Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty's comments

Apropos of this discussion, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/duck-dynasty-star-rants-against-homosexual-behavior-islamists-and-shintos-in-magazine-interview

It's just a little sad, in a way. They're some of the last people on the wrong side of history and are the last to realize it. I'd like to think that many similarly minded people are basically good and if they'd been raised in a different time they'd hold more considerate beliefs about others.

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/gop-politicians-defend-duck-dynasty-stars-right-to-anti-gay-comments/

The Robertson stuff is unfortunately not that shocking these days, though the fact that such a guy gets a TV show and GQ exclusive interview is. Some Republicans' "defense of his first amendment rights" really pisses me off. I understand that Duckman was within his rights to say those things, but the blatant politics and hypocrisy is unacceptable. Palin, Jindal, Cruz - as if they have any credibility anymore, but folks like them weren't defending Rev. Wright's first amendment rights at the time. In fact they were convicting Obama as un-American just for sitting in the same room with Wright. Where is their outrage about homophobia, racism, and almost comical ignorance - traits that should be un-American but are unfortunately celebrated/condoned at times for being "traditional values"?

Sure, I get it that any time Christianity seems under attack, they circle the wagons. But another important American value is not ramming your beliefs down everyone else's throats (despite FNC and the Tea Party's revisionist history to the contrary). I'm sorry that the mere existence of gays, Muslims, and ethnic minorities in "your country" makes you upset. Part of a free society is tolerating diversity and even tolerating people you can't stand. Like how thinking people have to tolerate the likes of Robertson, Palin, and Cruz. Otherwise they might as well stop hating Iran and move there, because that is the type of regime that they are promoting. Let's see if these GOP figures similarly come to the defense of Joe Biden the next time he mouths off, or god forbid an urban black celebrity. They are good Christians too, aren't they? They're just as much Americans as Robertson, right?

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In typical Palin-esque fashion, the momma grizzly admitted that she didn't even know what Robertson actually said (didn't read his statements from GQ) before opining on his free speech rights and the tyranny of political correctness/liberal intolerance. If only Robertson said something about Mein Kampf... would Palin have stood by her defense of his rights? 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/sarah-palin-admits-not-having-read--duck-dynasty--interview-180236668.html

Of all companies, Cracker Barrel pulled its Duck Dynasty themed merchandise from its restaurants after the Robertson comments, but a day later reinstated them after outcry from customers. Only in Amurrrica. :P

On a related note, here is an interview from a Harvard neuroscientist about why the human brain may be hard-wired for narrow-minded moral judgment and us-vs-them tribalism.

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201312240900

AZ Shooting: shut up, Palin

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20110112/pl_politico/47477_1
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132801364/arizona-gun-laws-among-most-lenient-in-u-s

Maybe you have heard about Palin's TV response to the AZ massacre and how she thinks the liberal media is supposedly blaming the political right and right-wing media for it all. First, Palin is not and should not be a spokesperson for our social consciousness, nor for all conservatives (half of whom oppose her running for any major public office). Just because you are famous doesn't mean we care about what you have to say. She's a celebrity, not a commentator.

Second, will the GOP ever get over their infallibility and persecution complex? Nixon was not a crook, Bush never made a mistake, and now Palin can't even shut her mouth. Yes, when a centrist Dem gets shot in the head by someone who was only able to do so because of loose laws imposed by the gun lobby and its GOP supporters, of course the first thing I think of is, "Oh those poor Republicans." Can they ever just be gracious, or at the very least shut the hell up if they have nothing useful to add? No one directly blames Palin et al. for what that deranged shooter did. But when she was responsible for 2010 campaign ads that showed gun cross-hairs targeting Rep. Gifford's district, at the very least she could have apologized to the victims for such inappropriate imagery, and caution others to not follow that example. Many other Republicans have called for restraint, toning down rhetoric, and cooperation in order to promote healing during this difficult time. But I guess that's too much for the Momma Bear.

