This is a sellout of the Democratic  process. Such a shame. But then again, McCain graduated at the bottom  of his class (894 out of 899), so what does he want with a smart second?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/123">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/123/Palin-Unqualified">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-122"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-122">Just because she could, does not mean she should.</a></div><div> Submitted by Bjshazam (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 22:34.</div><div><p>Does  it not trouble anyone who has been posting here that we have reached  this point at all? I&#8217;ve been writing draft after draft of posts here,  trying to find the right balance that won&#8217;t come across as too  ideological, or that won&#8217;t be automatically dismissed by the true  sycophants because it contains some Left or Right code word that  justifies their turning off of the brain. Can&#8217;t do it. She&#8217;s too  dangerous, and it angers me so much that we as a country have been put  in the position of having to opine about the staggering impropriety of  her selection as McCain&#8217;s running mate.</p><p>Consider:</p><p>My brother is a great guy. Smart as a whip, with what I think is  decent judgment (except for his love of the Yankees). I trust him  implicitly. So, should I be in a position to name him to, say, the  Supreme Court, I would expect no questions from anyone about his  qualifications. According to the Constitution, he is legally qualified  to be a Justice, even the Chief Justice. I already told you he is smart  and has good judgment. What else do you need to know? How dare you  question my choice or his desire to serve?</p><p>The President of the United States has a mind bogglingly huge amount  of discretion in executing the job. The president can, without  obstruction by court or Congress, lay waste to our financial system,  impede entirely the execution of justice, or unleash Armageddon. The  office of the president can disband virtually unilaterally the entirety  of the intelligence gathering power of the U.S., or focus it all on the  least secure among us &#8212; with no recourse by anyone.</p><p>Most of the time, this isn&#8217;t an issue. Regardless of your political  persuasion, we have been blessed mostly with chief executives that took  the burdens of job dead seriously. A president of the entire country,  not just those who cast the votes.</p><p>Now the bar has been set so low that we cannot figure out the right  words to describe how wrong it is for a candidate to relish the fact  that she really doesn&#8217;t understand the job the Constitution has laid  out. That this is somehow an asset to a campaign makes me ashamed for  my country.</p><p>That John McCain affirmatively foisted this train wreck upon his own  party, and possibly upon the country, is a sin for which he should  never be forgiven.</p><p>That she is considered by some to be the next face of the GOP, and a  real contender for the nomination next time around, should make my GOP  colleagues shudder and the nation weep.</p><p>I don&#8217;t want a hockey mom or joe six-pack running the country. Hell,  I don&#8217;t want anyone like me running the country. I want a president.  And she is not it.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/122">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/122/Just-because-she-could-does-not-mean-she-should">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-121"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-121">make that Palin UNQUALIFIED PERIOD</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 22:25.</div><div><p>Darn, brain outrunning my fingers.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/121">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/121/make-Palin-UNQUALIFIED-PERIOD">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-120"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-120">Palin qualified period</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 22:22.</div><div><p>And  the mental midgets who are using that as a ruse to comment on Obama  miss the entire point. Biden IS qualified to fill in shoudl something  happen to Obama (go to smoking gun to see why that IS an issue).</p><p>Palin is a bimbo and if you do not think so, Palin supporters, then  take this simple acid test: were it Obama who made those brain dead  comments instead of Palin, what would you be saying about him? Gotcha!</p><p>jim</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/120">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/120/Palin-qualified-period">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-119"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-119">Palin Not Qualified</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 22:01.</div><div><p>Anyone  that believes that Sarah Palin is qualified to be President is kidding  themselves. It has nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman. The  fact that she is SO unqualified is what made her pick an insult to  every hard-working, intelligent woman out there. She was picked for her  good looks and her folksy charm. There were MANY more qualified women  in the ranks of the Republican party that could have been chosen.<br
/> Palin attended five different colleges before she was finally able to  stick out a degree program. She majored in journalism and  communications and couldn&#8217;t name ONE newspaper or magazine that she  reads on a regular basis. She minored in political science and doesn&#8217;t  know what the Vice President&#8217;s role and duties are in our government.  She has abused her power in every political post she has been elected  to, has lied about her record both as mayor and governor and her short  political career has been marked by scandal. She says that she fought  the energy interests in Alaska, but her campaigns have all been heavily  funded by energy companies.<br
/> In short, she&#8217;s not smart, she&#8217;s lacks integrity, she has gotten most  of what she has attained on her looks and charm and these things don&#8217;t  add up to someone who is qualified for Vice President, nevermind the  Presidency. If you want her to be your leader, move to Alaska. This  country and the world cannot afford another incompetent leader at the  helm. One more bumbling idiot at the helm will spell doom for the  future of all of the citizens of this country.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/119">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/119/Palin-Not-Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-118"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-118">qualifications.</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://crazypolitics.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Crazy Politico</a> (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 20:10.</div><div><p>If Gov. Palin isn&#8217;t qualified to &#8220;POSSIBLY&#8221; become president, then what of Barack Obama?</p><p>What exactly is his qualification for the job? A couple of  non-descript years in the Senate with no major legislation to show for  that time? A history of voting &#8220;Here&#8221; on controversial issues so as to  keep a rather neutral record when running for the next higher office?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/118">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/118/qualifications">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-117"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-117">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 14:49.</div><div><p>Does  she have enough political experience for the position of president? I  would say not&#8230;.. but then again, there&#8217;s nothing like a long run of a  president that can&#8217;t even string a sentence together in English to  remind you that you don&#8217;t really need much skill for the job. It&#8217;s  whose behind the president that counts no?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/117">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/117/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-116"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-116">Is Palin Qualified to be President?</a></div><div> Submitted by Thoughtful_Independent (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 11:49.</div><div><p>I&#8217;m  a registered independent. I was waiting for the VP picks to be made  before making my mind up. VP&#8217;s Gore and Cheney have both illustrated  the growing importance of the VP position in the Executive Branch. The  magnitude of the nations and worlds problems highlight the fact that  the top two elected officials in the US need to have a wide range of  capabilities., strong intellect, and global perspective. At minimum,  the President needs a knowledgeable confidant and advisor he/she can  trust.</p><p>For all of her folksy charm, Governor Palin displays very little of  these qualities or qualifications. If you take the time to investigate  the educational and professional accomplishments of our sitting VP&#8217;s  over the past 50 years, even the most biased observer would conclude  that Governor Palin would be the least educated and least experienced.  If you don&#8217;t have the time to look at all of them, just compare her  against Dan Quayle who was arguably the weakest of the sitting VP&#8217;s.  Quayle&#8217;s accomplishments at the time he was selected as Bush&#8217;s running  mate dwarf Palin&#8217;s.</p><p>Upon inspection, the rabid and exaggerated claims about her energy  expertise and executive experience vaporize (the claims of foreign  policy experience are not even a valid topic). Living in an oil rich  state, shuffling petrodollars from the oil companies to the citizens in  the form of dividends, &#8220;negotiating&#8221; potential terms of a yet unplanned  and unfunded natural gas pipeline, and a college degree in journalism  do not qualify one as an energy expert.</p><p>Furthermore, the role of Governor of Alaska is diminished in  complexity compared to the Governors of the lower 48 due to factors  such as: 1) very small population (the whole state has a population  smaller than typical medium sized US cities), 2) the largest Alaskan  cities are smaller than many small ciities or large towns in the lower  48 (Anchorage = ~280K, Fairbanks = ~35K, Juneau = ~35K), 3) low  industrial output (Alaska is ranked near the bottom compared to the  other 50 states), and 4) a budget which is majority funded by revenues  from oil and gas companies. The hardest problem of the Alaskan governor  appears to be deciding how much money to send from the Permanent Fund  to the citizens versus how much to stash away for a future time when  oil revenues begin declining.</p><p>I find the argument that Palin has more &#8220;executive experience&#8221; than  McCain, Obama or Biden to be disingenuous. If executive experience is  really so important, Mitt Romney should be the Republican candidate for  President or, at minimum, the VP candidate. While I was not a huge fan  of Mr. Romney, his skillset is so superior to Palin&#8217;s that comparisons  are impossible. The same can be said with respect to experience in  matters of the economy. Ironically, Mr. Romney&#8217;s biggest shortcoming  appeared to be that he was a Washington outsider. Now being from our  most remote state is a strength for Palin?</p><p>My perspective is that the most successful Presidents of the last 50  years (for arguments sake Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton) were able to  balance their core idealogical positions with advocacy for programs and  policies that improved the situation for the majority of US citizens  and improved our stature in the global community. Each of these  Presidents had well educated and highly skilled running mates. As an  Independent who holds a blend of conservative and liberal positions,  this mix is what I am weighing the most. My assessment is that  Obama/Biden have a better overall leadership/intelligence/world view  profile than McCain/Palin. McCain could have selected a male or female  running mate who would have tilted my assessment in his favor.  Unfortunately, for reasons only he and his advisors can comprehend, he  went with a female ideologue with weak academic, intellectual and  professional skills.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/116">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/116/Palin-Qualified-be-President">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-115"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-115">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 06:15.</div><div><p>@  CanIGet2NewZealand</p><p>What does it take to satisfy people like you?<br
/> or&#8230; is this a display of jealousy ? Ms Palin does make a rather  impressive appearance on a simple &#8216;ride in from the Wilds of Alaska&#8217;.<br
/> Instead of complimenting a person on a job well done you prefer to show the &#8220;cat fight&#8221; attitude.<br
/> What has Obama more than Palin?</p><p>If Obama had been a white boy from Illinois, would he have received  the nomination of the Dem Party? If your answer is NO _ then you must  vote for Palin for she rode in on her own merits not on her skin color!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/115">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/115/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-114"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-114">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://questionitnow.com/educationb" rel="nofollow">REB 84</a> (not verified) on Sun, 10/05/2008 &#8211; 00:35.</div><div><p>Would John McCain be a competent president?  This is a question you should be asking.<br
/> <a
href="http://questionitnow.com/educationb/2008/09/which-is-real-mccain.html"> QuestionItNow &#8211; Will America lead?</a></p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/114">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/114/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-113"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-113">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by CanIGet2NewZealand (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 19:28.</div><div><p>Palin has been governor of a state with the population of Poughkeepsie, New York .</p><p>The State of Alaska, despite its conservative appearance has been  giving out money to its citizens from its oil dividens (Alaska  Permanent Fund) (<a
href="http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2003/sharing_alaska_style" title="http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2003/sharing_alaska_style">http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2003/sharing_alaska_style</a>)  since the 1970&#8242;s. The money Palin boasts about giving her citizens is  money of this sort, the citizens of Alaska have been receiving these  payments for almost 40 years. How can she use these payments as part of  a discussion of her fiscal capabilities as Governor?</p><p>Governor Palin impresses me as being a cross between a Barbie Doll  and that really annoying head cheerleader that the intelligent girls  all could not stand in highschool.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/113">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/113/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-112"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-112">Palin was a mistake for McCain in the 1st Place</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.ireport.com/people/FranklinB?view=documents&#038;viewingAsOthers=true" rel="nofollow">FranklinB</a> (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 16:52.</div><div><p>I  have been publishing my thoughts on this matter for awhile now  regarding the selection of Sarah Palin for VP. I gave my views on her  initial selection here:</p><p>Did John McCain have good judgement?<br
/> <a
href="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-72657" title="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-72657">http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-72657</a></p><p>Sarah Palin is not my Vice President<br
/> <a
href="http://digitalseller.tblog.com/post/1970016179" title="http://digitalseller.tblog.com/post/1970016179">http://digitalseller.tblog.com/post/1970016179</a></p><p>Sarah Palin is just another pretty face<br
/> <a
href="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-86323" title="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-86323">http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-86323</a></p><p>McCain will have to pick a new VP<br
/> <a
href="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-94699" title="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-94699">http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-94699</a></p><p>VP Debate was great, for Biden and Obama<br
/> <a
href="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-102625" title="http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-102625">http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-102625</a></p><p>Overall I agree that McCain is kind of a maverick, but also he is a  big gambler. Instead of picking one of the most qualified in the arena,  he went outside to a relatively unknown woman who he knew could  energize the base. That has happened, but with such obvious liabilities  that only a pure conservative will think she is qualified, because pure  conservatives don&#8217;t care who is in that position as long as that person  is republican, conservative and can walk &#038; talk. Hannity has said  publicly that he believes she would be qualified to fill the top job,  and so did Limbaugh as well. I got yelled at the other day by one of my  very oldest and best friends who couldn&#8217;t believe I didn&#8217;t think she  was for real. That was before the Couric interview. Now after the  debate I know I have made the right choice with Obama and Biden. The  financial collapse is bad enough, but if there was a President Palin  someday, it could be an even worse disaster for our country.</p><p>Obama and Biden are consistant in their positions on the Iraq war  and other matters regarding the need to help the middle class. I  believe McCain has no interest in the working class folks in this  country, and even if Palin does have that interest, she is not  knowledgeable enough to make any difference. JMHO</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/112">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/112/Palin-was-mistake-McCain-1st-Place">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-111"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-111">You&#8217;re Kidding, right?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://onthebloc.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Shelly Roberts</a> (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 14:04.</div><div><p>Sarah  Pallin is an embarrassment to the Republican Party, who may well be  qualified to run for PTA vice president, but hardly for the  heart-beat-away position of Vice President of the United States.</p><p>In the debate with Sen. Bieden Palin spoke repeatedly an d stiltedly  from obviousy drilled-in talking points rather than from any  appropriate knowledge. With a wooden, albeit cheerful presentation  worthy of earning her the title of Best Stepford Candidate.</p><p>Palin&#8217;s presentation was a constant one-note, praise-singing  golly/gee campaign advertiisement for John McCain, and did litttle if  anything to present any viable credentials as a candidate for the high  office into which she has been so thoughtlessly thrust.</p><p>I&#8217;d pity her for the position for which she has been recruited if  the holder of that position didn&#8217;t stand such a strong chance of  becoming the leader of the free world with a 79 year old unhealthy  running mate &#8211;shudder&#8211; a horrifying thought.</p><p>It shouldn&#8217;t be enough merely that she didn&#8217;t panic, screw up or cry  to qualify her as even a contender in the so-called debate. I have some  issues with Mr. Bidden as well, but at least he came across as someone  who has done more than simply look west and north in the direction of  the former Soviet Union, and self-pronounce a competency in foreign  affairs. That&#8217;s way too much like watching Animal Planet and  proclaiming veterinary competence with elephants.</p><p>Did Sarah win the debate?  She wasn&#8217;t ever even qualified to enter the race.</p><p>Is she qualified to be President regardless of the state of John McCain&#8217;s health?  You&#8217;re kidding, right?!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/111">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/111/Youre-Kidding-right">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-110"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-110">Dummy be gone! THINK!</a></div><div> Submitted by Skillet Marimba (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 11:27.</div><div><p>The G.O.P. targets DUMMYS but DUMMYS are finally starting to wake up. Dummy be gone.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/110">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/110/Dummy-be-gone-THINK">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-108"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-108">If McCain Died, Is Sarah Palin Qualified To Lead This Nation?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://legalconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/obama-biden-a-winning-ticketbut-obama-clinton-a-landslide-victory/" rel="nofollow">Patrick Pearce</a> (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 09:33.</div><div><p>Let  me first establish that I am not hopping on any band waggon here to  vilify or demonize Sarah Palin because she is a woman. My argument is  limited to choice. Based on both Vice Presidential Candidates, Sarah  Palin and Joe Biden of the Republican and Democratic Party  respectively, should one of these men (Whether Obama or McCain) died or  become incapacitated as President of the United States, and  constitutionally the Vice President is next in line to assume the  presidency, I unequivocally would trust the experience of Joe Biden to  lead this great Nation over Sarah Palin. I am sure I share the same  views as most sensible Americans. I used to hear that John McCain was a  stubborn man, I am now convinced. There are so many more experience and  viable Republicans out there to be VP, why did he chose Sarah Palin? If  only some of these potentially great men would listen to somebody  instead of arrogating to themselves because of ego, they would be such  great leaders. Obama-Biden victory in November, hands down! See my  recent post at: <a
