Two more (unnoticed) benefits of selecting Palin as VP
Posted by: The_hawk

Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 03:08PM

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As many have note in previous post the Pick of Palin has many advantages but I think that two of them were left unmentioned elsewhere: Firstly it neutralized one of the planned Democratic attacks in favor of Obama-that you are making history by voting for him and if you dare not to vote for him you're a racist and bringing so much shame to the US that it will reverberate for generations to comehttp://www.slate.com/id/2198397/. Given that as we know Obama would probably not have been the democratic candidate had not immensely benefited from these identity politics feeling With Palin on the ticket this attack is effectively neutralized-independents and other undecided voters can now feel good about voting Republican not just being that Mccain is a better choice but also because of the significant historical result of electing him as well (AKA the first women vice president). Secondly while the selection of Palin is unlikely to bring most of Hillary's PUMAs to vote for Mccain she will lower democratic turnout while raising The repblican one. Unlike what is being said non stop in the news most of the PUMAs are highly unlikely to vote republican. That is because that as devout feminists they don't just believe in promoting Women-they usually are sworn pacifists/antiwar activists and have big government/socialist tendencies. For these voters, even with Palin on the ticket, Mccain stands for too much of what they staunchly oppose for them to vote for him.

However it would cause them a very big dilemma given their own principles against hurting other women candidates coupled with their intense dislike towards Obama. This may mean that many of them would prefer to sit the election out or vote for a women 3rd party candidatehttp://www.gp.org/index.php (does anyone know BTW in how many states did the green party candidate Cynthia McKinney qualify for the ballot?). Given that, as some political analysts have noted, that Obama's main plan for winning the election is based upon increasing democratic turnout http://www.slate.com/id/2198623/#plouffe2this may eliminate much of the benefit of his celebrated GOTV. If (to add to that conservatives continue to be more energized by her selection then Obamas attempt to win the election by a better GOTV may have just been given a fatal hit.

http://www.redstate.com/diaries/the_haw ... ecting-pa/