Palin Delivers during VP Debate (And We All Saw It.)

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Part II of my contrarians view as to why and how Sarah Palin was able to delivery for the McCain camp and reinvigorated the base once again.

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In a recent article, “Why Palin Will Win the VP Debate”, I made the case that she would win, not on acumen, but on style. I argued that “glib stagecraft” and clever ploys of derision would win out the night. I was harangued for suggesting that the appearance of ineptitude, during recent interviews with the conventional press, was deceiving and hid a crafty doggedness for debating people she opposed. I surmised her entire persona is one of calculated disarmament that veiled a skillful debater. It appears, at least in part, I may have been right.

I wish I could take comfort in the fact that I may have been prescient in my prediction about how she would debate, but I am only more and deeply concerned. Truly, I wish I had been wrong, but I have studied authoritarian people, like Sarah Palin, for more than two years now and it takes very little effort to identify one after even a cursory glance, let alone a comprehensive analysis, once you know what to look for and how to diagnose the glaring signs.

To be clear, Joe Biden did everything right, virtually mistake free, in order to stay about the ground fire salvos Palin was carefully dispatching to pillory him. Biden offered strong, cogent answers and showed a sparkling command of superiority on the issues. It was not a foreboding performance by Palin that mortally wound Obama, but it did stop the McCain hemorrhaging. Nevertheless, Biden still took on a lot of shrapnel from the beguiling ideologue, and darling of the right, Governor Sarah Palin.

In fact, Palin did exactly what she has been trained to do – deliver an uncritical, contemptuous attack of belligerent mockery. Authoritarian people do not think; they act. And they act on instinct and emotion alone. They are always loose with facts but stridently persuasive. They are charming, disarming, almost irresistible, yet completely ethically bankrupt and amoral. She did not understand a single obfuscating, sometimes-mangled answer she gave during the debate, but it did not matter. The base of the party, Joe Six-Pack, loved it.

The problem here is they (authoritarians) are masters at using base intellect, not intelligence, to appeal to people’s pathos. (Many barbaric dictators through out history have used this same tactic with stunning and ghastly success.) In essence, they are scheming, devious and capable of anything in order to subvert the will of other people in order to achieve their own objectives.

Scientific studies have conclusively proven that hardliner conservatives suffer a “cognitive dissonance”; they grapple with nuance, struggle with vagaries, and reject abstract thinking. They are visceral, not cerebral. They are ill-suited for and not capable of collegial deliberation. Further, most are highly intolerant people when someone does not share their narrow paradigm window view of the world.

Last night’s put-on was a recital for Palin – it was not a debate. It was absent any lucidity, clearly forced, though a highly successful presentation of chides, condescension and hollow talking points. Palin was even rude and impertinent toward the moderator and Joe Biden, but this is standard operating procedure for an authoritarian person. Assuredly, it was much to the sheer jubilation of the conservative, irascible base.

Have you ever watched Bill O’Reilly shout down a guest, ridicule him or her, or use a sneering outrage of indignation to intimidate the person being ostensibly interviewed? Last night you saw a subdued version of Bill O’Reilly in a skirt with lipstick. The visage changes, but the persona and intrinsic need to dominate by fear is omnipresent. Someone must always be blamed (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) and they (authoritarians) are never at fault – compromise, tolerance, and humility are not an option.

The purpose is to play always to basal fears, ignorance, and prejudices; it is never to sensibly discuss or achieve anything other than to eliminate a perceived threat (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) – it is Orwellian in every way and driven by pure appeals to the audience's emotions.

Palin’s folksy, down home hokum and charm is a veneer than acts as subterfuge to hide a venal, vindictive, and brutal outlook towards anyone who disagrees with her recalcitrant and reactionary –certainly radical and fringe – ideology. She lives in a binary world – one of good and evil only. You can easily speculate on your own as to which side anyone that is antithetical to her belief system (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) falls in this clash of Manichean thinking.

One critical point and it’s worth noting. Sarah Palin is a “compartmental thinker.” She cannot see her duplicitous judgments and incompatible positions, her intense hypocrisy and nonsensical answers, nor can she be facilitated to understand her flawed, uncritical, fealty allegiance. Loyalty to people in positions of power she admires is unchallenged, even when they are as egregious and heinous as those committed by someone the likes of George Bush.