href="http://legalconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/obama-biden-a-winning-ticketbut-obama-clinton-a-landslide-victory/" title="http://legalconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/obama-biden-a-winning-ticketbut-obama-clinton-a-landslide-victory/">http://legalconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/obama-biden-a-winning-ti&#8230;</a></p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/108">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/108/If-McCain-Died-Sarah-Palin-Qualified-Lead-Nation">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-107"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-107">Palin Better than Most</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://thescoundrel.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow">thescoundrel</a> (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 09:21.</div><div><p>I  tend to disbelieve anything that comes out of any politicians mouth.  Politicians are liars&#038; cheats. While they are kissing your baby  they are picking your pocket at the same time. The President&#8217;s Job is  limited. The Congress is where most of the power in this country lies.  They make legislation, they pass legislation and even if the President  vetoes that legislation, they have the power to override it. A relative  rookie politician, Palin, actually has more executive experience than  McCain, Biden or Obama. Now that is scary since she is merely a VP  nominee. I would vote for her over Obama or Biden. She has a limited  track track record of what Obama/Biden pretends to have without any  track record to prove their claims: Palin has shown the grit to fight  her own party as governor of Alaska. Obama has shown me nothing for the  time he was in my state of Illinois government or once he was elected  Senator. He was no more than a puppet to Emile Jones that is the strong  arm thug of DEmocrat Gov. Governor Blagodabitch, the soon to be cell  mate of ex Republican Gov. George Ryan. So yeah I would trust Palin  much further than I would Obama leading this nation. Obama only  understands Chicago and Springfield style corruption which he was a  part of.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/107">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/107/Palin-Better-Most">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-106"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-106">If John McCain died&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by Pat Baker (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 08:21.</div><div><p>To Anonymous:<br
/> I have been hollering &#8220;Double Standard&#8221; all summer&#8221;. You hit the nail  on the spot. When Obama was trained by the late great Saul Alinsky  &#038; his staff to learn how to be a better community activist, take  surveys, housing problems, school problems in the poor Chicago  districts, Palin sneered at the his outcomings, stating all those  programs arenow defunct. Her ignorance is bliss. Reason: Viet Nam war,  &#038; the 60&#8242;s riots cost us plenty At least Obama was vetted. Some  pundits t laughed him. I too, was trained by Alinsky, this great Jewish  community consultant for the poor back in the late 60&#8242;s. If Palin was  crossed examined by a Judge/Atty she would simply say I will only  answer the questions I wish to reply to. My people call it &#8220;double  standard&#8221;. Thanks, Anonymous for reminding me that I don&#8217;t need on the  job training vp by McCain/Palin ticket.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/106">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/106/If-John-McCain-died">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-104"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-104">my vote</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.squidoo.com/leanandripped" rel="nofollow">joe</a> (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 07:35.</div><div><p>Ihave  no faith or trust in any politition, democrat or republican, they all  end up shafting the middle class in the end,She will be no better or  worse than the rest of the lot.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/104">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/104/my-vote">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-103"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-103">This Election is More Irritating than Usual</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 07:26.</div><div><p>Why  do people feel someone who has been a Senator for 2 years is more  qualified to be President than in the unlikely event McCain has to be  replaced by Govenor Palin??? The other thing that keeps being over  looked is Nancy Pelosi has been two heartbeats away from President??  She is qualified?? Unfortunately, people are being too influenced by  the media and not doing there own research. Quit using the medias  opinions and form your own. Do some real research. Somethinf fun to do  is go to <a
href="http://abcnews.go.com/politics" title="http://abcnews.go.com/politics">http://abcnews.go.com/politics</a> scroll down to the Match-o-Matic II  game.  It is ver interesting.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/103">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/103/Election-More-Irritating-Usual">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-102"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-102">Does Being Governor Make Governor Palin Qalified?</a></div><div> Submitted by artbcpa (not verified) on Sat, 10/04/2008 &#8211; 01:54.</div><div><p>In  &#8220;Third Out of Four&#8221; the commentator points out that Clinton and Reagan  were both Governors before becoming President. We shouldn&#8217;t forget that  Jimmy Carter was also a Governor before becoming the most incompetent  president in the history of the United Staetes. He also may have been  among the academically brightest of all recent Presidents. What does  all that tell us?. &#8230;NOTHING.</p><p>Whether Sarah Palin was a Governor or Barack Obama was at the top of  his academic class does not ensure that either will or will not do a  good job in their respective positions.</p><p>We need to make our decision based on factors more likely to lead to  a successful Presidency. After eight years of the most secretive,  nontransparent Presidency in history, we need someone who will instill  trust in the institution of the Presidency and restore confidence in  the people of the country.</p><p>We had several such Presidents in the prior century &#8211; Franklin  Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Each had a vision for the  country which was clearly articulated and embraced by the people. In a  choice between the idealistic Barack Obama and the wily curmudgeon,  John McCain, Barack Obama is clearly the choice of what this country  needs at this time in history.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/102">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/102/Does-Being-Governor-Make-Governor-Palin-Qalified">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-101"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-101">Palin is not our woman.</a></div><div> Submitted by Pam (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 23:59.</div><div><p>I  know that I do not want Palin. I know that I don’t want her anywhere  near our foreign policy. I know that I don’t like what she said in the  debate about ‘expanding’ the role of vice president. I know that I  don’t like her far right, religious views that can impact the world in  a bunch of ways that I don’t like.</p><p>There are other things I don’t like about her, though, I can’t say I  am completely sure about my reasoning. I don’t like her winks and her  nods. I don’t like how she talks to us like children.</p><p>I question my own opinion about these things, as I am not sure if I  know what I want or expect in a female politician. It’s a very  important thing. This first woman. This example of all of us. This  person in whom I place so much of my future and that of my daughters.  Hmmm, too much pressure?!?</p><p>Do I want her to be more of a man than any of the men at the table?  Competing in the same way as men, but climbing the ladder in stilettos?  Or do I want her to be the nurturing female that gets things done  without men being any the wiser? With charm and feminine wiles that  could will men to do what they might not have done, otherwise?</p><p>I thought, when considering Hillary, that I didn’t want a woman  President who had a husband that is a former President. My sister then  pointed out that we might not consider too many women that did not have  such a sense of the White House.</p><p>It’s difficult. These women, up for consideration, don’t have  military backgrounds. Yet, she would be responsible for ‘pushing the  button’ and/or ending a war.</p><p>I guess, even if I did not have a problem with her foreign presence,  her religious intent or her understanding of the role she was about to  take on, I would still have an issue to deal with.</p><p>So, I don’t like Sarah, but, who do I like?  And, the bigger question for me, why?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/101">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/101/Palin-not-our-woman">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-100"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-100">Re: Poll</a></div><div> Submitted by FD (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 23:24.</div><div><p>To King of Chatalot: I&#8217;m an independant, but I voted once and the poll will not allow me to vote again.<br
/> The only way someone could vote twice is through a proxy, but I tested that idea fater reading your comment.<br
/> It didn&#8217;t work.<br
/> I tried several different proxies, I reset my ip, and nope, it would not allow me to vote again.</p><p>Take off the tin foil hat.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/100">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/100/Re-Poll">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-99"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-99">Poll</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.chatalot.net" rel="nofollow">King of Chatalot</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 22:11.</div><div><p>I  find it amazing that Democrats would stoop so low as to make multiple  votes in this silly poll just to bend the outcome towards their way of  thinking&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..so to make it appear as if they are the  winners&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.</p><p>&#8230;but then&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;considering that they will ultimately lose in November I&#8217;m not totally surprised&#8230;&#8230;..</p><p>&#8230;..merely amazed&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/99">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/99/Poll">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-98"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-98">Palin&#8217;s hand on the &#8220;Nukular&#8221; button? </a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://mediaconcepts.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Media Concepts</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 21:39.</div><div><p>I  can&#8217;t decide whether that&#8217;s hilarious, or horrifyingly frightening. I  think it&#8217;s both. Based on McCain&#8217;s age alone, historian Doris Kearns  Goodwin says that there&#8217;s almost a one in three chance that McCain  would die in office were he to be elected. Factor in his FOUR bouts of  Melanoma, which is often fatal regardless of the victim&#8217;s age, and  those odds increase markedly.</p><p>Something to think about.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/98">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/98/Palins-hand-Nukular-button">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-97"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-97">It&#8217;s about leadership</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://politicalvindication.com" rel="nofollow">Shane from PV</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 20:30.</div><div><p>The  presidency is about leadership, and if we can survive eight years being  led by an Arkansas governor who would rather molest the hired help than  pay attention to what Osama Bin Laden is doing, then America will do  just fine with a President Sarah Palin. She certainly has more  leadership experience than her opponents. Does that mean I would have  made her my choice for VP? I would have loved to see Mitt Romney as VP,  but she&#8217;s smart, focused, and knows how to lead. The important  question, if she should ever end up in the Oval Office, would be who  she surrounds herself with. That&#8217;s another reason why Obama would be  very scary as president. He has terrible judgment, and considering the  people he has surrounded himself with throughout his life, and the fact  that as president he will have to decide what advice to act on when it  comes to important issues &#8211; I don&#8217;t trust him to be able to distinguish  from among a bevy of poor advisers the advice least damaging.</p><p>Obama supporters, like so many on this comment board, have no idea  who Obama really is &#8211; frankly, no one does. Obama has locked up his  records, is protected by a compliant press, and says only what he  thinks Americans want to hear. He&#8217;s a charlatan, but his supporters  don&#8217;t care. <em>That&#8217;s why this question is so ironic.</em> They hate  Bush/Republicans/conservatives more than they fear the inexperience of  their presidential candidate and manchild Barack Obama. The derangement  of the left has led them to support and oppose issues not because they  want to protect their country or improve the lives of Americans, but  because they hate their adversaries and will do or say anything to beat  them (the &#8220;this war is lost&#8221; quote by Harry Reid comes to mind &#8211; how  incredibly telling). I think this frothing derangement will cause them  to self-destruct again as they did in 2000 and 2004, where Americans  got a good look at the mindless bitterness and spite that inspires the  left. McCain will win in a squeaker.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/97">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/97/Its-about-leadership">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-96"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-96">Palin is more qualified than most&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by Greg (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 20:24.</div><div><p>I&#8217;m  not a big political kind of guy nor do I follow many campaigns. I voted  for a democrat and a republican for president; the best person for the  job always gets my vote. But this is the first time in a long time that  I&#8217;ve seen an honest person make it this far in politics. Usually they  get creamed by the media &#8211; Palin is still holding her own. What you see  is what you get &#8211; nice change of pace especially since I&#8217;m originally  from Delaware. No doubt this isn&#8217;t true for Biden &#8211; he&#8217;s all over the  place telling you whatever it is you want to hear whenever you want to  hear it.. I don&#8217;t dislike Biden and yes, he is qualified to continue  the same old Washington politics; not what I&#8217;m looking for this year at  least.</p><p>I&#8217;m still wondering why Obama thinks Biden represents change? Not even close.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/96">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/96/Palin-more-qualified-most">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-95"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-95">Sarah Palin&#8217;s much sharper than Obama or Biden</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.morethings.com" rel="nofollow">Al Barger</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 20:08.</div><div><p>Not  to put too fine a point on it, Sarah Palin&#8217;s the sharpest person of the  four here. People I think get that when they get a good look at her as  in her famous nomination speech or last night&#8217;s vice presidential  debate.</p><p>Of course, this ain&#8217;t from lack of media attempts to Quayle-ize her.  Look at the double, triple, quadruple standards. It&#8217;s supposedly some  proof that she&#8217;s a moron that she didn&#8217;t choose to spit up a list of  newspapers she reads for Katie Couric.</p><p>But Joe Biden says the most ignorant nonsense day after day, and it  doesn&#8217;t make the news. When the current financial meltdown started a  few weeks ago, Biden was out criticizing Bush reaction. See, when the  1929 market crash happened, FDR when on television to show people that  he was involved and doing something. FDR wasn&#8217;t president, and there  was no television then. This nonsense didn&#8217;t make the news. Imagine if  Palin said something that stupid.<br
/> =====================================<br
/> Little known Palin fact:<br
/> FACT: Having run out of ammunition during a hunting trip, Sarah Palin  once took down a moose using a beauty pageant tiara as a boomerang.</p><p>More Palin fun facts I just made up, and a couple hundred pictures of our girl<br
/> <a
href="http://www.morethings.com/images/sarah_palin/sarah_palin-photo_gallery001.htm" title="http://www.morethings.com/images/sarah_palin/sarah_palin-photo_gallery001.htm">http://www.morethings.com/images/sarah_palin/sarah_palin-photo_gallery00&#8230;</a></p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/95">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/95/Sarah-Palins-much-sharper-Obama-or-Biden">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-94"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-94">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Robert (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 20:00.</div><div><p>Joe Biden, VP  (Vice and Plagiarist)</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/94">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/94/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-93">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ethel W (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:50.</div><div><p>Obama has done much good thru working for ACORN.  Remember, from tiny acorns, might oak trees grow.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/93">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/93/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-92"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-92">Barack&#8217;s leadership skills in government?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://playborhood.com" rel="nofollow">Mike Lanza</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:43.</div><div><p>Please folks &#8211; give us an example.  And please, make it a good one.</p><p>If this were an election for Student Body President, I might vote  for the dude, but he&#8217;s applying to be the Leader of the United States  of America. Is there anything in his governmental experience that  indicates that he can be a great leader? Anything?</p><p>This ain&#8217;t no popularity contest&#8230;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/92">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/92/Baracks-leadership-skills-government">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-91"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-91">Palin as Prez? No Way</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://janetleejohnson.com" rel="nofollow">Janet Johnson</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:41.</div><div><p>I&#8217;m  tired of Sarah Palin. I&#8217;m tired of kicking her around, of waiting for  her to have a public brain freeze, of hearing her droppin&#8217; g&#8217;s and  bringing nuc-u-lur back into the lexicon (I hope we&#8217;re almost finished  with that coming out of the White House).</p><p>At the same time, I&#8217;m proud that she&#8217;s the second legitimate woman  who&#8217;s a running mate on a presidential ticket, the first to &#8220;electrify&#8221;  a country. I&#8217;m mortified as I write that, but I&#8217;m proud of that big ol&#8217;  crack in the glass ceilin&#8217; she&#8217;s added to Hilary&#8217;s 18 million others.  (sigh)</p><p>As most of your poll-takers agree, no way is she qualified to be president. God help us all if she&#8217;s a heartbeat away.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/91">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/91/Palin-Prez-No-Way">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-90"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-90">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Stevie (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:35.</div><div><p>Do  I feel that a citizen of this country who has not kept abreast of the  foreign policy situations, and the current administration doctrines is  qualified to step in as head of state in an emergency? No&#8230;.<br
/> Do I feel that someone who will terminate people who disagree with her is worthy to be in the White House? No&#8230;&#8230;.<br
/> Do I feel that someone who feels that because she is a woman she should  be treated with deference in a television interview should be leading a  country? No&#8230;..<br
/> Does a cram session with various political pundits counteract her  inacurate knowledge of what life is like for the rest of us in the  lower 48? No&#8230;&#8230;<br
/> Does this woman have the ability to gain respect of various world  leaders particularly those from countries where women are considered to  be less than equal? no.<br
/> what we really need is a Margaret Thatcher type.. the closest we have is Hilary Clinton.<br
/> Anita Palin is no Hilary Clinton<br
