Over our past spring break that was
limited to many memorable moments I had difficulty coming up with what my most
memorable moment was. It took awhile
until I came to the conclusion that watching the HBO movie Game Change was my
highlight. As sad as it is that watching
a movie was most memorable moment I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Game Change covers the 2008 presidential
election and is based on the book Game
Change written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. The movie focuses on the Republican Party and
especially Sarah Palin. The movie starts
with the Republican Party running through possible Vice Presidential candidates
for John McCain. They run through many
well-known names but none of them are sticking.
They know they need a candidate to match the momentum that Barack Obama
had been generating. They stumbled
across Palin and some thought it was the ideal pick while others not as much.
After the selection the advisors would soon realize how little she knew about a
variety of different political issues and how uncontrollable she was.
Some
thought the movie was supposed to show how Palin was put in unfair position and
show sympathy towards her. I feel as
though the movie completely bashed Palin and showed how truly crazy she is. Palin I will admit was put in a difficult
position and blame McCain’s advisors for doing that but there was no way they
could expect how little she knew. Not
knowing what the Fed was and not knowing why there are two different Koreas is
stuff you learn in high school. The movie
shows Palin constantly battling and ignoring all of her advisors and anyone
trying to help her. Towards the end she
seems more concerned about her image than that of the Republican Party. This selfish and wild attitude from Palin has
dragged the Republican Party into the complete mess it has now. Palin was the wrong choice from the beginning
and it is a decision that still haunts the Republican Party.
I think that the involvement of Sarah Palin is a very interesting case study in politics. I think that the McCain team was trying to revive their movement and revitilize interest as Obama surged forward, and they vastly underestimated the detriment that Palin ended up being. I read somewhere once that it was kept quiet that she believed Africa was a country not a continent. This is interesting because her involvement was so noteworthy that it permeated pop culture and drew in those who are otherwise not involved in politics, if not just to marvel at who is trying to run our country.
ReplyDeleteThis movie actually sounds really interesting! Now I kind of want to go watch it. I've always thought that the selection of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate was rather random, especially since it seemed as if the Republican Party did not carefully consider their decision. I guess I can understand why they might have chosen her, considering so much attention surrounded the fact that Obama could be our first African-American president. The Republican party tried to regain some of that attention by having a first of its own. Yet, it's rather ironic that much of the attention she gained for the party was actually negative.
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