This is NOT good news about Sarah Palin running, right?

[anonymousbird]

Redneck from Hicksville USA

Still using girly emoticons I see, BeenBeta!

I can understand what you're saying, and even agree with you, if we were talking about Palin as a symbol (of independence, of strong women etc etc), and the Tea Baggers as a symbol of, I dunno, taking a stand against corruption in the political class.

But I fear you haven't thought through the real-life implications of her/them gaining power. Tax-cuts and nothing else, pressing for bans on abortions, etc etc.

And the foreign-policy implications are just chilling. Because they are TRUE BELIEVERS, rather than pragmatists or realists, there would be a welcoming/support of Israeli expansionism and the subsequent wars that would ensue.

No need for that is there?

I am a bit worried because to win you have to become a lookalike clone of Palin. Bit like Stepford Wives.

Ah, love you really, BeenBeta!

Even though I've just learned from another thread that you're a Tory.

Belfast - my previous comment was directed at Zepherine.

To answer your points.

My view is Palin will be inward looking. Not prone to foreign adventures and wars. Her focus will be on sorting out the internal social and political problems of America.

I do also beleive that the abortion law in the US may be sensibly amended but abortion will not be banned. I do believe tax cuts would be good for the blighted working lower and middle class and a severe cut back on the bloated state. All to the good.

Bollocks, you mean I emasculated myself by using my first ever emoticon, and it wasn't even necessary?

Presidents cannot just be inward-looking, and America is the hub of the capitalist world, even if the Tea Baggers don't want them to be.

I cant see the emoticon without thinking of the Sarah Palin trademark wink.

"My view is Palin will be inward looking. Not prone to foreign adventures and wars."

Yes to the inward-looking, mainly because she doesn't know what she doesn't know about the rest of the world. Inward-looking means marginalised in the case of the US though.

As to the adventures part, you will be sadly disappointed. Just because she couldn't pick out any given country on a map of the world doesn't mean she can't be persuaded that it's not a godfearin enemy of America and shouldn't be invaded/bombed into smithereens, preached at...

"Her focus will be on sorting out the internal social and political problems of America."
Her focus will be on turning America into an isolationist, gun-totin, oil-drillin paradise for big business. She's not able to sort out her own family fgs.

"I do also beleive that the abortion law in the US may be sensibly amended but abortion will not be banned."

Not going to happen without reference to the Supreme Court ultimately. And the Court has stood by abortion through thick and thin.

"I do believe tax cuts would be good for the blighted working lower and middle class.."

-- well, duh... but this is not the beleaguered group that would get any tax reduction.

"..and a severe cut back on the bloated state. All to the good."
The bloated state? Are you aware that in the US, people aren't even entitled to unemployment benefits when their contributions run out? And there's nothing else you can live on. That one in seven people lives in poverty? More than one in seven children? That millions go without healthcare because they can't afford it -- that's working people, not the unemployed poor on both scores. That millions of elderly people skimp on prescriptions and cut pills in half because they can't afford them?

The bloated state?

I still hold the vote there. A driver's license.

I skype'd my daddy yesterday. I chided him, a first generation patriot, about the Tea Party.

'I am a Republican', he said. 'I will fight this as such.'

Worried?

No. Not really.

In practice, all politicians are more constrained in office than their pre-election rhetoric suggests.

I genuinely think Palin will prove to have a more positive influence and for what it is worth get on better with the UK than the current President.

How did we get into Iraq then?

I think you're an intelligent bloke, from what I've read of your posts.

I don't know how to process the fact you can think this. Have you read much about her? For example, the Vanity Fair article?

That's from someone who was originally ideologically disposed to be favourable to her!

The US does not have the money or the political stomach for more big wars.

That is an example of how Palin will be constrained by circumstance. She will be forced to look inward by the horrific unemployment rate and collapsing economy.