/> And being a POW and being in the Vietnam War does not make you the  right person to be president either. There are plenty of Vietnam Vets  and others who were POW&#8217;s .. and they aren&#8217;t running for President&#8211;  though John Kerry did.. and he wasn&#8217;t a POW.. he served his country.  Don&#8217;t bank on that one being the ACE..</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/90">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/90/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-89"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-89">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:29.</div><div><p>Or maybe Obama would want his friend Tony Rezko to advise him on ethics in government.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/89">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/89/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-88"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-88">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:28.</div><div><p>Or maybe Obama would like William Ayers for his Secretary of Defense, since he knows how to blow things up.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/88">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/88/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-87"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-87">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:25.</div><div><p>Maybe  Obama can install Rev. Wright as Secretary of State. All the other  nations of the world will love his philosophy: God damn America!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/87">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/87/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-86"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-86">Re: amazing 75% believe Palin cant be President</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:23.</div><div><p>I  think where the logic breaks down is that you&#8217;re assuming all  Governor&#8217;s are created equally. An American Governor&#8217;s principal job is  running the state, and to be honest, I&#8217;m not sure how good a governor  she is, but thats for the people of Alaska to decide. But as an  American, I feel that she&#8217;s dangerously ignorant of world affairs and  issues around a global economy.</p><p>And frankly, I think we&#8217;ve had enough of that already.</p><p>On the other hand, Obama and Biden are far more savvy. If you  watched the debate, you&#8217;ll have noticed how rarely Palin answers a  direct question. She&#8217;s not dumb, but she&#8217;s not worldly either. And  worse, she revels in her inexperience.</p><p>If she ever gets into the Presidential office, you might just wish  for the good ol days when GW was in charge. And if that doesn&#8217;t scare  you, it should.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/86">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/86/Re-amazing-75-believe-Palin-cant-be-President">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-85"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-85">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:21.</div><div><p>Don&#8217;t you love it when a public relations man calls people degrading, hateful names?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/85">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/85/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-84"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-84">That is just dumb</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.dpkpr.com" rel="nofollow">Dan Keeney, APR</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:16.</div><div><p>You  and your swill slinging dopes really should stop. Aside from Billy Bobs  missing teeth with Confederate Flags in their pickups, Americans  understand that Senator Obama is as American as you or I.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/84">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/84/just-dumb">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-83"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-83">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:15.</div><div><p>Someone  commented on here that we live in a Global society and therefore need  Obama. Folks, this world is getting so screwy and dangerous, that is  exactly why we do NOT need a post-modern green horn such as Obama as  POTUS. All the pie in the sky he professes is absolutely meaningless  without solid, tough, and REAL national security. Somehow, grandiose  social programs lose their luster when you have a nuclear missile up  your ass.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/83">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/83/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-82"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-82">double standard</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.madeinhead.org" rel="nofollow">Jason Preston</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:12.</div><div><p>Palin  took five tries and five years to get a journalism degree at  undistinguished schools, and managed to be an undistinguished student  at all four schools involved in her quest for a chance to be a TV  reporter. Obama was at the top of his class at every step of his  collegiate journey. When pressed three times to answer, Palin cannot  name a single existing newspaper or news magazine that she reads. If  you can&#8217;t see the difference here, perhaps you&#8217;re not an ideal student  or intellect either, but only through pride does a person lacking in a  certain virtue seek to exalt that lack. Just because I&#8217;m not tall  enough to slam dunk doesn&#8217;t mean I push for the NBA to hire more short  people! The Presidency&#8217;s the hardest job in the world, or one of them.  Stellar intellect, stellar ethics, and stellar success in life should  all be ironclad prerequisites to the job. If Palin is qualified to be  President, I am twice as qualified and will expect Palin fans&#8217; votes  when I make my run for high office.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/82">reply</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-81"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-81">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Cowboy X (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:10.</div><div><p>Who  is qualified to be the President? There is no class to take to become  certified. We have to put our trust in a person. I wish that person  were Ron Paul!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/81">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/81/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-80"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-80">amazing 75% believe Palin cant be President</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 19:00.</div><div><p>So  75% believe Palin cant be president in case something happens to  McCain. So I guess its OK to be an inexperienced presidential  candidate, but if your a vice presidential candidate who has actually  run a state, you don&#8217;t qualify. The logic here escapes me completely.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/80">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/80/amazing-75-believe-Palin-cant-be-President">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-79"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-79">Sarah Palin: Unfiltered</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.petitiononline.com/CBSPALIN/petition.html" rel="nofollow">John Schuller</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:50.</div><div><p>CLICK ON MY NAME TO SIGN THIS PETITION</p><p>To:  CBS News</p><p>Sarah Palin herself has requested to speak to America without the  Media Filter in the Vice Presidential debate. ?I like being able to  answer tough questions without the filter of the mainstream media  telling the American people what they just heard,? she said in her  closing.</p><p>The people of the United States of America deserve to see the CBS Katie Couric interviews with Sarah Palin in their entirety.</p><p>This should be acceptable by Republicans and Democrats as it will  let Sarah Palin talk to America without the filter created by editing  and leaving important information on the cutting room floor.</p><p>Let us see an edition of &#8220;Sarah Palin: Unfiltered&#8221;.</p><p>This will allow Americans to see the real Sarah Palin.</p><p>Sincerely,</p><p>The Undersigned</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/79">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/79/Sarah-Palin-Unfiltered">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-78"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-78">Seriously&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://newyorkmomentsblog.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">newyorkmoments</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:49.</div><div><p>regardless  of the VP candidates&#8230;are we really going to vote in a Hussein????  Seriously?? I&#8217;m saddened that I&#8217;m not going to be able to vote Democrat  this election.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/78">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/78/Seriously">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-77"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-77">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:43.</div><div><p>I  sent John McCain a $1000 in September 2007&#8230;when his campaign was  flailing. I believed his voice needed to be in the debate. Until Sarah  Palin&#8217;s acceptance speech I did not send a penny to any other  candidate.</p><p>I was so outraged by the poor judgment demonstrated by McCain &#8212;  there were thousands, if not tens of thousands, of more capable,  competent men and women who could serve as his VP. I promptly sent a  large contribution to Obama. And with every solicitation letter I  receive from John McCain (they arrive daily), I write to ask for my  money back.</p><p>Whether &#8220;Joe six-pack&#8221; likes it or not&#8230;we live in a Global  Society, not an igloo nation. We already had Joe-six pack from  President for the last 8 years. Doesn&#8217;t any one remember &#8211; &#8220;George W.  Bush is the guy I want to have at my BBQ&#8221;???&#8230;Well &#8211; we got him&#8211; only  we got bbq&#8217;d.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/77">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/77/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-76"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-76">Re: Would it be so much to ask&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by Eric (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:35.</div><div><p>Would it be so much to ask for a Presidential nominee who actually had some experience?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/76">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/76/Re-Would-it-be-so-much-ask">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-75"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-75">Would it be so much to ask&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.liesdamnedlies.com" rel="nofollow">Ian Thomas</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:32.</div><div><p>&#8230;for a VP nominee who actually had some experience *before* she takes office?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/75">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/75/Would-it-be-so-much-ask">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-74"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-74">Third out of four</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:30.</div><div><p>Stack  rank all four candidates &#8212; Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin &#8212; in terms  of experience, and she comes out 3rd out of 4. Obama is last.</p><p>Stack rank all four candidates in terms of executive experience &#8212;  meaning, &#8216;has the candidate ever managed a budget before, had headcount  before, and had to make decisions as opposed to provide advice&#8217; &#8212; and  she incredibly comes out first amongst the four, as she&#8217;s been both  governor and mayor.</p><p>Being the governor of a state was good enough for Clinton, good enough for Romney, and good enough for Reagan.</p><p>Those who attack her experience must feel terrible that Obama is the  leading candidate for the Dem&#8217;s, given his extraordinarily thin resume.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/74">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/74/Third-out-four">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-73"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-73">If Barack Doesn&#8217;t Die, Is He Qualified?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://playborhood.com" rel="nofollow">Mike Lanza</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:29.</div><div><p>Be  honest, folks. In his career in *government*, not running a campaign,  has he ever demonstrated outstanding leadership or executive skills?  Sarah certainly has, but her experience may nonetheless be too light.</p><p>Barack Obama has the least leadership or executive skills of *any* of the major candidates for president or vice president.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/73">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/73/If-Barack-Doesnt-Die-He-Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-72"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-72">Not a fan, but c&#8217;mon</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.dpkpr.com" rel="nofollow">Dan Keeney, APR</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:21.</div><div><p>I&#8217;m  not a Sarah fan, but she has a solid foundation &#8212; an ability to  connect with men and women, powerfully deliver her messages and ramp up  quickly on complex subjects. The actuaries estimate that there is a 75%  chance that Mr. McCain would survive a first term. Presumably, the  chances of him passing in the first YEAR would be very small. So the  real question would be &#8212; If Sarah Palin had at least a year as Vice  President under her belt, would she be competent to be President if  John McCain were to be incapacitated? I don&#8217;t have any doubt that she  would. I will not be voting for the GOP ticket, but the fear mongering  about Ms. Palin&#8217;s ability is baseless and perhaps sexist.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/72">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/72/Not-fan-cmon">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-71"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-71">To Pat Baker,  Actually, she</a></div><div> Submitted by The Sensible J. (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 18:01.</div><div><p>To Pat Baker,<br
/> Actually, she has NOT been governor for a few years. She has been a  governor since 2007, she won the election at the END of 2006. So, not  even 2 years yet.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/71">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/71/Pat-Baker-Actually-she">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-70"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-70">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by The Sensible J. (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:58.</div><div><p>When  a lot of people say she was put in the VP nominee ticket because she  would shake things up for the Republican party, that&#8217;s scary. Why was  that the first and foremost reason why she was picked?!</p><p>We are not running a popularity contest here for god&#8217;s sake. We need  a leader, a WORLD LEADER that will get American back into the  respectful country it is amongst other nations in this world. Not a PTA  mom who claims she can juggle 5 kids when in fact her nanny, chef,  driver/pilot, gardener and 20 other staffers take care of the Mom role  for her. I&#8217;m all for the &#8220;women can do the same if not better job than  men&#8221; ideal, but come on, she isn&#8217;t even up to par on her events and  history. When you can only make punch points and be a talking head,  that is NOT a leader. She can&#8217;t even name ONE supreme court decision  other than Row vs. Wade. And being able to see Russia from Alaska does  not qualify as foreign experience. We do not need and DO NOT want an  average Joe or Jane to be our president or vice president.</p><p>It is scary when our (by that I mean the republicans) expectations have sunk so low.</p><p>And it&#8217;s even more scary when people are voting for republican  SIMPLY because she&#8217;s pro-life, even for those women who were victims of  rape or incest would NOT get a choice. That alone, to me, is hugely  undermining the equality so many women have worked so hard for so many  years.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/70">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/70/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-69"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-69">Sarah Palin Qualified</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://cashflowtipsbydon.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Don S</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:54.</div><div><p>Maybe  the most appropriate question is . . . if Barack Obama is elected  president, whether or not John McCain dies, is he qualified to lead the  country?</p><p>Being a governor is a proven road to the White House. Alaska is a  strategic state. Let&#8217;s see: Clinton was from Arkansas &#8212; even less  strategic, Carter from Georgia and Reagan from California . . . Bush  from Texas . . . oh, sure, I saw a post on the Huffington Post this  week that said &#8220;Bush is intellectually challenged.&#8221; Of course, there  was no evidence to support the claim.</p><p>Obama is currently more likely to become president than Sarah Palin  and that&#8217;s something that should concern all clear-thinking Americans.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/69">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/69/Sarah-Palin-Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-68"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-68">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Jerome Schindler (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:53.</div><div><p>How  could she possibly be any worse that what we have been subjected to  recently. I am sure Harry Truman&#8217;s skills woudl also have been panned.  McCain ought to be a good choice as nobody has been sure what party he  belongs to for many years.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/68">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/68/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-67"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-67">Re: Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah</a></div><div> Submitted by Bill Platt (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:45.</div><div><p>Deluded?  Although she has as much or more experience than Obama, you are willing  to suggest that my delusion is that she could not be President, but  Obama can be?</p><p>The only delusion is that Obama&#8217;s experience is greater than hers.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/67">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/67/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-66"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-66">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:31.</div><div><p>Palin is absolutely not qualified &#8211; anyone who thinks so is deluded.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/66">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/66/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-65"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-65">Re: pailin would shove her heels up putin&#8217;s a&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by Chemosapien = Idiot (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:29.</div><div><p>The point was she won&#8217;t take no crap.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/65">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/65/Re-pailin-would-shove-her-heels-putins">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-64"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-64">Re: Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah</a></div><div> Submitted by Chemosapien = Idiot (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:27.</div><div><p>Too bad they don&#8217;t have a minimum test for people to take in order to qualify for the job.</p><p>Then James they should do the same before becoming parents. Maybe  then we won&#8217;t have so many libetards. Bunch of whiners don&#8217;t know a  good thing when it slaps them upside the head.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/64">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/64/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-63"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-63">Re: Re: Palin is a Disgrace Which Makes McCain a Fool</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.taipaninvestor.info/blog" rel="nofollow">Gerald</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:26.</div><div><p>As  a Vietnam veteran I can assure you that sad fact by itself (yeah, we  lost a war we had no business being in) does not qualify anyone to be  President. While I respect McCain&#8217;s service to his country McCain  himself has admitted that he collaborated with the enemy and signed  documents condemning America&#8217;s.bombing of Hanoi as being war crimes.</p><p>As at the time we were carpet bombing a densely populated Hanoi with  low level B-52 bombing runs, the North Vietnamese perhaps had a point  that a stressed out and in terrible pain McCain decided to agree with.</p><p>Not that I blame him. Fortunately, my POW camp experience was  limited to a combat training exercise at Camp Lejeune, N.C. It was only  for a very long day but that was enough to make brave grown men trained  for combat by battle hardened US Marines cry out in pain. McCain&#8217;s  experience had to be horrible and I&#8217;m sure that the scars, mental and  physical, must still be with him.</p><p>However, I wasn&#8217;t referring to McCain other than his grandstanding  poor judgement in selecting Governor Palin as his running mate. Sarah  may be a swell gal, certainly her down home nature appeals to a lot of  down home people across America, but please, qualified to perhaps have  to step into the President&#8217;s role?</p><p>She is a little league player suddenly thrown into the major  leagues. I admire her spunk but fear her aggressive claim that she is  ready to serve when she can&#8217;t even handle soft ball interviews. Who  wants a President just like an average Joe? In case you haven&#8217;t noticed  there are very complicated problems that America faces that will  require outstanding leadership to solve.