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Vice Presidential Candidates Each Bring New Heat to Presidential Campaign
By Lily Garza
September 22, 2008
As the initial frenzy surrounding the announcement of vice presidential running mates dies down, the candidates speak about important issues.
After Senator John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his choice for Vice President, his campaign was greatly invigorated. Gaps in the polls closed and she appeared on the cover of several weekly magazines, discussing herself and her family.
The same did not happen for Senator Barack Obama's running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden. His addition to the campaign has been much more typical. He is traveling separately from Obama, supporting Obama's policies and criticizing McCain's. While Palin continues to travel with McCain, the Democratic ticket is playing to twice as many audiences.
Due to the fact that these two candidates have now become media celebrities, as well as politicians, the media has chosen two issues that have been getting the most attention from critics and supporters of both candidates.
Palin's family situation has made her stance on abortion a spotlight issue. She has been very outspoken about her views on abortion, which are even more conservative than McCain's. Palin views abortion as unjustified unless the pregnant woman's life is in danger. McCain believes exceptions should be allowed for rape and incest. Her views grabbed more attention than usual when it became public that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant and that she knew in advance that her now-5-month-old son would be born with Down Syndrome. Many respected her decisions to live her life according to the opinions she expressed publicly rather than taking the easier road.
Biden, after more than 30 years in public office, has stirred less controversy than Palin has in just a few weeks. His views on abortion are in the mainstream of Democratic thought. He supports abortion rights but has opposed government funding for abortion services. Biden has said that while he is personally opposed to abortion on a moral level he does not think that government policy should be dictated by personal religious beliefs. He did vote to uphold the partial-birth abortion ban in 2007.
Palin has also garnered much attention for her support of and participation in the liberal use of guns and rifles. She is an avid supporter of hunting and has a lifetime membership to the National Rifle Association. Biden favors much tighter gun control laws and was the one of the original writers of the assault weapons ban though he is a gun owner and does support certain gun rights.
Gun control has been a though issue for Democrats since the 2000 election, in which Al Gore lost the support of Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia- all key states- mainly for his stance on gun control. Since then Democrats have had to work on appeasing both sides of the gun control debate. Biden has been consistent about his views. When asked in a 2007 debate what he would do to help gun-owners, Biden refused to pander to NRA-minded voters and many have expressed respect for that, in the same way they did for Palin on her abortion stance. He too has shown that he lives by his own examples.
What both candidates bring to the campaign is balance for their running mates. Palin brings the kind of charm and celebrity status that Obama has enjoyed over the past year but, also like Obama, has been called out on her lack of experience on the National and International stage. Biden brings the experience to the Democratic ticket, having spent 30 years in Congress.
Both candidates will continue to campaign and entertain the nation until the Presidential election in November.
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