Game Change Response- Izzy Lobin

Question 1 Response:

Political vetting is extremely important to any political appointment. If a candidate goes through vetting without any problems, then nothing should go wrong. But, as the McCain-Palin campaign shows, you need to have an extreme and intense vetting program in order to do it well. The vetting process needs to include a question/research portion covering every aspect of a candidate’s life. This includes their personal life, political views, and political history. All of this needs to be accounted for in order to assure that a candidate won’t be stepping over any of the lines that you set up around their possible position. The intensity and specificity of this process is vital to a candidate’s future success. If something is missed during the process, everything could unravel. This happened with Palin multiple times. Some of the most embarrassing discoveries for the campaign included Palin’s lack of knowledge on almost all national and international political topics; her husband’s involvement with an Alaskan secession movement; and her daughter’s teen-pregnancy. All of these areas having not been discovered in the vetting phase led to a lack of their assessment by the campaign, and therefore sent the media and other politicians into a frenzy. The blowing-up of these discoveries of Palin’s life show how quickly a bad vetting process can go south, and how truly important the vetting process is.

Question 3 Response:

I think that a POTUS or VPOTUS should, at the very least, have a general knowledge of the issues they will be dealing with. It’s obviously impossible to hold the standard that they should know everything about every political topic, but if they’re going to a meeting with the president of China they should be briefed before hand. So maybe the better answer isn’t that they should need to be experts in all fields, but that they should have a general knowledge and be able to retain a briefing and all other important information during a time in which they make important decisions or speak to important people. Palin’s campaign interviews where she wouldn’t allow her staff to brief her are a prime example of why it’s important to have vital information at the right time. If she’d listened to and remembered her briefings, she probably would have had no problem answering the simple questions. But instead, Palin was unable to answer and instead responded in a way they hurt the whole campaign. And this situation could be much worse if a sitting POTUS didn’t listen to their briefings, because then they may end up making important decisions without any real information. So no, I don’t think a POTUS or VPOTUS need to be experts in all fields, but at the very least they must have a general knowledge on the topic.

Game Changer Blog Post- Xavier Rivera

1. Political vetting is important because as we saw in the movie when someone like Sarah Palin was not properly vetted, which was because they liked the look of the candidate but not the substance. It is also important because as learned in the movie it is important to properly vet people to make sure that they understand the policies that the candidates support and more importantly why we are fighting wars. Also because that way you understand what kind of candidate you are getting and in order to determine if they are mentally healthy and fit in order to do the job and represent your party well. Examples of the importance of vetting with in the movie were when she didn’t know why wars were started, or anything about foreign policy like when she said Russia was seen from Alaska. Also an example of this is when she constantly wanted to do her own thing and had many mental breakdowns, and when she kept going against Mccain's Opinions and made him look bad.
2. I do believe that Mccain should have kept Palin away from the international and big time media. She was ill prepared on too many topics in order to use the strategy of “ Fake it til you make it” and this made it especially hard considering that she did not want to prepare and had mental breakdowns. Also since these are well credited reporters and since she was uninformed and not good enough to engage in deep conversation and was weak on many issues I do believe that they should have kept her away from the international media.. But I do not blame Mccain from not hiding palin from the media considering the fact that he did not know that she was clueless considering his campaign kept him in the dark about that.

Game Change - Josh O'Steen

9. Do governors, senators, house of representatives need to know and understand history, economic policy, international relations? Is holding political office a means of being in touch with popular culture and contemporary issues or is it more important to have a knowledge of history, econ, policy issues?

I believe that governors, senators, and members of the House of Representatives all need to at least have a basic if not a more defined understanding of history, economic policy, and international relations. It is extremely important that government officials have an understanding of the subjects that do and will affect their constituents. For example, concerning history and economic policy, all government officials need to understand history so they know the mistakes that were made in the past so they do not redo them, and they need to understand economic policy because it is economic policy that essentially drives the success of their respective districts/states. As for international relations, it is less important for a governor to have a deep understanding of international relations because they do not negotiate or converse with foreign nations like Congress or the Executive Branch does.