</p><p>I&#8217;m not a big Obama fan either but at least the man has first class  intelligence and a first class temperament. He doesn&#8217;t tend to shoot  from the hip or fire, ready, aim like old fighter pilots are apt to do.  Palin was a choice designed to fire up the Republican Party&#8217;s  conservative base and in that the move was successful. But at what risk  to the country if McCain and Palin are elected?</p><p>With the odds being about one in four that a 72 year old cancer  survivor would not make it another four years a President Palin is a  frightening possibility.</p><p>That&#8217;s putting country first? Please! Give me a break.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/63">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/63/Re-Palin-Disgrace-Which-Makes-McCain-Fool">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-62"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-62">ldaught2  AHEM ! ! !</a></div><div> Submitted by Chemosapien = Idiot (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:24.</div><div><p>ldaught2</p><p>AHEM ! ! !</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/62">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/62/ldaught2-AHEM">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-61"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-61">Re: Competent?</a></div><div> Submitted by ldaught2 (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:16.</div><div><p>//Until then, keep reading all the world&#8217;s magazines and Newspapers. They actually can teach you a lot.//</p><p>Are you kidding?? what can a bias newspaper and magazine teach??  (and that would be all of them)That is the most idiot statement I have  read!</p><p>To answer the question&#8230;Could Palin be President?&#8230;yes yes and  yes&#8230;.The other 3 on the ticket was in the senate and HELPED drive  America where we are today! I dont care if Palin comes from a goat  farm, she could do better than this stinkin government!!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/61">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/61/Re-Competent">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-60"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-60">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:15.</div><div><p>Lady Coveted&#8230;.another woman that feels threatened by good looking successful women.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/60">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/60/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-59"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-59">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:14.</div><div><p>James flew in from that alternate universe that Joe Biden lives in.   Maybe the Missouri Truth Squad can help him.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/59">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/59/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-58"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-58">pailin would shove her heels up putin&#8217;s a&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://the-coveted.com/blog" rel="nofollow">lady coveted</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:14.</div><div><p>being as putin&#8217;s no longer president of russia.</p><p>dmitri medvedev succeeded putin back in march, she&#8217;s so out of touch she&#8217;d probably miss that point too.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/58">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/58/pailin-would-shove-her-heels-putins">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-57"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-57">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by James (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 17:08.</div><div><p>She&#8217;s  competent all right. Competent enough to ban books at the public  library, books she has never even read. Competent enough to try to fire  a librarian who was just doing her job, Competent enough to veto sex  education for minors, (surprise there huh?), competent enough to fire  the head of the troopers who refused to fire her ex-brother in law for  unjustifiable reasons.</p><p>No wonder repugs love her so much, she&#8217;ll fit right in..*L*</p><p>At least Obama went through a process and garnered enough votes to  earn the right to be where he is today. Palin was handed the position  because McCain needed a quick fix and liked the way she looked and  talked.</p><p>Was she the most qualified and best suited republican for the job?  Of course not and people are not being genuine if they say yes. For  that reason McCain should and will lose this election.</p><p>Too bad they don&#8217;t have a minimum test for people to take in order to qualify for the job.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/57">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/57/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-56"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-56">Re: Re: Pansies? then what&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by Chemosapien = Idiot (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:54.</div><div><p>Palin would shove her pretty heels up Putin&#8217;s ass.  Then make him beg for more.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/56">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/56/Re-Pansies-then-what">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-55"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-55">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Ken S (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:52.</div><div><p>Yes.  She would do a great job, because she has intelligence coupled with  common sense, grit, and good solid values. Would to God that this  country had had dozens of Presidents like her instead of some of the  buffoons we&#8217;ve suffered through.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/55">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/55/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-54"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-54">Re: People around you</a></div><div> Submitted by Chemosapien = Idiot (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:52.</div><div><p>No he&#8217;ll bring them in from the hood.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/54">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/54/Re-People-around-you">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-53"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-53">Shooting wolves from a Copter</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:50.</div><div><p>is  not the kind of Hunter i respect&#8230;..and margaret Thatcher is on her  way over their to whoop your ass for comparing her to Palin&#8230;.Thatcher  was one of the most intelligent and tough politicians in modern  times&#8230;.Palin doesn&#8217;t have a college education and she can&#8217;t even  stand up to KATIE M*^#ATHERF%*#KING COURIC&#8230;.stop comparing her to  Thatcher</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/53">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/53/Shooting-wolves-Copter">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-52"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-52">People Around You</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.Matt-Sanchez.com" rel="nofollow">Matt Sanchez</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:49.</div><div><p>Obama  will have the flag stomper and terrorist, Dick Ayres and the God D@*$  America Reverend Wright. Both these gentlemen have doctorates!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/52">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/52/People-Around-You">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-51"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-51">People around you</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:46.</div><div><p>it  is very important who the president brings into their admin&#8230;..I&#8217;m  certain Obama isn&#8217;t going to fill his cabinet from his high school  yearbook like little miss Palin</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/51">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/51/People-around-you">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-50"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-50">Obama Qualified</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.Matt-Sanchez.com" rel="nofollow">Matt Sanchez</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:46.</div><div><p>A one-term governor who is the most popular governor in the country.</p><p>Of course, that&#8217;s one more term than former &#8220;community organizer&#8221; and one-term senator.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/50">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/50/Obama-Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-49"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-49">Re: Pansies? then what&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:46.</div><div><p>Obviously  you haven&#8217;t seen Sarah Palin in the real world, she hunts guts and eats  things that get in her way, I would imagine you are the type of idiot  that thought Margaret Thatcher was a bad choice too&#8230;.Russia would beg  for forgiveness from Palin and Putin would be licking Sarah&#8217;s boots in  red square&#8230;.</p><p>Moron.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/49">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/49/Re-Pansies-then-what">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-48"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-48">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://mrclm.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Chris Meirose</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:45.</div><div><p>More  competent than Al Gore. More competent than Dick Cheney. More competent  than Dan Quayle. Palin would do just fine. Being president is as much  or more about who you have around you than anything else. You must be  able to make tough decisions, and know what you believe in, but at the  end of the day the experts you surround yourself with as President will  make or break your term in the modern context.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/48">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/48/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-47"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-47">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.pullinsreport.com" rel="nofollow">Scott Pullins</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:43.</div><div><p>She&#8217;s clearly not competent.</p><p><a
href="http://pullinsreport.com/2008/10/03/scott-pullins--online-poll--do-you-have-faith-in-palin-3.aspx" title="http://pullinsreport.com/2008/10/03/scott-pullins--online-poll--do-you-have-faith-in-palin-3.aspx">http://pullinsreport.com/2008/10/03/scott-pullins&#8211;online-poll&#8211;do-you-h&#8230;</a></p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/47">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/47/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-46"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-46">Pansies? then what&#8230;</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:43.</div><div><p>russia  calls us a bunch of homos, and Putin slams his shoe on the desk?  &#8230;&#8230;if Palin were president Putin would literally rape her mouth on  live telivision then claim he thought she was the &#8220;entertainment&#8221;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/46">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/46/Pansies-then-what">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-45"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-45">Re: Re: Palin isn&#8217;t competent to wipe my ass</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:42.</div><div><p>The  answer is YES, she has run something, SHE has more experience RUNNING a  government than ANY of the candidates&#8230; So yes she is Qualified.</p><p>Obama isn&#8217;t qualified to be elected dog catcher, McCain at least has  the experience in dealing with hostile forces, and for you libtards  there still are hostile forces at work oh and they are hoping for Obama  too&#8230;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/45">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/45/Re-Palin-isnt-competent-wipe-my-ass">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-44"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-44">Re: Margaret, its me God</a></div><div> Submitted by Margaret (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:41.</div><div><p>I  didn&#8217;t say NO degree. I said not an &#8220;Ivy League Degree&#8221;. I was just  giving my opinion &#8211; &#8220;If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would  Sarah Palin be competent to be President?&#8221; My answer is yes.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/44">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/44/Re-Margaret-its-me-God">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-43">Palin</a></div><div> Submitted by Matt Jones (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:40.</div><div><p>Clinton&#8217;s  budget experience was a budget of Arkansas which was smaller than  cuyahoga county. Obama has ZERO budget experience. She can manage a  budget. She communicates and articulates the GOP positions more  effectively than McCain, Bush, Cheney and Dole to name some powerful  people.</p><p>go to Canada you commie bastages!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/43">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/43/Palin">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-42"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-42">Re: Palin is a Disgrace Which Makes McCain a Fool</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:39.</div><div><p>and  an Obama/Biden victory will make us look like a bunch of pansies&#8230;I  would love for you to explain how a war veteran that went through what  McCain did would cause the world to look at us as a laughing stock? Mrs  Thatcher was looked at a little off by the owrkd but she did fine? is  it you are scared of women or hunting women?</p><p>Palin is the only candidate in the race I would vote for president  and be happy about it. I will vote McCain just to get Sarah Palin  closer to the Big Job.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/42">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/42/Re-Palin-Disgrace-Which-Makes-McCain-Fool">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-41"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-41">Re: Palin isn&#8217;t competent to wipe my ass</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:35.</div><div><p>The US is going to hell because McCain&#8217;s buddy George Bush set us on that course.  4 more years of that?</p><p>BTW, the question was if McCain kicks, is Palin qualified?  And the answer is no.</p><p>Instead of attacking Obama, how about telling why you think Palin is  qualified? Is it because even you know she isn&#8217;t? Typical Republican.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/41">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/41/Re-Palin-isnt-competent-wipe-my-ass">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-40"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-40">&#8220;College Education&#8221;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.Matt-Sanchez.com" rel="nofollow">Matt Sanchez</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:35.</div><div><p>All  those &#8220;economic experts&#8221; have great post-grad degrees from high end  schools. Hopefully, that will help them as they look for a new job.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/40">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/40/College-Education">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-39"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-39">Palin is a Disgrace Which Makes McCain a Fool</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.taipaninvestor.info/blog" rel="nofollow">Gerald</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:34.</div><div><p>Palin  makes a big deal about her &#8220;six pack joe&#8221; ways and seems to be proud of  her ignorance. We have had almost eight years of a largely  disinterested in the world at large President and see where that has  taken us. American is on a slippery downward slope and it will be  difficult to avoid a hard crash and burn landing.</p><p>I for one don&#8217;t want someone as VP, who may well end up being  President, who is just another six pack Joe yahoo. America is the  laughing stock of the world just to have such a yahoo candidate.</p><p>If McCain and Palin are somehow elected American&#8217;s standing in the  world as a world leader, much less a super power, will be further  reduced to the vanishing point. We would be looked upon as a nation of  village idiots.</p><p>It&#8217;s not that I love Obama. Come to think of it with the choice down  to Obama or McCain perhaps we American have found the perfect means to  self destruct. The support given by McCain and Obama for the $700  billion bailout bill (before another $100 billion or so in pure pork  was added) is another giant step in that direction.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/39">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/39/Palin-Disgrace-Which-Makes-McCain-Fool">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-38"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-38">Re: Re: Palin isn&#8217;t competent to walk my dog</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:33.</div><div><p>&#8220;You  idiots care more about a donkey and an elephant than you do about the  stars and stripes. You get what you deserve.&#8221; The truest statement  since Reagan stated the most scary thing ever was &#8220;I&#8217;m from the  government and I&#8217;m here to help&#8221;</p><p>I wouldnt be so dead set against OBAMA if he were more Country  first, rather than Blame everyone else&#8230; HIS party has led congress  for the last 2 years and we have gone from solvency to bankruptcy and  BOTH parties are to blame, ONLY one party is used to responsibility,  the other is used to &#8220;Tolerance&#8221; and forgiveness of their own&#8230;.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/38">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/38/Re-Palin-isnt-competent-walk-my-dog">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-37"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-37">Re: Margaret, its me God</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:31.</div><div><p>you  mean like the modern day general who doesn&#8217;t have a college degree? are  we suddenly recruiting presidents from third world countries? because  EVERY American General has a college degree&#8230;&#8230;lets not pretend we  live in the world of 2 centuries ago</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/37">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/37/Re-Margaret-its-me-God">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-36"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-36">Re: Palin isn&#8217;t competent to walk my dog</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:28.</div><div><p>Nothing  like partisanship. That&#8217;s right put the party before the country. No  wonder the US is going to hell in a rocketship. You idiots care more  about a donkey and an elephant than you do about the stars and stripes.  You get what you deserve.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/36">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/36/Re-Palin-isnt-competent-walk-my-dog">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-35"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-35">Re: Palin isn&#8217;t competent to walk my dog</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:28.</div><div><p>Oh  and I&#8217;m qualified because I am a black community organizer.. Don&#8217;t look  at the communities I organized or anything, just trust me for CHANGE&#8230;  BS, it is highway strong arm robbery, ACORN? Rev Wright? Ayers?  Phlegar? Farakhan? Ok Palin has what? A couple of LIES perpetrated by  the elitist media that have been debunked. Yeah Obama in 08 and the end  of our nation in 09&#8230;.good plan.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/35">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/35/Re-Palin-isnt-competent-walk-my-dog">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-34"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-34">Re: Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://experiencecurve.com" rel="nofollow">Karl</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:27.</div><div><p>It&#8217;s  ironic that if you guys had listened to Carter in the 70&#8242;s you would  not be as f**cked as you are now and you would probably have energy  independence.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/34">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/34/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-33"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-33">Palin isn&#8217;t competent to walk my dog</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:24.</div><div><p>Say  what you want about Obama, he&#8217;ll make a much better President than  either &#8220;I&#8217;m qualified because I can see Russia from my pooper, yah, you  betcha&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m qualified because I was a POW a million years ago,  wait, what was the question again?&#8221;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/33">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/33/Palin-isnt-competent-walk-my-dog">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-32"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-32">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.Matt-Sanchez.com" rel="nofollow">Matt Sanchez</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:19.</div><div><p>Palin  Derangement Syndrome is alive and well as the media blitzkrieg is  desperate to discredit the Palin/McCain presidential ticket.</p><p>Palin handily beat Biden down last night, and that causes severe swelling in the liberal frontal lobe.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/32">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/32/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-31"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-31">Competent&#8230;OBama?</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:19.</div><div><p>So  you say go back home hockey mom&#8230; Wow&#8230; your complete lack of what a  hockey mom is.. basically a communtity leader&#8230;hmmm Let&#8217;s see Omaa is  just that, he has not been a Governer, worked a state budger.. .his  short political careeer shows less tenure that Palin. Fair is Fair ,  your last paragraph shows your compete ignorance,,, go read a bit  yourself!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/31">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/31/CompetentOBama">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-30"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-30">Re: Margaret, its me God</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.omarhamada.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Anonymous</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:19.</div><div><p>You mean like George Washington?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/30">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/30/Re-Margaret-its-me-God">link</a></li><li><a