Hence, Sarah Palin makes resolute statements (such as expanding the powers of the vice president beyond its constitutional bounds) that have no relationship to reality, laws, or facts. These types of detached proclamations are to reinforce her distorted belief of the world through a prism of unquestioned and dangerous beliefs. She is an actor acting on behalf of what she deems is a higher echelon from a higher authority. This is not an accident; it is a dare to defy her and a maneuver that covers up a deep, beseeching cry for legitimacy from a person desperately foundering in a sea of irrelevance and mediocrity. The more you press her, the more deluded she will become and act out, sometimes viciously, if necessary.

As Dr. Robert Altermyer suggested (the world’s leading expert on authoritarians), when asked how to deal with an authoritarian person, his reply was stark, “You don’t, and you can’t.” You can only mitigate their influence in society by ensuring they do not obtain positions of power or influence. No amount of rational though can persuade them, as they are quite literally, wholly irrational and mentally unbalanced.

Thomas Paine once said, "It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government." After tonight, it is clear that every patriot's duty is to prevent Sarah Palin from becoming the next Vice President of the United States.

Why Palin Will Win the VP Debate

Palin’s recent gaffes are actually calculated moves to disarm Biden.

BY FRANK J. RANELLI
Wednesday, October 01, 2008


Sarah Palin’s recent abysmal interviews are a canard. She is not the vapid, seemingly naïve and inexperienced candidate we have been led to believe. The bar of expectation has been deliberately lowered so low that once in front of the debate lectern, she will stun Biden with her slick, pat answers, leaving him flustered and trampled by the hockey mom turned-governor from Alaska.

Sound far-fetched or ridiculous? It’s not. Allow me to explain why.Sarah Palin is sandbagging. She is intentionally appearing inept, and at times, outright vacuous and bungling. But she is downplaying and misrepresenting her political skill, guile and debating ability in order to deceive the Obama camp. This was an outright calculated, premeditated ploy in order to lull Sen. Joe Biden into a false sense of security. All of Palin’s botched interviews were done with wily aforethought – they were red herrings and glib stagecraft to hustle Biden.

Forget the static currently being transmitted by conservative lackeys feigning consternation over the Palin pick. I have recently watched several video clips from her debates, when she ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006, and she is far more adroit, astute, and shrewd during these debates than recent interviews suggest. In fact, she is a cunning, clever, and crafty woman who knows how to disarm people with her charm and then coldly go in for the kill shot.

Vice-presidential debates rarely change the true trajectory or final outcome of presidential elections. If that were the case, Lloyd Bentsen’s legendary 1988 slap down admonishment of Dan Quayle’s ill-advised confessed comparison to John Kennedy would have catapulted Michael Dukakis directly into the Oval Office.

However, everyone loves an underdog and this one just happens to be a scheming Pit Bull wearing lipstick from Wasilla. A Palin blistering perform this Thursday night may not be a game-changer in the end for the McCain-Palin camp, but it will stem, at least temporarily, the rising tide and polls currently tacking quite nicely for Obama and Biden. She may or may not know any other Supreme Court cases beyond Roe v. Wade, or a definitive understanding of the Bush Doctrine, but in the end, it may simply not matter.

My Prediction:

The real Sarah Palin shows up and upstages the elder statesmen Joe Biden, facts, figures, and policy positions be damned.

Why Palin is Fair Game

BY FRANK J. RANELLI

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In principle, I have always agreed with the basic tenets of society’s plea for civility and decorum in politics toward the kids of candidates. However, while the children, as individuals should be held harmless – as they are just merely adolescents – the larger narrative about Sarah Palin is germane and should be out front in the public sphere to debate.

I was at the Dublin, Ohio Obama rally on August 30, 2008, a mere 10 feet away from Obama while he spoke and reiterated what is at stake is the very core principles of this nation. Prior to Obama speaking, I circulated in the midst of the VIP section and spoke to a litany of women. They not only panned Palin, they felt betrayed and insulted; that McCain’s attitude was one of ungainly sexism whereas women are interchangeable parts – that one is just as good as the next.

