John McCain is 72 years old. If elected, he will be the oldest US President in history. Considering the extreme stresses of the presidency, the fact that the average lifespan of US males is only 75, and that McCain has had four episodes of skin cancer, it is likely that he would not survive a full presidential term. This would leave Sarah Palin in charge, and I believe Sarah Palin would be a terrible president.
Why? Because Palin is extremely inexperienced. She has only been governor of Alaska for two years. That’s a state with a population of 670,000 – only two tenths of a percent of the entire US population. If Alaska were a city, it would be smaller than Charlotte, North Carolina and Fort Worth, Texas.
She’s just not ready to govern on a large scale. Consider the poor shape she left Wasilla, Alaska in after her terms as mayor. As Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, told CNN, Palin increased taxes by 38% and she left the town over $22 million in debt because she rushed to build a sports complex that doesn’t even generate a profit. If she hasn’t figured out how to manage a budget for a town of 6,000, how is she supposed to handle the country’s $9.7 trillion debt?
In addition to being inexperienced, Sarah Palin is not environmentally friendly. She has fought hard against protecting endangered species; Palin sued the federal government to prevent polar bears from being put on the list because “she and other Alaskan elected officials fear the listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat.” She claims that the state is already doing plenty to manage the polar bear population, despite a recent U.S Geological Survey study that predicted polar bears could disappear from Alaska by 2050. She also opposed the listing of beluga whales and pushed for loosened mining regulations in Bristol Bay, despite the dangers to Sockeye Salmon, a threatened species.
She is also in favor of drilling for oil in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Even John McCain acknowledges that we should not drill there – the ecosystem in ANWR is too fragile. It would especially affect Caribou, an already threatened species. It seems Palin’s priorities lie with business, not the environment.
Sarah Palin is extremely socially conservative, as well. The majority of Americans are fairly moderate, and her extreme views are likely to alienate and exclude a large portion of the population. For instance, she wants her religious viewpoints taught in public schools. She tried to fire a Wasilla librarian because the librarian resisted the banning of ‘objectionable’ books. She wants creationism in science classes. She wants abstinence-until-marriage classes, despite studies showing that they don’t prevent premarital sex and they actually make teens less likely to practice safe sex. Palin even responded to a VoteMatch politician survey saying that she strongly supports teacher-led prayer in public schools!
Even more divisive is her desire to ban abortions. No exceptions for rape, incest, or if the child won’t survive infancy. The only exception she tolerates is if a ‘doctor determines that the mother’s life would end.’ So Palin is in favor of the government making decisions for women and families about very difficult private matters like abortion, but when her own daughter, Bristol, got pregnant, she said it was ‘Bristol’s decision’ to keep the child. Not the government’s choice. Bristol’s.
Palin’s hypocrisies, extreme right-wing views, anti-environmentalism, and inexperience would divide and damage the country, should McCain die in the White House. That is why I believe Sarah Palin would be a terrible president.