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id="comment-29"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-29">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://republicaninthearts.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Incognito</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:14.</div><div><p>and  how about looking at it this way&#8230; with all Biden&#8217;s asinine gaffes  would people be thrilled to have him as president, if Obama were to  die? I&#8217;d be much happier with a Palin presidency than either an Obama  or Biden presidency.</p><p>She&#8217;s done very well for Alaska&#8230;thank you very much.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/29">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/29/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-28"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-28">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.golfblogger.com" rel="nofollow">GolfBlogger</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:10.</div><div><p>It&#8217;s  not saying much, but I think Palin&#8217;s more qualified than Obama. The  problem is that if you vote Republican, an unqualified person MIGHT  become president. If you vote Democrat, an unqualified person WILL  become president.</p><p>The only logical ticket is Biden-McCain &#8212; one which, during the primaries, Joe Biden said he wouldn&#8217;t mind.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/28">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/28/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-27"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-27">Margaret, its me God</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:09.</div><div><p>you  would not make a good president nor would anyone who doesn&#8217;t have an  University Degree&#8230;..watch that sassy little Katie Couric if you want  to know why Sara Palin is completely incompetent</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/27">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/27/Margaret-its-me-God">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-26"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-26">What the&#8230;?</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.soldiersperspective.us" rel="nofollow">CJ Grisham</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:07.</div><div><p>If Palin isn&#8217;t competent enough to be President, then Obama is even LESS competent to hold the position!!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/26">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/26/What">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-25"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-25">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Margaret (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 16:03.</div><div><p>Why  won&#8217;t Sara Palin be a competent President? Is there anything about  Obama that makes him more intelligent than Palin? It offends me as a  person to think differently. I believe she would do as well, if not  better, than any other of the men or women who have made a run during  this election.</p><p>I didn&#8217;t go to an ivy league college. I haven&#8217;t served as a PTO  chairperson or any other office but I think I would make a darn good  president. I&#8217;m excited to think that maybe we might have something  fresh in the office. From Hillary to McCain it is the same old same old.</p><p>Margaret</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/25">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/25/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-24"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-24">experience or education ?</a></div><div> Submitted by James (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:57.</div><div><p>While  one could argue all day long about the experience factor between Obama  and Palin, one can&#8217;t argue much about the difference in education. I  would rather have someone educated in the highest office of the land.</p><p>Thanks, but no thanks for that sweet talkin&#8217;, well read gal from Alaska.</p><p>Don&#8217;t YA know?</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/24">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/24/experience-or-education">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-23"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-23">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://americanandproud.net" rel="nofollow">Robert</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:55.</div><div><p>I  am voting for McCain/Palin for precisely that reason, I would be WAY  more happy with Palin as President than I will be with McCain.<br
/> If Obama wins we ALL lose&#8230;.Oh and a preemptive dismiss to those that  say it&#8217;s because he is black&#8230;Its not because he is black its because  he is a communist/socialist libtard baby killing gun taking no  leadership other than &#8220;ACORN&#8221; type skills&#8230;. but vote how you want, I  cant wait till you liberal idiots get what you want, just like after  Carter, you came crying to the Conservatives to save you, Obama is a  black Carter maybe worse.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/23">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/23/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-22"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-22">NFW</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://twww.mahamatzav.org" rel="nofollow">rebaaron</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:54.</div><div><p>Sarah  Palin is a poser. She&#8217;s so enamored with Ronald Reagan I believe, in  part, because she&#8217;s just like him &#8211; an actor. Reagan wasn&#8217;t a president  as much as he was able to act like a president. The VP debates last  night showed this &#8211; Palin is all show and no substance. What&#8217;s really  scary is she believes that she&#8217;s capable. I think she really has no  idea and is not capable of getting it. I think some call this  sociopathic tendencies?!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/22">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/22/NFW">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-21"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-21">Palin Did Better Than Expected</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://baconeatingatheistjew.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">The Atheist Jew</a> (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:53.</div><div><p>She proved to me that she doesn&#8217;t have an IQ of 75.  It is more like 90 or 95.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/21">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/21/Palin-Did-Better-Expected">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-20"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-20">National Level Experience (NLE)</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:53.</div><div><p>Palin  is an order of magnitude more Podunk than any national political figure  in modern times. Case in point, 6 months ago, Palin said, flat out, she  is not INTERESTED in national policy, as in she doesn&#8217;t have the time  or will to keep up with what is going on in this country&#8230;when you use  NLE as the measure Obama is far ahead of Palin, exemplified by the fact  that the very first thing he did in the Senate was get a law passed to  help secure &#8220;loose nukes&#8221; in the former USSR&#8230;.compare that to Palin  who apparently could not even pass a seventh grade civics test (doesn&#8217;t  know any supreme court cases besides Roe v. Wade?)</p><p>All the PAlin supporters are the same , pardon my french, IDIOTS who  supported GW because he&#8217;s a guy they can drink a beer with&#8230;..Palin  sure is a regular joe&#8230;Joe Retard that is</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/20">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/20/National-Level-Experience-NLE">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-19"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-19">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by brad (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 15:53.</div><div><p>If  something happened to McCain on day one would Palin be ready? No, BUT  what makes you think Obama is? Lets talk about the TOP of the ticket.  Give me a break!!!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/19">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/19/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-18"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-18">And Barack is Qualified? </a></div><div> Submitted by J (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 14:33.</div><div><p>I  love how people point out how Palin&#8217;s not qualified SHOULD something  happen to McCain. And what makes Barack qualified? He&#8217;s been in the  Senate for 2 years? And if he is elected, he&#8217;s it. At least with  McCain, we&#8217;re electing a very seasoned and proven person who has a  pretty good track record for change. Obama can talk about change but he  hasn&#8217;t walked it at all.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/18">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/18/And-Barack-Qualified">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-17"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-17">Re: Re: McCain&#8217;s &#8220;Cancer&#8221;</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 13:32.</div><div><p>Source please.  Media previously said superficial Basal cell.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/17">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/17/Re-McCains-Cancer">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-16"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-16">Re: McCain&#8217;s &#8220;Cancer&#8221;</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 13:15.</div><div><p>He has had MELANOMA. The deadliest form of skin cancer</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/16">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/16/Re-McCains-Cancer">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-15"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-15">Competent?</a></div><div> Submitted by rusmayse on Fri, 10/03/2008 &#8211; 00:48.</div><div><p>Poor  Palin. I commend her on the acceptance of such a difficult position in  such a tough time. It takes a really strong person to take on the role  she has. And I do agree with the fact that she may &#8220;catch on quickly&#8221;.  I&#8217;m just particularly concerned and unsure she has any idea what she is  doing. Period.<br
/> Go back home hockey mom. Gain experience over the next 8 years. Become  more involved on a national level. Listen to the cries of us people.  And then please, come back again :) Until then, keep reading all the  world&#8217;s magazines and Newspapers. They actually can teach you a lot.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/15">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/15/Competent">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-14"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-14">Not as a woman, or a man</a></div><div> Submitted by TomCollins2100 on Thu, 10/02/2008 &#8211; 23:33.</div><div><p>Are  you kidding? The notion that she&#8217;s being unfairly judged as unqualified  because she&#8217;s a woman is absurd. If she were a man, McCain would have  been laughed out of the country for picking a first-term governor with  no other applicable experience and zero national &#8211; let alone foreign  policy &#8211; qualifications.</p><p>Women with any brains at all should be insulted that McCain and the  Republicans think that they will vote for any woman they offer, or  belive this particular woman is remotely qualified to run any country,  forget about the United States.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/14">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/14/Not-woman-or-man">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-13"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-13">RELEASE THE MEDICAL RECORDS</a></div><div> Submitted by chemosapien (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 16:02.</div><div><p>what  you say is partially true, superficial skin cancers are not fatal,  especially with decent healthcare, but WE DON&#8217;T KNOW THE EXTENT OF  MCCAIN&#8221;S CANCER because he won&#8217;t release ALL of his medical  records&#8230;&#8230;don&#8217;t sit here and defend him against this criticism, when  his campaign could put this completely to bed with a single phone call  to his doctor.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/13">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/13/RELEASE-MEDICAL-RECORDS">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-12"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-12"> Palin needs to read a American History Booko</a></div><div> Submitted by pat baker (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 15:41.</div><div><p>I&#8217;m  sick of McCain calling Obama a on the job learner, community action  worker. Palin is is a affrimative action herself. Mrs Bush said she was  a &#8220;quick learner&#8221; Do I need a vp who is a quick learner? She&#8217;s just a  Gov for a few years, no national experience. She can&#8217;t answer straight  question. These photo opts with people from the MiddleEast aren&#8217;t  getting on my nerves, they are making me sick Who cares if she&#8217;s cute  while my 401 K might go down the tubes!. Hillary Clinton would run  rings around her. I don&#8217;t need a &#8221; on the job VP during these troubled  times..</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/12">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/12/Palin-needs-read-American-History-Booko">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-11"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-11">McCain&#8217;s &#8220;Cancer&#8221;</a></div><div> Submitted by <a
href="http://www.omarhamada.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Omar Hamada</a> (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 15:33.</div><div><p>Enough  of the cancer stuff!!! Talk about spin and/or ignorance! When&#8217;s the  last time someone actually died from superficial squamous or basal cell  skin cancer? Answer: NEVER. Now if it were actually melanoma or other  types of invasive squamous cell cancer, then it would be a different  story &#8211; BUT IT&#8217;S NOT!!!!!!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/11">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/11/McCains-Cancer">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-9"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-9">but seriously, she reads ALL the newspapers</a></div><div> Submitted by Dave (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 00:55.</div><div><p>Check  out her interview with Katie Couric. She shares that she reads ALL the  newspapers in the world. She must be really freakin smart. She also  graduated from the University of Idaho. I mean it doesnt get much more  prestigious than that. And besides, who is Biden to talk.</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/9">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/9/seriously-she-reads-ALL-newspapers">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-8"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-8">Don&#8217;t Fret</a></div><div> Submitted by Chris A (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 00:48.</div><div><p>Don&#8217;t  worry about Palin. If you saw her interviews, you would know that  the&#8230; War in Iraq and reforms to our economy and importance in the  field of green energy under the umbrella of job creation and then  health care.<br
/> She knows what everyone needs&#8230;</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/8">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/8/Dont-Fret">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-7"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-7">Re: If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Pal</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/01/2008 &#8211; 00:45.</div><div><p>uh hu &#8230;..uh hu !!!</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/7">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/7/Re-If-John-McCain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-Sarah-Pal">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p><a
id="comment-6"></a></p><div><div> <a
href="http://ahpoll.com/content/if-john-mccain-died-or-became-incapacitated-would-sarah-palin-be-competent-be-president#comment-6">come on,  hes only had cancer</a></div><div> Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 09/30/2008 &#8211; 22:59.</div><div><p>come on,  hes only had cancer 3 times. plus,  its not like hes old or anything</p></p></div><div><ul><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/reply/4/6">reply</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/comment/6/come-hes-only-had-cancer">link</a></li><li><a
href="http://ahpoll.com/forward">Email this comment</a></li></ul></div></div><p>And, here&#8217;s an embed of the poll, if I&#8217;ve piqued your interest by now:</p><p><script type="text/javascript" src="http://widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js?appId=8eaed869-bb53-4d27-9b3b-d790184cb9c9"></script><noscript>Get the <a
href="http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/if-mccain-died-would-palin-be-competent-as-pres">If McCain died, would Palin be competent as Pres.?</a> widget and many other <a
href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a
href="http://www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox</a>!</noscript></p><div
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border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Sarah Palin Comment Thread Par Excellence" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/10/10/sarah-palin-comment-thread-par-excellence/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Sarah Palin is New Feminism According to Camille Paglia</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/09/12/sarah-palin-is-a-modern-annie-oakley-according-to-camille-paglia/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/09/12/sarah-palin-is-a-modern-annie-oakley-according-to-camille-paglia/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:01:32 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Annie Oakley]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Camille Paglia]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Feminism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sarah Palin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[abigail]]></category> 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isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2008/09/12/sarah-palin-is-a-modern-annie-oakley-according-to-camille-paglia/</guid> <description><![CDATA[I would have never guessed that Camille Paglia would be in awe of Sara Palin or perceive her as follows, &#8220;Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F09%2F12%2Fsarah-palin-is-a-modern-annie-oakley-according-to-camille-paglia%2F&media=&description=Sarah+Palin+is+New+Feminism+According+to+Camille+Paglia" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Sarah Palin is New Feminism According to Camille Paglia" /></a></div><p>I would have never guessed that Camille Paglia would be in awe of Sara Palin or perceive her as follows, &#8220;Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.&#8221; <em>Whoa</em>. (Via <a
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index1.html">Salon.com</a>)</p><p><span
id="more-5015"></span></p><blockquote><p><strong><a
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index2.html">Fresh blood for the vampire</a></strong></p><p>Rip tide! Is the Obama campaign shooting out to sea like a paper boat?</p><p>It&#8217;s heavy weather for Obama fans, as momentum has suddenly shifted to John McCain &#8212; that hoary, barnacle-encrusted tub that many Democrats like me had thought was full of holes and swirling to its doom in the inky depths of Republican incoherence and fratricide. Gee whilikers, the McCain vampire just won&#8217;t die! Hit him with a hammer, and he explodes like a jellyfish into a hundred hungry pieces.</p><p>Oh, the sadomasochistic tedium of McCain&#8217;s imprisonment in Hanoi being told over and over and over again at the Republican convention. Do McCain&#8217;s credentials for the White House really consist only of that horrific ordeal? Americans owe every heroic, wounded veteran an incalculable debt of gratitude, but how do McCain&#8217;s sufferings in a tiny, squalid cell 40 years ago logically translate into presidential aptitude in the 21st century? Cast him a statue or slap his name on a ship, and let&#8217;s turn the damned page.We need a new generation of leadership with fresh ideas and an expansive, cosmopolitan vision &#8212; which is why I support Barack Obama and have contributed to his campaign. My baby-boom generation &#8212; typified by the narcissistic Clintons &#8212; peaked in the 1960s and is seriously past it. But McCain, born before Pearl Harbor, is even older than we are! Why would anyone believe that he holds the key to the future? And why would anyone swallow that preening passel of high-flown rhetoric about &#8220;country above all&#8221; coming from a seething, short-fused character whose rampant egotism, zigzagging principles, and currying of the gullible press were the distinguishing marks of his senatorial career?</p><p>Having said that, I must admit that McCain is currently eating Obama&#8217;s lunch. McCain&#8217;s weirdly disconnected persona (beady glowers flashing to frozen grins and back again) has started to look more testosterone-rich than Obama&#8217;s easy, lanky, reflective candor. What in the world possessed the Obama campaign to let their guy wander like a dazed lamb into a snake pit of religious inquisition like Rick Warren&#8217;s public forum last month at his <a