The near ubiquitous “drip, drip, drip” that spills over daily into another scandal, another tabloidesque story, is evidence either Sarah Palin was an exercise in extremely poor judgment by John McCain or Palin is a pure gimmick –a gambit to court and woo Hillary Clinton supporters.

The overarching viewpoint is the judgment – or lack thereof – of Palin, her duplicitous actions and double standard, faux Christian values, the exploitation of her infant (and now unwed pregnant daughter) for political expediency; her own failed abstinence only teachings – that clearly does not work, even amongst her own children – and the sum total of her (Palin’s) actions that definitively leads one to conclude she is inept, unwise, reckless, and is unfit to be a heartbeat away from governing this nation as President.

It’s not about the children, but it is about her inability to govern and make sound, rational choices – that she believes in Creationism and not science. These flaws need to be exposed and she – as a candidate – needs to be eviscerated for her utter lack of credibility, inexperience, lack of common sense and the extreme fringe values she holds.

As one reader of the local newspaper in Wasilla summed her up in a comment to a reporter, “she is a kook.”

Palin may have set ablaze the benighted crowd of sheeple evangelists into a gesticulating frenzy of jubilation, but she is dangerous to this nation, dangerous to a progressive America, and cannot be allowed to become the next VP of this nation, or be a hairs breath away from the presidency.

Everything from “Troopergate” to “Babygate” is in play when she accepted the nomination as McCain’s VP. Palin could have declined the invitation, but she did not. She could have shielded her family from public scrutiny and spared them the overt embarrassment of her hypocritical stances and statements, but she opted to stand in the national spotlight and allow her disastrous, failed conservative values to be illuminated.

And for that reason alone, America has the right and the civic responsibility to vet this woman, leave no stone unturned, for in politics, as it has been said, is a contact sport.

Just who is Chet Edwards?

Friday, August 22, 2008
BY FRANK J. RANELLI

The Obama Democratic Veepstakes is approaching a frenetic and feverish pitch. Is it Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, or even Hillary Clinton? Surprisingly, and perhaps to the dismay of many progressives, liberals, and democratic voters the answer may be a resounding, “No.”


The name Chet Edwards outside of Texas, the halls of Congress, or the inside of Nancy Pelosi’s rolodex, is a name unfamiliar to most Americans. So, just who is Chet Edwards? Quietly, yet not completely unnoticed by many politicos and pundits, he is widely considered to be one of Obama’s finalists on his list of candidates for the coveted VP slot.

Chet Edwards currently serves the 17th Congressional district of Texas as a moderate democrat. He is a prolific legislator, with little national exposure, yet has distinguished himself as a centrist with a rather curious and capricious voting record.

A telegenic man—with a visage analogous to a televangelist—is also fashionable with Speaker Pelosi. On August 3, 2008, she extolled his “extraordinary credentials” and stated “I hope he will be the nominee” to ABC's "This Week".

While Edwards is largely an unknown nationally, he is a productive, if not hectic, lawmaker. In addition, he is the chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee and sits on a bevy of other committees and subcommittees in the House.

Filtering Edwards through a democratic prism may prove to be dificult and even a harder sell to hardline progressives as a running mate for Obama. The website OnTheIssues has amassed an extensive, if not exhaustive list of how Edwards has voted— and where he stands—on more than 24 issues, ranging from abortion to the economy.

A close examination of his enigmatic stance on a wide range of policies reveals Edwards voted in favor of the invasion of the Iraq War, gave the nod to telcom immunity, registered an “aye” for the Bankruptcy Reform bill, which now requires partial debt repayment and even stands with John McCain and George Bush on drilling in AWNR.

Unfortunately, his conservative chops do not end there, but include a record of anathema toward the gay and lesbian community by casting his lot with Republicans on the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 – a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. Among prominent liberal and progressive bloggers, he is considered a “Bush Dog Democrat,” an epithet clearly denouncing him as anything but a “Progressive Democrat.”