As for the importance of being in touch with popular culture and contemporary issues versus the importance of having knowledge in history, economics, and policy issues, both are very important when it comes to holding a political office. Being someone who is in touch with popular culture and contemporary issues will make you more likable and relatable to your constituents which is always important when attempting to stay in office and passing legislation aimed at helping your own constituents. Having a good understanding of history, economics, and policy issues is also invaluable in making good policy decisions that will ultimately benefit your constituents.

Ryan Harrison- Game change

2. I think that popularity is more important than being a “career politician” in political campaigns. In the end of the day most voters are going to vote for the politician that they like the most. So the person who wins over the most amount of people with their character and friendliness will most likely win the race. But this must come with knowledge in the political field too, you can't just be liked without any knowledge. I think Obama was a perfect example of this. He was the more liked nominee because he was younger, more charismatic, and friendlier than John Mccain.

3. Yes they both need to be highly knowledgeable about all of the issues during their campaign. It is more important for the president to be knowledgeable, but if the VP doesn't know their stuff then it makes it look like the POTUS and VP aren't on the same page. Sarah Palin really hurt the Mccain campaign because she didn't have the same knowledge that he did. The media turned their campaign into a joke because of the idiotic stuff Sarah Palin said.

Game Change - Michael Schroeder

What is more important “career politicians” with lots of experience or popularity when it comes to national political campaigns?

I believe that popularity is more important in national political campaigns as seen in the last three presidential elections. Hillary Clinton has decades of political experience, she was the first lady, a senator, and the Secretary of State. Her opponent, Donald Trump, has had a full zero years of political experience before becoming the highest level politician in the nation. Clinton’s speeches didn’t rally up the public the same way that Trump’s did. Obama was a United States Senator for less than four years, and he had a decent amount of time being involved in the Illinois government. John McCain has been in congress (the House and then Senate) since 1982. He had much more political experience than Obama, however, Obama was almost a celebrity. People loved him. His speeches got people rallied in a way that only he could. Recent history shows that popularity is more important than experience. I believe that experience is more important, but I see why popularity is how people win. I wouldn’t vote for someone that I hate even if they have lots of experience and would cater to my political beliefs.

Compose your own question that is multi-layered and produced meaningful thought on Game Change.

Do you think that Sarah Palin should hold the sole responsibility for McCain losing the 2008 election? Was McCain too soft on Obama? Why do you think that they lost the election?

Game Change-Ayoub El Ashmawi

1. Political vetting is extremely important because it needs to be ensured that the people who are elected to office are qualified and are knowledgeable enough to make big decisions that will alter the state of the union. If they are not qualified, they could possibly make decisions that hurt america. Additionally, other world leaders will recognize the lack of knowledge and attempt to take advantage of that. (See president trump and Vladimir Putin)

4. McCain/Palin set up Trump/Pence for success because it created precedence for someone who is not really qualified to be president being in a position to potentially become president, as Sarah Palin was vice president and would be expected to become president if anything happened to her running-mate.

Game Change-Jake Urdangen

Game Change-Jake Urdangen

1.Why is political vetting so important?

The importance of political vetting is paramount to running a sturdy campaign of any sort. Understanding your personal from head to toe is essential to winning. The 2008 presidential race is a prime example why political vetting cannot be overlooked.

When the McCain campaign decided to not properly vet Sarah Palin they left a major gap in their defense. Many people in the political spectrum use Sarah Palin as a prime example of the true incompetence of some members of the American political world (congress and otherwise).

Political vetting  is the process of looking at background checks on people when they are hiring for a job, or in this situation running for office.

8. Compare Sarah Palin’s level of knowledge to that of Mike Pence or Donald Trump...is it a fair comparison?

Before watching the movie Game Changer, I didn’t know too much about Sarah Palin. Growing up in a liberal family, I was kind of taught to not really like her. I knew the background about her, that she was a nice lady with a disabled child. My parents always told me how ignorant she was, but I never really really let is soak all in.

Now after watching this movie, I believe that she may be one of the dumbest politicians in the history of politics. This movie I know was extremely accurate, and it shocks me that a governor running for vice president is so focused on Alaska. If you are running for vice president, you need to care about all 50 states, not just one. It was crazy that she didn’t know anything about foreign policies, and had to have all her speeches written up for her.

I would compare Donald Trump and Sarah Palin to each other because of their appearances. Both have very good looks, and are strong leaders. They are all talk, but scare the crap out of people. Trump obviously has much more knowledge than Palin because he actually got elected.