href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/08/18/sunday_at_saddleback/index.html">Saddleback Church</a> in California? That shambles of a performance &#8212; where a surprisingly unprepared Obama met the inevitable question about abortion with shockingly curt glibness &#8212; began his alarming slide.</p><p>As I said in <a
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/08/13/mercury">my last column</a>, I have become increasingly uneasy about Obama&#8217;s efforts to sound folksy and approachable by reflexively using inner-city African-American tones and locutions, which as a native of Hawaii he acquired relatively late in his development and which are painfully wrong for the target audience of rural working-class whites that he has been trying to reach. Obama on the road and even in major interviews has been droppin&#8217; his g&#8217;s like there&#8217;s no tomorrow. It&#8217;s analogous to the way stodgy, portly Al Gore (evidently misadvised by the women in his family and their feminist pals) tried to zap himself up on the campaign trail into the happening buff dude that he was not. Both Gore and Obama would have been better advised to pursue a calm, steady, authoritative persona. Forget the jokes &#8212; be boring! That, alas, is what reads as masculine in the U.S.</p><p>The over-the-top publicity stunt of a mega-stadium for Obama&#8217;s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention two weeks ago was a huge risk that worried me sick &#8212; there were too many things that could go wrong, from bad weather to crowd control to technical glitches on the overblown set. But everything went swimmingly. Obama delivered the speech nearly flawlessly &#8212; though I was shocked and disappointed by how little there was about foreign policy, a major area where wavering voters have grave doubts about him. Nevertheless, it was an extraordinary event with an overlong but strangely contemplative and spiritually uplifting finale. The music, amid the needlessly extravagant fireworks, morphed into &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; &#8212; a New Age hymn to cosmic reconciliation and peace.</p><p>After that extravaganza, marking the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s epochal civil rights speech on the Washington Mall, I felt calmly confident that the Obama campaign was going to roll like a gorgeous juggernaut right over the puny, fossilized McCain. The next morning, it was as if the election were already over. No need to fret about American politics anymore this year. I had already turned with relief to other matters.</p><p>Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy &#8212; one of the most stunning surprises that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama&#8217;s triumph of the night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his pick for vice president. I had heard vaguely about Palin but had never heard her speak. I nearly fell out of my chair. It was like watching a boxing match or a quarter of hard-hitting football &#8212; or one of the great light-saber duels in &#8220;Star Wars.&#8221; (<a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A4fN7FEzjc" target="_blank">Here</a> are the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, going at it with Darth Maul in &#8220;The Phantom Menace.&#8221;) This woman turned out to be a tough, scrappy fighter with a mischievous sense of humor.</p><p>Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.</p><p>In the U.S., the ultimate glass ceiling has been fiendishly complicated for women by the unique peculiarity that our president must also serve as commander in chief of the armed forces. Women have risen to the top in other countries by securing the leadership of their parties and then being routinely promoted to prime minister when that party won at the polls. But a woman candidate for president of the U.S. must show a potential capacity for military affairs and decision-making. Our president also symbolically represents the entire history of the nation &#8212; a half-mystical role often filled elsewhere by a revered if politically powerless monarch.</p><p
class="ad_content"><noscript></noscript></p><p> As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to political power should be studying military history rather than taking women&#8217;s studies courses, with their rote agenda of never-ending grievances. I have repeatedly said that the politician who came closest in my view to the persona of the first woman president was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose steady nerves in crisis were demonstrated when she came to national attention after the mayor and a gay supervisor were murdered in their City Hall offices in San Francisco. Hillary Clinton, with her schizophrenic alteration of personae, has never seemed presidential to me &#8212; and certainly not in her bland and overpraised farewell speech at the Democratic convention (which skittered from slow, pompous condescension to trademark stridency to unseemly haste).</p><p>Feinstein, with her deep knowledge of military matters, has true gravitas and knows how to shrewdly thrust and parry with pesky TV interviewers. But her style is reserved, discreet, mandarin. The gun-toting Sarah Palin is like Annie Oakley, a brash ambassador from America&#8217;s pioneer past. She immediately reminded me of the frontier women of the Western states, which first granted women the right to vote after the Civil War &#8212; long before the federal amendment guaranteeing universal woman suffrage was passed in 1919. Frontier women faced the same harsh challenges and had to tackle the same chores as men did &#8212; which is why men could regard them as equals, unlike the genteel, corseted ladies of the Eastern seaboard, which fought granting women the vote right to the bitter end.</p><p>Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics &#8212; which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama&#8217;s campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don&#8217;t see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it.</p><p>One reason I live in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia and have never moved to New York or Washington is that, as a cultural analyst, I want to remain in touch with the mainstream of American life. I frequent fast-food restaurants, shop at the mall, and periodically visit Wal-Mart (its bird-seed section is nonpareil). Like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Manhattan and Washington occupy their own mental zones &#8212; nice to visit but not a place to stay if you value independent thought these days. Ambitious professionals in those cities, if they want to preserve their social networks, are very vulnerable to received opinion. At receptions and parties (which I hate), they&#8217;re sitting ducks. They have to go along to get along &#8212; poor dears!</p><p>It is certainly premature to predict how the Palin saga will go. I may not agree a jot with her about basic principles, but I have immensely enjoyed Palin&#8217;s boffo performances at her debut and at the Republican convention, where she astonishingly dealt with multiple technical malfunctions without missing a beat. A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn&#8217;t worth a warm bucket of spit.</p><p>Perhaps Palin seemed perfectly normal to me because she resembles so many women I grew up around in the snow belt of upstate New York. For example, there were the robust and hearty farm women of Oxford, a charming village where my father taught high school when I was a child. We first lived in an apartment on the top floor of a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Our landlady, who was as physically imposing as her husband, was an all-American version of the Italian immigrant women of my grandmother&#8217;s generation &#8212; agrarian powerhouses who could do anything and whose trumpetlike voices could pierce stone walls.</p><p>Here&#8217;s one episode. My father and his visiting brother, a dapper barber by trade, were standing outside having a smoke when a great noise came from the nearby barn. A calf had escaped. Our landlady yelled, &#8220;Stop her!&#8221; as the calf came careening at full speed toward my father and uncle, who both instinctively stepped back as the calf galloped through the mud between them. Irate, our landlady trudged past them to the upper pasture, cornered the calf, and carried that massive animal back to the barn in her arms. As she walked by my father and uncle, she exclaimed in amused disgust, <em>&#8220;Men!&#8221;</em></p><p>Now that&#8217;s the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism &#8212; a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.</p><p
class="ad_content"><noscript></noscript></p><p> Here&#8217;s another example of the physical fortitude and indomitable spirit that Palin as an Alaskan sportswoman seems to represent right now. Last year, Toronto&#8217;s Globe and Mail reprinted this remarkable obituary from 1905:</p><blockquote><p>Abigail Becker <em>Farmer and homemaker born in Frontenac County, Upper Canada, on March 14, 1830</em></p><p>A tall, handsome woman &#8220;who feared God greatly and the living or dead not at all,&#8221; she married a widower with six children and settled in a trapper&#8217;s cabin on Long Point, Lake Erie. On Nov. 23, 1854, with her husband away, she single-handedly rescued the crew of the schooner Conductor of Buffalo, which had run aground in a storm. The crew had clung to the frozen rigging all night, not daring to enter the raging surf. In the early morning, she waded chin-high into the water (she could not swim) and helped seven men reach shore. She was awarded medals for heroism and received $350 collected by the people of Buffalo, plus a handwritten letter from Queen Victoria that was accompanied by £50, all of which went toward buying a farm. She lost her husband to a storm, raised 17 children alone and died at Walsingham Centre, Ont.</p></blockquote><p>Frontier women were far bolder and hardier than today&#8217;s pampered, petulant bourgeois feminists, always looking to blame their complaints about life on someone else.</p><p>But what of Palin&#8217;s pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God&#8217;s plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We&#8217;ll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don&#8217;t believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media. To automatically assume that she is a religious fanatic who has embraced the most extreme ideas of her local church is exactly the kind of careless reasoning that has been unjustly applied to Barack Obama, whom the right wing is still trying to tar with the fulminating anti-American sermons of his longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright.</p><p>The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.</p><p>Let&#8217;s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body. (Hence I favor the legalization of drugs, though I do not take them.) Nevertheless, I have criticized the way that abortion became the obsessive idée fixe of the post-1960s women&#8217;s movement &#8212; leading to feminists&#8217; McCarthyite tactics in pitting Anita Hill with her flimsy charges against conservative Clarence Thomas (admittedly not the most qualified candidate possible) during his nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. Similarly, Bill Clinton&#8217;s support for abortion rights gave him a free pass among leading feminists for his serial exploitation of women &#8212; an abusive pattern that would scream misogyny to any neutral observer.</p><p>But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSexual-Personae-Decadence-Nefertiti-Dickinson%2Fdp%2F0679735798%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1210721176%26sr%3D8-1&amp;tag=saloncom08-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325" target="_blank">&#8220;Sexual Personae,&#8221;</a>) has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature&#8217;s fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.</p><p>Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman&#8217;s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman&#8217;s entrance into society and citizenship.</p><p>On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution?</p><p>What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing. Because pro-choice Democrats have been arguing from cold expedience, they have thus far been unable to make an effective ethical case for the right to abortion.</p><p>The gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage directed at Sarah Palin when she was identified as pro-life was, I submit, a psychological response by loyal liberals who on some level do not want to open themselves to deep questioning about abortion and its human consequences. I have written about the eerie silence that fell over campus audiences in the early 1990s when I raised this issue on my book tours. At such moments, everyone in the hall seemed to feel the uneasy conscience of feminism. Naomi Wolf later bravely tried to address this same subject but seems to have given up in the face of the resistance she encountered.</p><p>If Sarah Palin tries to intrude her conservative Christian values into secular government, then she must be opposed and stopped. But she has every right to express her views and to argue for society&#8217;s acceptance of the high principle of the sanctity of human life. If McCain wins the White House and then drops dead, a President Palin would have the power to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, but she could not control their rulings.</p><p>It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism &#8212; one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.</p><p>But the one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide.</p><p><em>Camille Paglia&#8217;s column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to <a
href="mailto:ask_camille@salon.com">this mailbox</a>. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.</em></p></blockquote><p
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color="RED" size="-1" face="VERDANA"></p><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Markets are conversations. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Conversations among human beings <em>sound</em> human. They are conducted in a human voice. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> In both <em>inter</em>networked markets and among <em>intra</em>networked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> What&#8217;s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called &#8220;The Company&#8221; is the only thing standing between the two. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> In just a few more years, the current homogenized &#8220;voice&#8221; of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies that don&#8217;t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies attempting to &#8220;position&#8221; themselves need to <em>take</em> a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Bombastic boasts—&#8221;We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ&#8221;—do not constitute a position. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what&#8217;s really going on inside the company. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Elvis said it best: &#8220;We can&#8217;t go on together with suspicious minds.&#8221; </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own &#8220;downsizing initiatives&#8221; taught us to ask the question: &#8220;Loyalty? What&#8217;s that?&#8221; </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can&#8217;t be &#8220;picked up&#8221; at some tony conference. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> But first, they must belong to a community. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> The community of discourse <em>is</em> the market. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly <em>inside</em> the company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> A healthy intranet <em>organizes</em> workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to &#8220;improve&#8221; or control these networked conversations. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Paranoia kills conversation. That&#8217;s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> These two conversations want to talk to <em>each other.</em> They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other&#8217;s voices. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> This is suicidal. Markets <em>want</em> to talk to companies. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> De-cloaking, getting personal: We <em>are</em> those markets. We want to talk to <em>you.</em> </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We&#8217;re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> As markets, as workers, we wonder why you&#8217;re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> The inflated self-important jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what&#8217;s that got to do with us? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Maybe you&#8217;re impressing your investors. Maybe you&#8217;re impressing Wall Street. You&#8217;re not impressing us. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> If you don&#8217;t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don&#8217;t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn&#8217;t <em>let</em> you talk that way. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Your tired notions of &#8220;the market&#8221; make our eyes glaze over. We don&#8217;t recognize ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we&#8217;re already elsewhere. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> You&#8217;re invited, but it&#8217;s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel! </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> <a
title="immune" name="immune"></a>We are immune to advertising. Just forget it. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We&#8217;ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we&#8217;d be willing to pay for. Got a minute? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> You&#8217;re too busy &#8220;doing business&#8221; to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we&#8217;ll come back later. Maybe. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Don&#8217;t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it&#8217;s not the only thing on your mind. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Your product broke. Why? We&#8217;d like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We&#8217;d like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she&#8217;s not in? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from <em>The Wall Street Journal.</em> </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We know some people from your company. They&#8217;re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you&#8217;re hiding? Can they come out and play? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn&#8217;t have such a tight rein on &#8220;your people&#8221; maybe they&#8217;d be among the people we&#8217;d turn to. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> When we&#8217;re not busy being your &#8220;target market,&#8221; many of us <em>are</em> your people. We&#8217;d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing&#8217;s job. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We&#8217;d like it if you got what&#8217;s going on here. That&#8217;d be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we&#8217;re holding our breath. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We have better things to do than worry about whether you&#8217;ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom? </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We have real power and we know it. If you don&#8217;t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that&#8217;s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we&#8217;ve been seeing. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Our allegiance is to ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can&#8217;t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We&#8217;re both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they&#8217;re really just an annoyance. We know they&#8217;re coming down. We&#8217;re going to work from both sides to <em>take</em> them down. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down. </font></strong></li><li><strong><font
color="BLACK" size="-1" face="Verdana"> We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting. </font></strong></li><p></font></ol><p>Always remember! Never forget! If you&#8217;re in marketing or public relations and you have not read The Cluetrain Manifesto, it is about time &#8212; <a
