Being involved with politics and conservative activism since. Really it started on 9/11 when I was still in High School. But as a voter it started in 2004 when I went door to door and worked the phones for President Bush.
I have to say that being involved with politics in turning into a nightmare in my life. I am truly thinking about living how my grandfather lived. Just tuning out and focus on nothing but raising my family, working hard during the week a then going fishing on the weekends or something like that. The man was one of least informed people I know. He never let anything bring him down and maybe that is why.
I have dreamed of how great it would be to serve in congress or be a governor. I love my country so much. But if the politician I admire the most is chased out of her statehouse and then rejected as a fool by the American people. What kind of chance would I have ?
No. I am not obsessed with Governor Palin. I see a lot of me and who I want to be in her. I have been rooting for her because I wanted to see if a kid born into a middle class family in some little town like myself could ever have a chance to become a leader and make our country better. I feel like the answer is becoming clear.
and I feel like giving up.
Ridiculous. Congress is full of people who came from nowhere and never gave up.
Man up. Knock off the whining. You sound like a fricking liberal panty-waisted wusshead.
Don’t.
I had to study Politics because after working through the summer to catch up every other course after a bad accident, my options were limited. It was an education in how a politician’s mindset is actually forced to change as they realise that shooting their mouth off before attaining high office isn’t the same as shooting your mouth off IN high office.
Your grandfather simply wouldn’t have been remotely aware of just how complicated politics can get behind the scenes at the national level.
A small town politician or even a state politician can speak his or her mind confident that they know their audience and have a pretty good idea what the reaction will be, and who’ll do what.
At a national level it’s a whole different ball game.
These days, a nation (even an ally) can do harm to America simply by sending a data stream down a wire to an Australian hippy, or turning a tap on a pipeline. Throw one little spanner into a big economic engine and you can create a fair amount of mischief.
In the good old days a nation needed to commit manpower and time and resources to go to war so there had to be a pretty compelling excuse to pick a fight.
But these days any nation state (big or small) can do plenty of economic damage to another, just by turning a tap, and any excuse can suffice.
Look at what the Chinese are doing to Japan with rare earth metals, what Russia did to European oil supplies using Ukraine as the excuse, and of course look how the French feigned panic over BSE to bolster their own market at the expense of the United Kingdom despite having the same problem there as we had here...
One out of turn comment from a politician on the world stage can result in instant worldwide media coverage, and that in turn can lead to a myriad of consequences that you or your grandfather or the Founding Fathers would never have conceived of.
Sarah Palin is a bit like Prince Philip in that she’s presently in a position where she has the luxury of being able to speak her mind with total impunity, even to the point of offending Johnny Foreigner and his government, without consequences, BECAUSE right now her opinions don’t reflect the official position of the White House, Congress, or the nation as a whole.
That would probably change if she did stand for the Presidency because her public statements could be interpreted as to reflect the official position of the United States of America and her advisors would be receiving all kinds of information behind the scenes to the effect of, “today’s a really bad day to offend the Chinese ambassador” which you and I don’t get to hear.
Learning politics taught me about how that stuff works.