The media is using kid gloves on Plain and the McCain camp and whining. There hoping for backlash from woman but the media is NOT being anywhere near as hard on Plain as they were Hillary!

McCain actually threw Obama a bone since the focus on dirt digging on Palin led to the media not spending hours upon hours dissecting the convention or Obama's speech. They still reported that he had 84,000 people in attendance and 40 million watching. Thanks to McCain he is left with that favorable.

IMO all of this dirt digging is going to back fire and will eventually lead to more women supporting Palin. They will see themselves in her and will grow tired of the constant negatives. The same effect has seen Obama's popularity grow.

Henry Blodget | Sep 2, 2008 10:15 AM

Palin McCain.pngRegardless of what you think of John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, it has become clear that his campaign blew the Palin vetting and selection process...and that McCain himself made a last-minute impulse decision designed to appease critics within the party who objected to his preferred choices: Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge.

If nothing else, this story nukes the McCain-the-Maverick tale that got people excited last Friday. On the contrary: It makes McCain look wimpy, unable to stand up even to those within his own party.

Just as bad, it makes McCain look incompetent. The NYT suggests that the Palin choice was so last-minute that the campaign had no time to conduct more than the most cursory vetting process. This after the candidate had more than four leisurely months in which to conduct a careful search. Prior to her nomination, Palin was interviewed once, by a McCain lawyer, and then had one in-person meeting with McCain, who immediately offered her the job:

Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

The concern here isn't Palin's pregnant daughter or own personal Troopergate. In fact, it's not even Palin. It's McCain. If this is the way the "experienced" McCain makes crucial, high-pressure decisions, his experience counts for a lot less than he says it does.

Unless Palin is lying about how far along her daughter is in her pregnancy, it's unlikely that the baby is her daughter's.

I know there is a desire to see the GOP have their hypocrisy stare them in the face (which I think it already does) but I can't celebrating something that's not good for a teenage girl.

Palin has already been caught in a lie over her position on the Bridge to Nowhere and there is probably more forthcoming problems that are political in nature.

The only potential backlash she may suffer regarding her children is if people turn away from her as a sympathetic mother and start empathizing with the kids and the fact that she knowingly placed them under such scrutiny.

Some working mothers do so out of financial necessity and not because they are career minded. There are probably some who are career minded that would sacrifice their careers for their children and attempt to pick the career up when the children are older. Who knows? Some of them might come to disagree with Palin even if they empathize with what's going on.

I don't think she's lying about the little baby boy. It's Sarah's.

But I just heard Jonathan Alter say on Morning Joe that Mitt Romney is PISSED and his people feel the pick is a disaster for the Republican brand. He also said that McCain went with the base over picking the person most comfortable to him.

I don't think she's lying about the little baby boy. It's Sarah's.

But I just heard Jonathan Alter say on Morning Joe that Mitt Romney is PISSED and his people feel the pick is a disaster for the Republican brand. He also said that McCain went with the base over picking the person most comfortable to him.

McCain can't stand Romney so he wouldn't be comfortable with him.

McCain can't stand Romney so he wouldn't be comfortable with him.

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson couldn't stand each other. But Johnson was still picked to be Kennedy's VP.

Sometimes you have to overlook personal feelings and just say "I hate his/her guts, but this person will work."

Maybe it's about being comfortable or not. But go with the devil you know.

If McCain was the mavrick he says he is he would have picked Joe or Ridge!

Monday, September 1, 2008

Jeremiah Wright's running mate?

Jake Tapper reports that Sarah and Todd Palin are former members of the Alaskan Independence Party, whose motto is "Alaska First — Alaska Always." The controversy, Tapper says, is over how hard the party has pushed for independence from the United States. But it gets a whole lot better than that.

According to Lynette Clark, a top party official with whom Tapper spoke, the Palins were members in 1994, and attended the party's statewide convention, in Wasilla, that year. Sarah Palin quit the party in 1996 in order to run for mayor of Wasilla; there is no indication of when she first joined.

Why are these dates important? Because party founder Joe Vogler, who was chairman right up until his death in 1993, was a "sulphurous" presence known for his "'America be damned' rhetoric delivered at D-9-cat decibels," according to an Anchorage Daily News editorial published in 1998.