href="http://www.cluetrain.com">read it</a>!</p><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F09%2F07%2Falways-remember-the-95-theses-of-the-cluetrain-manifest%2F&media=&description=Always+Remember+the+95+Theses+of+the+Cluetrain+Manifesto" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Always Remember the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/09/07/always-remember-the-95-theses-of-the-cluetrain-manifest/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/08/23/a-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/08/23/a-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:19:34 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Babies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Design]]></category> <category><![CDATA[furniture]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Style]]></category> <category><![CDATA[baby stuff]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bassinet]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bedding]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cotton mattress]]></category> <category><![CDATA[desire]]></category> <category><![CDATA[desires]]></category> <category><![CDATA[foam pad]]></category> <category><![CDATA[heck]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mattress pad]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ooba]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[parents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[patent pending]]></category> <category><![CDATA[peace]]></category> <category><![CDATA[peace of mind]]></category> <category><![CDATA[plywood]]></category> <category><![CDATA[polyurethane foam]]></category> <category><![CDATA[resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ships]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sleep]]></category> <category><![CDATA[specs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[wood veneers]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2008/08/23/a-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies/</guid> <description><![CDATA[This is one heck of a cool bassinet, made by ooba, and part of its Nest series of baby stuff. Ooba’s Nest Bassinet was born from the desire to have a bedside sleeping option for babies. This room-sharing solution brings peace of mind to parents, so they can rest soundly knowing their baby is safe [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
align="right" style="float: right; padding: 0px 0px 5px 5px;"><a
name="fb_share" type="button" share_url="http://chrisabraham.com/2008/08/23/a-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies/"></a></div><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F08%2F23%2Fa-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F08%2Fbassinet.jpg&description=A+Bassinet+Worthy+of+Making+Babies" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></a></div><p>This is one heck of a cool bassinet, made by <a
href="http://ooba.com/">ooba</a>, and part of its <a
href="http://www.iacollaborative.com/ooba/nestcollection/bassinet.php">Nest series</a> of baby stuff.</p><p
style="text-align: center"><a
href="http://ooba.com/"><img
src="http://chrisabraham.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bassinet.jpg" alt="bassinet A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" border="0" title="A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></a></p><p> <span
id="more-4914"></span></p><blockquote><p>Ooba’s Nest Bassinet was born from the desire to have a bedside sleeping option for babies. This room-sharing solution brings peace of mind to parents, so they can rest soundly knowing their baby is safe and comfortable next to them.</p><p>Includes slip cover, mattress pad and cover and two fitted sheets. Ships within 2 &#8211; 4 weeks.</p><h1>specs</h1><p><img
src="http://www.iacollaborative.com/images/spacer.gif" height="5" title="A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" alt="spacer A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /><br
/> <span
class="small"> <strong>materials:</strong></span><br
/> <span
class="small"> shell: bent plywood with rich wood veneers</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> base: chrome metal</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> slip cover: 100% brushed cotton</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> mattress: 100% polyurethane foam pad with moisture resistant Tyvek cover</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> bedding: two (2) 100% cotton fitted sheets</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <img
src="http://www.iacollaborative.com/images/spacer.gif" height="8" title="A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" alt="spacer A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <strong>dimensions:</strong></span><br
/> <span
class="small"><strong> </strong>36&#8243; w x 25&#8243; d x 31&#8243; h</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <img
src="http://www.iacollaborative.com/images/spacer.gif" height="8" title="A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" alt="spacer A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <strong>notes:</strong> </span><br
/> <span
class="small"> Patent Pending</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> Requires simple assembly. Approximately 25 lbs with integrated handles for convenient carrying. Safely holds up to 50 lbs.</span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <img
src="http://www.iacollaborative.com/images/spacer.gif" height="8" title="A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" alt="spacer A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></span><br
/> <span
class="small"> <strong>Made in the U.S.A.</strong></span></p></blockquote><div
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href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F08%2F23%2Fa-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F08%2Fbassinet.jpg&description=A+Bassinet+Worthy+of+Making+Babies" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt A Bassinet Worthy of Making Babies" /></a></div>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/08/23/a-bassinet-worthy-of-making-babies/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>My New Watch is the Green Casio G-Shock G5500C-3</title><link>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/07/my-new-watch-is-the-green-g-shock-g5500c-3/</link> <comments>http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/07/my-new-watch-is-the-green-g-shock-g5500c-3/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:01:23 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Chris Abraham</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[CASIO G-Shock]]></category> <category><![CDATA[G-Shock G5500C-3]]></category> <category><![CDATA[G5500C-3]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Green G-Shock]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Watche]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Watches]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Wristwatches]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alarms]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alls]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Berlin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[berliner]]></category> <category><![CDATA[berliners]]></category> <category><![CDATA[button operation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[casio g shock watch]]></category> <category><![CDATA[classic shape]]></category> <category><![CDATA[countdown timer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[dark forces]]></category> <category><![CDATA[digitalized]]></category> <category><![CDATA[el backlight]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fart]]></category> <category><![CDATA[g shock watch]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Green]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hourly time signal]]></category> <category><![CDATA[JROTC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[measures]]></category> <category><![CDATA[new watch]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online]]></category> <category><![CDATA[power indicator]]></category> <category><![CDATA[power shock]]></category> <category><![CDATA[resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shape]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shock resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[snooze alarm]]></category> <category><![CDATA[specs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[split time]]></category> <category><![CDATA[storage battery]]></category> <category><![CDATA[think]]></category> <category><![CDATA[time zones]]></category> <category><![CDATA[water resistance]]></category> <category><![CDATA[world time]]></category> <category><![CDATA[year 2099]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/07/my-new-watch-is-the-green-g-shock-g5500c-3/</guid> <description><![CDATA[I wore the first-gen black Casio G-SHOCK watch back in the 80s when I was a JROTC Ranger &#8212; it was the perfect watch for deployment.  I was farting around online, looking for a more casual watch than my stainless chronograph and chose the so-called &#8220;Green Tough Solar G-Shock Watch.&#8221;  I think it looks pretty [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
align="right" style="float: right; padding: 0px 0px 5px 5px;"><a
name="fb_share" type="button" share_url="http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/07/my-new-watch-is-the-green-g-shock-g5500c-3/"></a></div><div
class="pin-it-btn-wrapper"><a
href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F07%2F07%2Fmy-new-watch-is-the-green-g-shock-g5500c-3%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F07%2Fcasio-g-shock-g5500c-3.jpg&description=My+New+Watch+is+the+Green+Casio+G-Shock+G5500C-3" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt My New Watch is the Green Casio G Shock G5500C 3" /></a></div><p
style="text-align: center"><img
src="http://chrisabraham.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/casio-g-shock-g5500c-3.jpg" alt="casio g shock g5500c 3 My New Watch is the Green Casio G Shock G5500C 3"  title="My New Watch is the Green Casio G Shock G5500C 3" /></p><p><span
id="more-4779"></span> I wore the first-gen black Casio G-SHOCK watch back in the 80s when I was a <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2007/04/17/my-experience-as-a-jrotc-ranger-in-high-school-in-hawaii/">JROTC Ranger</a> &#8212; it was the perfect watch for deployment.  I was farting around online, looking for a more casual watch than my stainless chronograph and chose the so-called &#8220;<a
href="http://www.casio.com/products/Timepiece/G-Shock/G5500_Series/product/G5500C-3/">Green Tough Solar G-Shock Watch</a>.&#8221;  I think it looks pretty cool. A handsome chrono is just isn&#8217;t terribly &#8220;Berlin&#8221; so I am looking forward to wearing this bad boy back to Berlin. What do you think about it?  Here&#8217;s the <a
href="http://www.casio.com/products/Timepiece/G-Shock/G5500_Series/product/G5500C-3/">copy from the site</a>.</p><blockquote><p>With a classic shape, Tough Solar Power, Shock Resistance and 200M Water Resistance keep all the dark forces at bay. Green Tough Solar G-Shock Watch featuring a Green Resin Bandand with Digital Timekeeping.</p><h2>At A Glance</h2><p>With a classic shape, Tough Solar Power, Shock Resistance and 200M Water Resistance keep all the dark forces at bay. Green Tough Solar G-Shock Watch featuring a Green Resin Bandand with Digital Timekeeping.</p><h2 class="ttl">Technical Specs</h2><ul><li>Tough Solar Power</li><li>Shock Resistant</li><li>200M Water Resistant</li><li>Auto EL Backlight with Afterglow</li><li>World Time<br
/> 29 time zones (48 cities), city code display, daylight saving on/off</li><li>4 Daily Alarms &amp; 1 Snooze Alarm</li><li>Countdown Timer<br
/> Measuring unit: 1/10 second<br
/> Countdown range: 1 second to 60 minutes</li><li>1/100 Second Stopwatch<br
/> Measuring capacity: 59&#8217;59.99&#8243;<br
/> Measuring modes: Elapsed time, split time, 1st-2nd place times</li><li>Hourly Time Signal</li><li>Button operation tone on/off</li><li>Auto Calendar (pre-programmed until the year 2099)</li><li>12/24 Hour Formats</li><li>Accuracy: +/-15 seconds per month</li><li>Storage Battery CTL1616</li><li>Battery Power Indicator</li><li>Power Saving Function</li><li>Approx. battery life: 13 months on full charge (without further exposure to light)</li><li>Module 3062</li></ul><p>Size of case/total weight<br
/> G5500C 45.4 x 46.2 x 13.6mm / 54.9g</p></blockquote><div
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<category><![CDATA[twittering]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vulnerability]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Weather]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Web search engine]]></category> <category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/2008/07/06/online-reputation-defense-resistance-is-futile/</guid> <description><![CDATA[If you are interested in an online reputation management, defensive SEO, reputation defense campaign, please call us at +1 202-657-4769 or email us at info@chrisabraham.com, and we&#8217;ll be more than happy to help you! Abraham Harrison Online Reputation Management and Defense Services When it comes down to it, reputation defense and crisis management demands engagement: resistance is futile. [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchrisabraham.com%2F2008%2F07%2F06%2Fonline-reputation-defense-resistance-is-futile%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.zemanta.com%2Freadside%2Floader.js&description=Online+Reputation+Defense%3A+Resistance+is+Futile" count-layout="horizontal" class="pin-it-button2" ><img
border="0" style="border:0;" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" alt="PinExt Online Reputation Defense: Resistance is Futile" /></a></div><p><em>If you are interested in an online reputation management, defensive SEO, reputation defense campaign, please call us at </em><a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/callto:+12026574769"><em>+1 202-657-4769</em></a><em> or email us at </em><a
href="mailto:info@chrisabraham.com"><em>info@chrisabraham.com</em></a><em>, and we&#8217;ll be more than happy to help you!</em></p><p><a
href="http://www.chrisabraham.com/services/online-reputation-management-defense-services">Abraham Harrison Online Reputation Management and Defense Services</a></p><p>When it comes down to it, reputation defense and <a
class="zem_slink" title="Crisis management" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_management">crisis management</a> demands engagement: <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_is_futile">resistance is futile</a>. Here&#8217;s some excellent advice from <a
href="http://localadvertisingjournal.com/2008/07/06/online-reputation-management-eliminate-the-negative/">Local Advertising Journal</a> about the risks and rewards of <a
rel="bookmark" href="http://localadvertisingjournal.com/2008/07/06/online-reputation-management-eliminate-the-negative/">Online Reputation Management: Eliminate the Negative</a>:</p><blockquote><p>A negative review of your <a
class="zem_slink" title="Business" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business">business</a> or product is detrimental to your online reputation, but if it is managed correctly you can negate some of its worst impacts. When you find a negative review about your business, under no circumstances should you knee-jerk a reply defending your business. This can quickly devolve into a nasty thread of replies that will in perpetuity online, for anyone to read. You would not want have a heated argument in front of your customers in public, and make no mistake, an online post war is public indeed.</p></blockquote><p>This is an excellent addition to what I have written in the past about <a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/2006/11/17/online-reputation-management/#title">online reputation defense and management</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Some things to consider when you&#8217;re cleaning negative returns on <a
class="zem_slink" title="Google" rel="homepage" href="http://google.com">Google</a> and the other search engines: cleaning is easier after the body has been removed. If you are in the middle of a maelstrom of bad press and online vitriolic hatred, then you probably need to weather the storm for a while before the counter messaging and the defensive SEO strategy starts working.</p><p>That said, messaging, controlling your brand, your reputation, and your results on Google &#8212; promotional SEO &#8212; should be started well before you ever get smeared online. Getting your message, your intent, your true self, your words, you interests, your true bio, your positive images, your press packets, and everything you have ever published online well before sladerous things happen is essential.</p><p>Otherwise, you will be too vulnerable.  The best defense is a fantastic offense, to be sure.</p></blockquote><p>One thing that one really needs to consider before entering into a reputation war is whether or not to engage at all.  One thing that I learned during my short stay at Edelman was that the very best <a
class="zem_slink" title="Public relations" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations">PR</a> consultants know when <em><strong>not</strong></em> to engage.  That&#8217;s the magic.</p><p>Also, if you have a choice, to not engage the attack unless it is in your own terms. If you enter into an engagement in the other party&#8217;s terms, you are doomed to failure. Most often, no matter how tempting it may be, do not try to do crisis management in a blogger&#8217;s comments unless you have an attitude of mea maxima culpa and a strong solution &#8212; a solution that will seriously win hearts and minds &#8212; and that does <em><strong>not</strong></em> include being defensive or fighting back.</p><p>What I recommend in cases like this is counter-messaging, using either a platform you control or a neutral platform, such as <a
class="zem_slink" title="YouTube" rel="homepage" href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a>, <a
class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" rel="homepage" href="http://twitter.com">Twitter</a>, <a
class="zem_slink" title="Digg" rel="homepage" href="http://www.digg.com">Digg</a> or whatnot.  In this way, you will be able to convey your truths and the truths of your company and brand without getting to wrapped up in the tarbaby of the commenters and supporters who will, undoubtedly, flock around you like Piranha.</p><p>Otherwise, as I said before, no time like the present to start working up your online brand reputation with some of your own energy, positivity, passion, case studies, bios, experience, sharing, teaching, participating, engaging, and learning well before anything happens in your space, online or otherwise.</p><p>When it comes down to it, it all comes down to whether you&#8217;re known or unknown. If you are attempting to defend your reputation as an <a
class="zem_slink" title="Internet" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet">Internet</a> unknown against an Internet Celeb, you&#8217;re toast and you probably need to quickly contact me and my firm right away &#8212; things are going to get ugly fast.  Even if you&#8217;re known but not necessarily adored, you will still be part of the accountability loop. People tend not to attack someone they know. If you can make sure your &#8220;captors&#8221; know your face and know who you are, you&#8217;re more likely to survive any sort of slander and online attack much more than a nameless, faceless, and detached <a
class="zem_slink" title="Company" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company">corporate</a> globalist.</p><p>I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve been online much, but the worst thing ever to be online is a detached corporate globalist. Even if you and your brand has a history of tending towards detached corporate globalism, you can at least become an engaged corporate localist with the name Jack or Phil or Mike or Sheila, and that&#8217;s better that just being a Trademark, a Copyright, and a pack of hungry lawyers!</p><p><a
href="http://chrisabraham.com/services/online-reputation-management-defense-services"><strong>Abraham Harrison LLC&#8217;s Online Reputation Management Defense Services</strong></a></p><blockquote><p>You are not helpless in the face of negative search results. A directed, well-executed, diligent campaign will place your desired results high in the list, pushing undesirable results down to irrelevant pages where the majority of <a
class="zem_slink" title="Internet" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet">Internet</a> users do not bother to look. 90% of searchers never look past the first page &#8212; i.e. the first 10 results. 99% of searchers never look beyond the second page. We will work to get the undesirable results as far from those first two pages as possible.</p><p>At <a
href="http://www.chrisabraham.com/">Abraham Harrison, LLC</a>, our proven and well-refined methods as well as our long-established credibility gives us particular efficacy in influencing top search results. We don&#8217;t engage the negative results, as this actually makes them more attractive to the <a
class="zem_slink" title="Web search engine" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine">search engines</a>. We employ an assortment of tactics to chaff and flare, to draw the search engines&#8217; attention to positive and neutral results, and away from the problematic negative results .</p><p>It is not possible to make information on the Internet disappear unless the people who put the information online in the first place take it back down again &#8212; even then, the data is often mirrored elsewhere or cached and re-served by the likes of <a
class="zem_slink" title="Google" rel="homepage" href="http://google.com/">Google</a> and The <a
class="zem_slink" title="Internet Archive" rel="homepage" href="http://www.archive.org/">Wayback Machine</a>. The method is to make the undesirable results needles in haystacks &#8212; it can be there, but only people really intent on finding it will come across it.</p><p>An online search results sanitization campaign is a long-term commitment, much like treating a <a
class="zem_slink" title="Cancer" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer">cancer</a>. It begins with a period of intense <a
class="zem_slink" title="Assault" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault">assault</a> on the problem to beat the negatives down followed by a on-going low-level maintenance regime to keep them down. A campaign is heavily front-loaded with the ongoing maintenance being very low cost &#8212; we can also turn those maintenance operations over to you, together with any infrastructure, content, and <a
class="zem_slink" title="Domain name" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name">domain names</a> we may have set up during the campaign.</p><p>Unlike many other <a
