Reader-submitted: Northern Canadians might be interested in John McCain's Vice presidential pick: the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.
Yes, we are.
I discussed this with a friend of mine the other day, and it turned out that we agree, so I'll let her write about McCain's reasons for picking Palin. I promised I wouldn't write about that, so I'll confine myself to a few small details.
I am a registered Republican, but since I registered I have come to realise that I am actually a libertarian. There is no Libertarian Party (this would be an oxymoron), so my current registration will do. No point in going through the paperwork of changing it.
I like McCain. I wanted to vote for him in 2000, and I was really disappointed when that didn't happen. I LOVED it when he hosted Saturday Night Live (here's a clip from the Chris Matthews Show about it).
Experience at the national level is not a prerequisite for me. I still believe that spending years as the governor of a very populous state can give a person the experience he or she needs to be qualified to be president.
I think it would be great to have a woman at the highest level of government. However, I think it's sexist to assume that just any woman will do. I registered to vote in a state with a very qualified female Republican senator. I bet she would have been great.
I have often read news stories about life in Alaska and recognised similarities with life here. (This one is excellent: please click through and read it when you have ten minutes to spare.) Although we have many cultural and geographic ties to Alaska, northern Canadians tend to disagree with Alaskans on political matters. The issue that comes up most often is whether the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be opened to drilling: we tend to be opposed to it because of the ripple effects to our own environment.
I'm done now: click through and read this story. You won't regret it and you'll learn something about the north.
Monday, September 01, 2008
For snow-covered mountain majesties
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I'm with you on Olympia Snowe. She's a great lady. The State of Maine actually has two women senators, and to my mind Susan Collins is underrated. She'd get my vote, too.
Maine sent America's first woman senator to Washington: Margaret Chase Smith, who broke the spell that Joe McCarthy had cast over the Republican Party. She ended "McCarthyism."
American politics is quirky (Canadian politics, too). You say that you are a libertarian, and in fact, the Republican Party has a strong libertarian streak in it. In recent years, however, because of the influence of Evangelical Christians in the GOP, this libertarian aspect has weakened. It still shows up, here and there. Sarah Palin has libertarian impulses.
The Democrats like to think of themselves as "libertarian" on so-called "social issues", but there, too, things are quirky. The same people who insist on a "woman's right to choose" won't allow her to choose whether to smoke in the car.
Politics is kooky.
Dad
Well this Canadian isn't interested. Who are all these people anyway? The only name I know is Obama and that he may or may not be black enough.
One time I asked an American, "is Bush a Republican or a Democrat?" and he said "you've got to be kidding." So I said "quick, what's our Prime Minister's name and what party is he?"
I give you two guesses whether he had a clue.
No, he didn't have a clue. As an American, I can vouch for that. But I won't apologize, unless you can name the president of Mexico, and his political party, or the prime minister of Iceland, and his political party.
Kevin H
I win! Filipe Calderon is the president of Mexico.
I don't know his party, though.
You don't need to apologize. All I'm saying is, I knew his president's name, he didn't know my PM's name. But he's the one who said "you've got to be kidding."
Having lived in both countries, I'm a little thin-skinned on this subject. More specifically, I grew very tired of the continual lectures about American ignorance. Canadians are ignorant of all the countries around them, except one: the United States. For some reason, they are outraged by the fact that Americans are similarly ignorant.
Kevin H
Post a Comment