R.I. GOP delegates weigh in on McCain's VP choice
5:46 PM Fri, Aug 29, 2008 | Permalink
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By Scott MacKay PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri enthused today about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's choice as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate, but other Rhode Island Republican delegates to the Republican National Convention said today they do not know much about her record and don't know yet what to make of the Palin pick. While Carcieri has met Palin, 45, who has been Alaska's governor for less than 2 years, other state Republicans have not. "To be quite honest with you, until it became public about an hour ago, I had probably never heard of her,'' said Christine Callahan of Middletown, a former state representative and McCain convention delegate. "I do think it was a good decision on his part to select a woman,'' said Callahan. "And I can't believe Senator McCain would have chosen her without putting a lot of research and study into who the selection should be.'' House Minority Leader Robert Watson, R-East Greenwich, chairman of the Rhode Island delegation to the Republican confab that begins Monday in St. Paul, Minn., said that he has never met Palin, but is "looking forward to meeting her.'' "I think it is very interesting,'' said Watson. "It is a typical John McCain maverick move. He looked outside the Beltway and insider Washington and went all the way across the country to find a woman with executive experience.'' Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, said he, too, knows little of Palin's record. "This comes out of nowhere. I really don't know much about her.'' Avedisian said he is disappointed that Palin is against legal abortion and is a adherent of Creationism. "Her pro-life stance bothers me but there was no chance that a pro-choice candidate could have been picked.'' Delegate Dennis Michaud said he is "depressed'' about the Palin choice. "I'm very surprised, I was for Romney." The Warwick mayor said he would rather have seen Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor; Tom Ridge, the onetime Pennsylvania governor and homeland security czar, or former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency director Christine Whitman. "I have heard that she has a good record on environmental issues,'' said Avedisian. "If that is the case that would be a selling point for me.'' Rep. Steve Coaty, R-Newport, called McCain's pick of Palin "a good choice.'' "She is a female, which I think, is quite encouraging and I think her youth is going to be a great asset,'' said Coaty. Palin is 44 to McCain's 72. GOP state party chairman Giovanni Cicione acknowledged that he is not well-acquainted with Palin, but praised McCain for a "maverick'' choice. "I'm as surprised as anybody but I'm also impressed,'' said Cicione. "She has a great history as governor of Alaska. She's a real reformer, she is strong on environmental issues and she helped kill the famous bridge to nowhere. It's a good pick.'' 
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It's a fable that Palin is good on environmental issues.
Here are a few items from US News& World Report:
1. Palin believes that we should drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She also supports offshore drilling. Just in case people aren't up to speed on what drilling would get us, it would take ten years before this oil would be available, and it would amount to about one year's supply for the U.S. Meanwhile irreplaceable places of natural beauty and importance to our country could be damaged forever.
2. Palin is a proponent of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope.
3. Palin has sued the Department of the Interior because she opposes putting the polar bear on the endangered species list.
4. Palin supports mining in Bristol Bay, which may disrupt salmon, bears, and caribou.
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Palin has more experience than Obama and is a great choice.
I voted for Hillary and was planning on voting for Obama, but it's about time that the male-dominated political parties realize that women will be heard.
YOU GO GIRL!
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Sarah Palin is a fantastic choice!
1. Palin believes that we should drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ... and so do most Americans. Drill, drill, drill!
2. Palin is a proponent of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope. Great, even better!
3. Palin opposes putting the polar bear on the endangered species list. That would be because the polar bear is not actually endangered. In fact, the population is thriving. It was nothing more than a ploy to keep certain areas of Alaska off limits to oil exploration.
4. Palin supports mining in Bristol Bay, which may disrupt salmon, bears, and caribou. And this is supposed to be a deal-breaker?
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More experience than Obama?
Give me a break.
Up until two years ago, Palin was mayor of a town of 5000 people. That's half the size of North Kingstown. Her total mayoral duties consisted of casting tiebeaker votes on the town council.
Since then she's been governor of Alaska, total population half that of RI. During both gigs she's fired employees from the other political party and tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. (Hello, RI-style corruption.)
Meanwhile Obama has eight years in the Illinois legislature and four years as a U.S. Senator. He's also run a fifty state very successful campaign with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Palin is in the pocket of big oil (like your heating bills, do you?), her husband works for BP, and she thinks jobs going overseas is just fine. It's idiocy to expand drilling in the US - the extra oil would not come online for ten years and would total one years supply, in exchange for trashing our natural areas forever.
The polar bear population is declining, Palin's claim otherwise is, well, a Republican lie, at which they are so good.
However, she does have Obama beat at the cheesecake level. Maybe if the phone rings at 3am, she can offer our enemies a lap dance -
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x214/faelanae/palin.jpg
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Trudy Trudy Trudy.....you have exquisitely regurgitated the liberal talking points for the day!! Nicely done. Now, for the real facts....a Governor has the same responsibilites as the President, on a much smaller scale. It's executive experience, unlike the #1 guy on your ticket. She was also a Mayor, who 'runs' a city, much like a Governor 'runs' a state, much like the President 'runs' the country. She has more executive experience than NOBAMA if he was a Senator for 50 years!! Senators don't 'run' anything. They sit in committees and vote on legislation.
NOBAMA's alleged 4 years in the Senate reduces to 143 days of working. Would you go to a heart surgeon who has only been one for 143 days?? I wouldn't!!
And don't worry about the Polar Bear...there are plenty of them and you would know that if you put the KoolAid down and read up about it.
By the way, you got the phrase "big oil" in there...good for you!! All that's missing now is "Halliburton"!!
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You don't think running a hundreds of millions of dollars campaign is executive work? Try again.
I'm glad to hear that being mayor of a town half the population of North Kingstown (note no real responsibility, since it is run by a town manager) and two years as Gov of a state with half RI's population prepares her to leap right into the VP spot (and the way McCain is going, the Presidency), not.
Even the major Alaska newspapers and Republican honchos there say "not qualified":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/2-top-alaska-newspapers-q_b_122625.html
Still waiting to hear what you think of her Family Values photo at
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x214/faelanae/palin.jpg
I'm thinking she's getting ready for that 3 am phone call, but hasn't quite grasped what the phone call is about.
Oh, and that pro-choice thing? Like she's a hero for knowing the baby had Down's and choosing to have him anyway? Well, oops. It looks like the baby is actually her teenage daughter's, so they didn't screen for birth defects and the Down's was a surprise.
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