class="zem_slink" title="Company" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company">companies</a> in this field, we have no interest in holding you hostage over the years by keeping control of the mechanisms of the treatment. We are happy to turn that over to you once we get you in the clear, or if you prefer, provide you the service of keeping up the defense, however you prefer.</p><p>An online search results sanitization campaign requires subtlety convincing the search engines that what they previously believed &#8212; i.e. that the currently highly-ranked negative results are indeed some of the most valuable and relevant results &#8212; is no longer true, and that the neutral and positive content that we identify or create is far more valuable and relevant and therefore should rank highly, pushing the negative results down into the obscurity of lower rankings.</p><p>This requires a bit of time, 6-8 weeks of concerted effort generally, to get results moving away from where the search engines have long believed them legitimately to stand, toward the new state that we desire, with those negative results far below the neutral and positive ones.</p><p>Once we get the results moving and out of stasis, we keep them moving until we are happy with the results, then maintain them in place, so that the negative results (which naturally have their own legitimacy in the eyes of the search engines) do not move back up again. It is a bit like braces on a child&#8217;s teeth which are then followed by a retainer that keeps them straight and prevents them from slipping back to their original crooked state.</p><p>Even the largest, well-known companies have used defensive <a
class="zem_slink" title="Search engine optimization" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization">SEO</a> tactics in the face of crisis and unfavorable publicity. It works for them, and it will work for you. Negative search results are a controllable problem that can be solved with diligence and know-how. Unlike other common types of crises, negative search results will not disappear without action. However, unfavorable publicity that you may have received years ago that is still affecting perceptions about your brand can be dealt with and have its negative impact neutralized.</p><p>We have resolved difficult SEO solutions &#8212; probably far worse than yours &#8211; in the past and come out on top. With our vast network and effective systems, we are able to provide an viable, permanent solution to most online reputation problems, and we will help with yours as well.</p><p>Generally, campaigns run a year, with the bulk of the effort in the first 4 months. After the first five to six months have passed and we have achieved a stable new order with the negative results well-buried, we will be happy to turn the maintenance over to you, if you wish, or we can continue to maintain the defensive systems for you until the end of the year.  After the first year, we&#8217;re happy to continue monitoring your online reputation and maintaining your defensive systems for as long as you choose to retain our services.</p><p>That said, all of the work, all the domain names, and all the <a
class="zem_slink" title="Internet Protocol" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol">IP</a> we generate for you is yours and we&#8217;re happy to turn it over to you if you like, after the year-long contract is completed.</p><p>Abraham Harrison, <a
class="zem_slink" title="Limited liability company" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability_company">LLC</a>, bills on a retainer basis, i.e. at the beginning of the month before beginning operations. As mentioned, the effort, and the billing is front-loaded to allow an aggressive attack to beat down the negative results soundly, then backing off over time focusing over more on the lower-resource work of stabilizing the results in order to allow you to save money.</p></blockquote><p> </p><div
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isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/?p=3676</guid> <description><![CDATA[&#8220;Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, &#8220;Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?&#8221; Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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/> <em>&#8220;Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, &#8220;Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?&#8221;  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won&#8217;t feel insecure around you.  We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It is not just in some of us.  It&#8217;s in everyone.  And as we let our light shine we give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.&#8221;</em> Actually written by <a
href="http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/quotes/williamson/our_deepest_fear/" rel="nofollow">Marianne Williamson</a></p><p><span
id="more-3676"></span><br
/> <a
href="http://www.gov.za/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&amp;VdkVgwKey=%2E%2E%2Fdata%2Fspeech95%2F990319514p1007%2Etxt%5F%5F%5B1%5D&amp;DocOffset=50&amp;DocsFound=55&amp;QueryZip=Nelson+Mandela%2C+inaugural&amp;Collection=empty&amp;Collection=Speech95&amp;SortField=TDEDate&amp;SortOrder=desc&amp;ViewTemplate=gov%2Fdocview%2Ehts&amp;SearchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egov%2Eza%2Fsearch97cgi%2Fs97%5Fcgi%3Faction%3DSearch%26QueryZip%3DNelson%2BMandela%252C%2Binaugural%26ResultTemplate%3Dgov%252Fdefault%252Ehts%26QueryText%3DNelson%2BMandela%252C%2Binaugural%26Collection%3Dempty%26Collection%3DSpeech95%26SortField%3DTDEDate%26SortOrder%3Ddesc%26ViewTemplate%3Dgov%252Fdocview%252Ehts%26ResultStart%3D26%26ResultCount%3D25&amp;" rel="nofollow">Actual Nelson Mandela Inaugural Speech</a>:</p><p><em>Date: 09 May 1994<br
/> Title: <a
href="http://www.gov.za/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&amp;VdkVgwKey=%2E%2E%2Fdata%2Fspeech95%2F990319514p1007%2Etxt%5F%5F%5B1%5D&amp;DocOffset=50&amp;DocsFound=55&amp;QueryZip=Nelson+Mandela%2C+inaugural&amp;Collection=empty&amp;Collection=Speech95&amp;SortField=TDEDate&amp;SortOrder=desc&amp;ViewTemplate=gov%2Fdocview%2Ehts&amp;SearchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egov%2Eza%2Fsearch97cgi%2Fs97%5Fcgi%3Faction%3DSearch%26QueryZip%3DNelson%2BMandela%252C%2Binaugural%26ResultTemplate%3Dgov%252Fdefault%252Ehts%26QueryText%3DNelson%2BMandela%252C%2Binaugural%26Collection%3Dempty%26Collection%3DSpeech95%26SortField%3DTDEDate%26SortOrder%3Ddesc%26ViewTemplate%3Dgov%252Fdocview%252Ehts%26ResultStart%3D26%26ResultCount%3D25&amp;" rel="nofollow"><strong>MANDELA: INAUGURATION ADDRESS, CAPE TOWN</strong></a><br
/> &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<br
/> NELSON MANDELA&#8217;S ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF CAPE TOWN, GRAND PARADE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS INAUGURATION AS STATE PRESIDENT, 9 MAY 1994</em></p><p><em>Mr Master of Ceremonies,<br
/> Your Excellencies,<br
/> Members of the Diplomatic Corps,<br
/> My Fellow South Africans:</em></p><p><em>Today we are entering a new era for our country and its people. Today we celebrate not the victory of a party, but a victory for all the people of South Africa.</em></p><p><em>Our country has arrived at a decision. Among all the parties that contested the elections, the overwhelming majority of South Africans have mandated the African National Congress to lead our country into the future. The South Africa we have struggled for, in which all our people, be they African, Coloured, Indian or White, regard themselves as citizens of one nation is at hand.</em></p><p><em>Perhaps it was history that ordained that it be here, at the Cape of Good Hope that we should lay the foundation stone of our new nation. For it was here at this Cape, over three countries ago, that there began the fateful convergence of the peoples of Africa, Europe and Asia on these shores.</em></p><p><em>It was to this peninsula that the patriots, among them many princes and scholars, of Indonesia were dragged in chains. It was on the sandy plains of this peninsula that first battles of the epic wars of resistance were fought.</em></p><p><em>When we look out across Table Bay, the horizon is dominated by Robben Island, whose infamy as a dungeon built to stifle the spirit of freedom is as old as colonialism in South Africa. For three centuries that island was seen as a place to which outcasts can be banished. The names of those who were incarcerated on Robben Island is a roll call of resistance fighters and democrats spanning over three centuries. If indeed this is a Cape of Good Hope, that hope owes much to the spirit of that legion of fighters and others of their calibre.</em></p><p><em>We have fought for a democratic constitution since the 1880s. Ours has been a quest for a constitution freely adopted by the people of South Africa, reflecting their wishes and their aspirations. The struggle for democracy has never been a matter pursued by one race, class, religious community or gender among South Africans. In honouring those who fought to see this day arrive, we honour the best sons and daughters of all our people. We can count amongst them Africans, Coloureds, Whites, Indians, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews &#8211; all of them united by a common vision of a better life for the people of this country.</em></p><p><em>It was that vision that inspired us in 1923 when we adopted the first ever Bill of Rights in this country. That same vision spurred us to put forward the African Claims in 1946. It is also the founding principle of the Freedom Charter we adopted as policy in 1955, which in its very first lines, places before South Africa an inclusive basis for citizenship.</em></p><p><em>In the 1980s the African National Congress was still setting the pace, being the first major political formation in South Africa to commit itself firmly to a Bill of Rights, which we published in November 1990. These milestones give concrete expression to what South Africa can become. They speak of a constitutional, democratic, political order in which, regardless of colour, gender, religion, political opinion or sexual orientation, the law will provide for the equal protection of all citizens.</em></p><p><em>They project a democracy in which the government, whomever that government may be, will be bound by a higher set of rules, embodied in a constitution, and will not be able govern the country as it pleases.</em></p><p><em>Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.</em></p><p><em>In the political order we have established there will regular, open and free elections, at all levels of government &#8211; central, provincial and municipal. There shall also be a social order which respects completely the culture, language and religious rights of all sections of our society and the fundamental rights of the individual.</em></p><p><em>The task at hand on will not be easy. But you have mandated us to change South Africa from a country in which the majority lived with little hope, to one in which they can live and work with dignity, with a sense of self-esteem and confidence in the future. The cornerstone of building a better life of opportunity, freedom and prosperity is the Reconstruction and Development Programme.</em></p><p><em>This needs unity of purpose. It needs in action. It requires us all to work together to bring an end to division, an end to suspicion and build a nation united in our diversity.</em></p><p><em>The people of South Africa have spoken in these elections. They want change! And change is what they will get. Our plan is to create jobs, promote peace and reconciliation, and to guarantee freedom for all South Africans. We will tackle the widespread poverty so pervasive among the majority of our people. By encouraging investors and the democratic state to support job creating projects in which manufacturing will play a central role we will try to change our country from a net exporter of raw material to one that exports finished products through beneficiation.</em></p><p><em>The government will devise policies that encourage and reward productive enterprise among the disadvantaged communities &#8211; African, Coloured and Indian. By easing credit conditions we can assist them to make inroads into the productive and manufacturing spheres and breakout of the small-scale distribution to which they are presently confined.</em></p><p><em>To raise our country and its people from the morass of racism and apartheid will require determination and effort. As a government, the ANC will create a legal framework that will assist, rather than impede, the awesome task of reconstruction and development of our battered society.</em></p><p><em>While we are and shall remain fully committed to the spirit of a government of national unity, we are determined to initiate and bring about the change that our mandate from the people demands.</em></p><p><em>We place our vision of a new constitutional order for South Africa on the table not as conquerors, prescribing to the conquered. We speak as fellow citizens to heal the wounds of the past with the intent of constructing a new order based on justice for all.</em></p><p><em>This is the challenge that faces all South Africans today, and it is one to which I am certain we will all rise.</em></p><p><em>Issued by: ANC, Department of Information and Publicity, Johannesburg.</em></p><p><eod></eod></p><div
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isPermaLink="false">http://chrisabraham.com/?p=2113</guid> <description><![CDATA[Via Motorcycle Daily From Motorcycle Daily: The all-new BMW R1200S is packed full of torquey Boxer power. The boxer&#8217;s surge of torque is obvious from the moment you click the bike into first gear and accelerate away from a stop. First gear is slightly higher than I would have preferred, meaning that a mild dose [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div
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href="http://www.motorcycledaily.com/14april06_r1200s.htm" rel="nofollow">Motorcycle Daily</a></p><p><strong>From Motorcycle Daily:</strong></p><blockquote><p>The all-new BMW R1200S is packed full of torquey Boxer power. The boxer&#8217;s surge of torque is obvious from the moment you click the bike into first gear and accelerate away from a stop. First gear is slightly higher than I would have preferred, meaning that a mild dose of RPM is necessary to pull out from the lights.</p><p>At 7000 rpm the R1200S surges forward with a kick worthy of a sportsbike. 122 horsepower in an air-cooled twin is a BMW revolution, and the fact is that the new BMW is more powerful than most liquid-cooled, V-twin sports tourers. But the new R1200S is not designed to be a tourer, a fact made clear by BMW&#8217;s choice of venues for the bike world press introduction &#8211; we sampled the new BMW sports bike on South African mountain roads and on the Killarney race track, just outside Cape Town. I started the day in the misty mountains in the wine districts north of Cape Town. Because of the excellent roads and the mountainous terrain, the place had a European feel to it.</p><p>The R1200S is a much lighter motorcycle than the old R1100S. The Boxer engine will gives the R1200S a heavy look, but fact is that the dry weight has now been reduced to 195kg. This makes the R1200S the lightest road boxer ever. Only the HP2 Enduro is lighter, and that can hardly be called a roadbike. Still, the R1200S is a big motorcycle, and a mammoth compared to, say, a Ducati 999 or 1000SS. With 85cc more displacement, 24 extra ponies and 13kg less weight, the R1200S is a huge improvement on the old R1100S.</p><p>At a stop, the R1200S has the feel of a big motorcycle; however, it possesses the handling of a much smaller machine. On the mountain roads it felt like the easiest thing in the world to flick the big sportsbike from ear to ear. The new BMW will be delivered with several tire options. Our test bikes were fitted with Michelin Pilot Powers. These tires were not so confidence inspiring in the early morning on the slippery mountain roads, but as soon as it had dried and I had some heat in the tires they suited the Beemer very well. On the twisty mountain roads, both tyres and suspension contributed to a neutral and stable feel.</p><p>The front Telelever is now stiffer, and on the racetrack I could easily change my line mid-turn. The Paralever EVO swingarm has been lightened and a glittery Ohlins shock is attached to it. When I first mounted the bike, the suspension felt soft with quite a bit of sag, but once on the move it seemed to work well at the stock settings.</p><p>On the road there is no doubt the R1200S can still be used as an alternative sports-tourer. The seat is comfortable enough, and the riding position does not put too much weight on the wrists.</p><p>The R1200S features a new ABS system that can be turned off. The system is not linked and there is no servo (to save weight). It is remarkable how good the front brake is, and when the ABS kicks in there is hardly any pulse action at all. I have never ridden any other bike with such a good unlinked ABS system. It was so good that I forgot to turn it off at the racetrack!</p><p>After spending the morning on mountain roads I traveled out to a sun drenched racetrack to put down as many laps as possible before the photographers arrived. Killarney is a short and easy racetrack with one sweeping left hander, two straights and several right-handers &#8211; perfectly suited for the R1200S. The corner speed can be adjusted up quickly as the R1200S is so stable both when turning in and when accelerating out of the bends. The only place I experienced instability on standard suspension set up was out of a big on-camber right hander that lead out onto the paddock straight. I chose second gear here to ride the torque and then full power up to third and then fourth. Over some uneven surface on full throttle at high rpm in third, the handle bars moved from side to side a little. I short shifted to fourth a couple of times, which calmed the chassis down a bit. However it was a great feeling to have a lively BMW under me so I stuck to third again later.</p><p>The BMW R1200S has got a steering dampe,r which probably is a bit unnecessary, however that slight headshake would have been amplified without the steering damper. I spoke to a couple of journalists that had not noticed the headshake I described, but they had all made adjustments to the rebound damping. For track use, there is plenty of adjustability built into the suspension &#8211; including rear ride height. I preferred to circulate on standard suspension settings, as I was racing no one but myself. Although that might not be entirely true, as I rode my fastest laps at the end of the day (after the photography was out of the way) and no one passed me on my bike with standard settings.</p><p>Even with ABS on, I could brake almost as hard as I wanted into the turns. It&#8217;s easy enough to explore the full handling potential of the R1200S, as it turns and steers beautifully. The Michelin Pilot Powers (120/70-ZR17 and 190/50-ZR17) provided perfect grip on the warm surface and really absorbed the bumps brilliantly. The tyres were helped by very good suspension, and also the fairly high weight that gives a stable feel over the bumps.</p><p>On the main straight it was possible to either max out in fifth gear or short shift to sixth before braking for the fast left hander that followed. I saw around 230km/h on the speedometer a couple of times, so I would guess that 250 could be easily achieved on a longer straight.</p><p>Because of the peculiarities of a flat-twin engine, the whole motorcycle wants to stand up on the suspension when the torque curve hits its sweet spot. But less so on the R1200S than other Boxer BMW&#8217;s.</p><p>The dog-shift six-speed gear box gave me no problems at the track. The only problem I noticed was that the box doesn&#8217;t quite like to be upshifted without the clutch, perhaps due to the unique torque pulses of the boxer motor. Whatever the cause, the R1200S sort of surges or jumps forward when you upshift without the use of the clutch. Other than that the ratios seem to work well, particularly the spacing between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears.</p><p>To sum up the track test, it is remarkable how fast something as peculiar and clumsy looking as the R1200S can be around a racetrack. Even though you start out with the feeling that R1200S is too big to be a sportsbike, its as satisfying as anything to ride through corners.</p><p>The new 1170cc engine descends from the big R1200GS update. The R1100S never got the 1150 engine, and for this reason the R1200S is miles better than the old R1100S. The new horsepower has been achieved by extensive modifications, to the cylinder heads in particular. The R1200S also features new high strength conrods, redesigned camshafts, stiffer valve springs, and new pistons. Compression ratio is increased to a staggering 12.5:1, and this increase is mainly responsible for the torqey feel of the high revving (8,800rpm) air/oil-cooled engine. Maximum torque is now 112Nm @ 6.800rpm.</p><p>An engine like this can probably be tuned to around 135-140 bhp in race trim, so the 122bhp in the standard bike with air/oil cooling is pretty good. It feels good too, especially at full throttle, where the engine pulls like an ox from 7.000 rpm on. It is evident that BMW has increased the rev ceiling as part of making the new R1200S as sporty as a Boxer can be. BMW has followed the US army motto; &#8220;Be all you can be&#8221; &#8211; and the R1200S is.</p><p>I am glad to see the new R1200S. It is more evidence that BMW is continuing to dedicate huge effort towards the sports market. The R1200S is still a gentle giant compared to the K series 1200 engine, but for most people that can be a good thing. If you own an R1100S, and have resisted the temptation to purchase something more powerful, now is the time to upgrade. The R1200S is a huge update compared to the old R1100S. It still takes most of the design cues, but the rear end in particular now looks more modern with the two pipes stacked under the passenger seat. But don&#8217;t expect your passenger to appreciate the new R1200S, as the passenger position is higher than before (due to the new underseat exhaust). The ABS brakes are great, and as with any BMW you get great second-hand value and no worries about maintenance. You just have to ask yourself this question; is it a better deal than a cheaper and more powerful Japanese sportsbike?</p></blockquote><div
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