America be damned? Gee, who does that remind you of? And could the Palins have been ignorant of Vogler's views in 1994?

To this day, the Alaskan Independence Party's Web site proudly carries the following quote from Vogler: "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." And Tapper found that Palin had sent a video message to the party's annual convention just last year.

I'm leery of relying on Wikipedia, but, given what we already know about Vogler, this seems safe: he was murdered, and, as he had previously made it clear that he wished not to be buried under the American flag, he was buried instead in the Yukon.

Country first, eh, Sen. McCain?

Let me jump ahead to the defense we can anticipate: the Alaskan Independence Party is part of the cultural milieu of Alaska, it doesn't mean the same thing to Alaskans as it would to us, Palin is really a patriotic American, blah blah blah. And you know what? I have no trouble believing any of that.*

Just as I had no trouble believing that Barack and Michelle Obama are patriotic Americans despite their long membership in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church.

*But you know what? On reflection, I wouldn't be surprised if Palin thought Alaskan independence was kind of a neat idea. That would have been the whole point to joining the party, right?

Posted by Dan Kennedy at 9:47 PM

All these controversies surrounding Palin are more interesting than the actual campaign!

Was the vetting process rushed or completely overlooked by the McCain camp regarding this ludicrous choice of a running mate?

She was introduced Friday. It is Tuesday, and there shouldn't still be more talk of the VP pick than there is of John McCain.

What the McCain campaign better hope is that nothing major comes out. If it does, that's it.

I don't think Palin was vetted at all. These are quotes from a NYT Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/us/polit...amp;_r=2&hp

“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.

“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”

The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.

State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.

The fact that so much has come out in the first three days, and the fact that she is still under investigation in her own state.... regardless of personal wrong doing by her or not.... this is not good. I mean.... I am no supporter of John McCain.... but isn't he supposed to be the one with experiance and good judgement? Isn't that his whole campaign. This is the best he could do? Goodness, if that is the case than I certainly don't want him answering that 3am phone!

Lets not take away from the huge accomplishment of Palin, a woman being put on a Republican ticket. There is something to be said there, but I mean come on this woman is no Hillary Clinton. Three quarters of the country didn't even know who she was....

This decision is just mid boggling, it really is.

And the plot thickens....again.

I hope this proves to be a disaster for the McCain campaign, it just shows what happens when you listen to Karl Rove.

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson couldn't stand each other. But Johnson was still picked to be Kennedy's VP.

Sometimes you have to overlook personal feelings and just say "I hate his/her guts, but this person will work."

Maybe it's about being comfortable or not. But go with the devil you know.

I don't even know what to say.

If he doesn't like Romney then he shouldn't have to pick him.

It's like saying that Obama had to pick Clinton.

I don't think Palin was McCain's first choice but unless Romney was his choice then Romney has no beef. Whoever was actually his choice is the one who should be bothered.

IMO all of this dirt digging is going to back fire and will eventually lead to more women supporting Palin. They will see themselves in her and will grow tired of the constant negatives. The same effect has seen Obama's popularity grow.

I find this a tad bit puzzling that you think it's going to lead to more women supporting her and not more men which would equal people in general. I think it's more likely that more men would empathize than women and men might do that if they find her attractive because they can be suckers for the pretty woman in distress.

Women tend to be harder on other women then they are on men so it's more likely that women (even if they can somewhat relate as mothers) will still take issue with her. The more this is discussed the more some women will wonder why she brought her daughter to the announcement and tried to mask her pregnancy with the baby blanket and the blanket since it was bound to come out anyway.

As I said before her children are more likely to gain empathy but the debate over whether she is a good mother or not might heat up if people start to think she unnecessarily subjected her daughter to intense media scrutiny.

And I don't get what you are saying about Obama's popularity growing from constant media negatives. I think you are comparing apples and oranges. I don't think you are suggesting that Obama's popularity is the result of media scrutiny since that would contradict that the media was biased favorably towards him which I thought you previously said (though I could be terribly mistaken).

Or are you saying he is popular because people see themselves in him? And if so, which people are those since the media is constantly suggesting the opposite?