Hilary Rosen Sums It Up

Hilary Rosen: Am I "Off Message" on Sarah Palin?

So why then do I think that Sarah Palin would be a terrible vice president? Because I also think that John McCain would be a terrible president.

I don't care about how Sarah Palin or John McCain take care of their families. I care about how their policy choices affect my family and millions of other Americans.

-McCain and Palin get their health insurance paid for by the government (hers in Alaska and his in Washington). Yet they oppose giving the 42 million other Americans the same access to affordable healthcare.

-John McCain's kids don't have to worry about paying for college. Yet, he has opposed every single education support program to help others.

-McCain and Palin say they will stand up to oil companies. Yet the only energy policy they support gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies to do more drilling and he has opposed every piece of federal legislation to explore alternative fuel sources.

-McCain and Palin say they will revamp how Washington does business. Yet his campaign is filled with lobbyists and she has been in bed with Senator Ted Stevens funneling federal money for useless projects in Alaska for years.

-McCain and Palin have refused to answer very real questions about her potential abuse of power in Alaska when it came to her firing a State Trooper because she was on a revenge kick for her sister costing an officer his job. And McCain and Palin have no solutions for Americans worrying about their jobs in a fragile economy.

-McCain and Palin want us to leave their families alone. Yet they want make rules for our families by eliminating our right to make our own choices over abortion; eliminate our access to family planning education or domestic partner benefits; and our freedom from discrimination. They want to control what our kids learn in school about sex and about science. In short, through the policies they promote and the judges they support, they want the government to be more in control over our private lives than at any time in history.

-McCain and Palin now say their campaign is about change, too. Yet, the only real change they have proposed is a change from a suit to a skirt in the VP's office and one man fighting a misplaced war for another in the Oval Office. That seems to me to be the right reason to oppose them in November. It's not the process or the people, it's what they represent. This unconventional choice of VP by John McCain won't stand up to the hype and result in a win in November because they are the wrong choice for the country.