Sadly, Chet Edwards has too often curried favors for the political right, racking up a congressional record that paints his voting sheet more red than blue. His overt penchant for gun rights and arms makers, aversion to raising CAFE standards and endorsement of forest thinning projects certainly will be met with strident condemnation from gun control and environmental groups.

Save for a few breadcrumbs meant to throw off “low information” voters from his true political stripes—chiefly his vow to keep social security out of the hands of Wall Street—Chet Edwards is another Repulican-lite masquerading as a Democrat.

The Obama campaign in recent days has confirmed Edwards was contacted—and possibly vetted—but has said little else as to his status or standing with Obama as a potential running mate in 2008. Nevertheless, he appears to be in strong contention, helped along by the behest of Nancy Pelosi, as the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate to oppose Republican John McCain on November 4.

While Obama’s pick for VP still remains steep in mystery, Edwards’s sudden emergence into the national spotlight as a high probability candidate for Vice President portends another likely losing centrist ticket for the Democrats. As John Kerry firmly demonstrated in 2004, a center-right campaign for the Democratic Party is a certain death knell.

What we do know is that whether any given voter stands for or against Republicans, it is certain when the people are given the choice between a genuine conservative or a fake liberal, America always chooses the authentic contestant, if only for not trying to fool the public – issues, policies and object national needs be damned.

John McCain Quietly Draws on Social Security While Calling the Program Publicly a “Disgrace”

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


A recent revelation that John McCain personally derives full benefits from the long-standing and popular Social Security program stands in stark contrast to his recent remarks in Denver, Colorado.


Republican presidential nominee John McCain, on July 7, 2008, during a town hall meeting in Denver, told the small gathering, “Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."

The remarks were roundly panned by analysts and Democrats, pointing out that since its inception, Social Security was designed and has always worked effectively in its current format. Whereby current wage earners pay into the system routinely – and in doing so – supply the payroll needed to fund the benefit program for retirees. Democratic Party backer, Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees added, “Social Security has always been pay as you go, with today's workers paying for today's retirees.”

McCain has a vociferous and protracted record of advocating for the privatization of Social Security and cutting benefits for retirees, the disabled, and their dependents, stretching as far back as 1983.

More than 42 million Americans are on Social Security – chiefly, the elderly, widows and widowers, and young children whose parents unexpectedly died – allowing them to live independently and out of poverty.

However, In spite of John McCain’s yearly salary as a U.S. Senator of $169,300, and a reported total income in 2007 of $405,409, public records show that McCain, in fact, personally draws from Social Security. Although McCain and his wife keep separate finances, Cindy McCain, an heiress and direct benefactor of a family beer fortune, maintains an expansive largesse estimated at potentially $100 million.

Incongruently, and in complete conflict with his public views and withering remarks, John McCain received, according to public records, $23,157 in Social Security benefits in 2007 – a welfare benefit that averages nearly $2,000.00 per month.

The advocacy group, Alliance for Retired Americans, has launched a campaign to educate its members and the general voter population to attract attention to McCain’s duplicitous, anti-Social Security views. Bemused and angered by McCain’s comments and double standard stance, Director Edward F. Coyle, in a conference call with “leaders of labor and other progressive groups” stated, “Social Security has kept millions out of poverty, and is one our nation’s greatest success stories.”

Additionally, since Senator McCain has pronounced Social Security an, “absolute disgrace”, while personally and hypocritically drawing out of the fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans has asked that the Arizona Republican “return his Social Security checks.”

Considering the near unanimous condemnation of McCain’s acerbic commentary toward Social Security, while surreptitiously collecting benefits, it is unlikely this will prove to be a success story for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Quinnipiac: Clinton lead in Pennsylvania slipping away

FRANK J RANELLI

Hillary Clinton needs a large, double digit win in Pennsylvania to maintain any appearance of legitimacy in winning the Democratic nomination – anything less will be seen as a fatal blow to her quest for the presidency. Sadly, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows Hillary’s lead down to only six points and falling as Obama picks up women and white voters.

The Clinton’s pursuit to match the quasi-dynastic presidency of the Bush’s may very well end in Pennsylvania; the same state that hosted the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to draft a new form of government that forbade monarchies and eschewed nobility.