Third, I find it insulting that Palin spent most of that drawn-out TV spot defending the First Amendment and freedom of expression. Considering the context, is she trying to defend the right to voice political extremism? Now is not the time to politicize a tragedy, especially when she is accusing the left of doing so already. I suppose the killer was trying to express himself too with his atrocious actions. We may have the right to say stupid, offensive, inflammatory things, but that doesn't mean we should celebrate it while a victim of possible political extremism is still clinging for life. And if I recall, it was the GOP that keep saying dissent against Bush and his wars was unpatriotic (Palin wasn't really part of that conversation in 2001-2004, but I'm sure she wasn't speaking out in defense of GOP opponents' right to protest). Well, everything changes once your party loses power.

For argument's sake, what if the shooter was an ultra-liberal, or a MUSLIM, and the victim was Glen Beck or John Boehner? Can you imagine the reaction from Palin and the right? Would their defense of free expression, and belief that the shooter was not politically influenced, still hold? All this makes me sick.

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Sorry, below is my "politicization" of the recent tragedy now. I am not blaming anyone for what happened, but I am merely arguing that it was potentially preventable if our leaders made different decisions. Plus I don't speak to an audience of millions, so I should be able to get away with more than Palin does.

Yes, Palin was correct that we Americans enjoy more political freedom than most humans today and throughout history, and despite that, political violence is exceedingly rare on our soil (I realize that the tragedy of this weekend has not been definitively classified as political, but the attack was not random and Giffords is a public official). Our fairly clean track record in recent history (excluding Kent State, Blair Mountain, etc.) is a testament to the strength and wisdom of our system. But one may argue that this shooting may have never occurred if the political vitriol of the past few years was not so nasty, and the dysfunctional Congress was able to pass or at least seriously discuss immigration, budgetary, and economic reforms. People in AZ and elsewhere are under a lot of stress from this long recession borne of greed and political irresponsibility, tired of bickering fools on the TV, and those living on our southern border are also very upset about the immigration impasse that affects their security and other aspects of their daily lives. Maybe the accused didn't care about any of that, but if America took better care of its finances (don't engage in wars you can't pay for) and cared more about improving quality of life for citizens (instead of giving tax breaks to the rich), maybe there would have been more opportunities and support services available for that individual to seek help instead of resorting to violence.

Or maybe in a nation with millions of guns in circulation (many which are not accounted for due to NRA resistance to gun tracking) and millions of disturbed people (many of whom are not monitored due to logistics and privacy), things like this are bound to happen now and then, even if we had a perfectly harmonious society. After all, in one-party-system, dissent-snuffing China, people stabbed and killed innocent school kids also. School shootings took place in Finland, ranked by Newsweek to be the best country in the world for having a productive, healthy, happy life. In fact, to me it's kind of amazing that tragedies like Tucson and VA Tech are not more frequent. More people die in America from auto accidents and Rx drug abuse/misuse than from gunshots if you can believe (http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201101070900). So these acts of violence can't just be attributed to violent video games, angry political rhetoric, or problems at home. There are unfortunately just random and chance components.

Among a certain population of people who have access to weapons, there are going to be a few who are willing to use them on their fellow man. Their motives may vary a lot, which makes it very hard to prevent them from harming others. Since the Tucson and VT shooters were both students (or recently students), now there's debate on whether to monitor for warning signs and force young people to seek help. Well, the VT shooter was seen for his mental issues and it didn't prevent his rampage. Surely it could have been handled better, but now are we supposed to turn each other in the minute we start to exhibit depressive, withdrawn symptoms? Educators estimate that amazingly one fourth of all college students exhibit some manifestations of mental illness or are on behavioral medication (http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201101120900). Student-vs-student murders have taken place from MIT to community college, and the weapons, student backgrounds, and circumstances have varied. Preventing an Al Qaeda attack is much easier in comparison, with far fewer variables.

So if we can't identify and prevent attackers, then we have to control the weapons, right? I know that the gun lobby is one of the most powerful in America, but if the government was able to break up Standard Oil, put a man on the moon, and freely give rights to minorities and women, it is possible. There is really no 2nd Amendment justification for high-capacity magazines and they should be prohibited (they were used during Columbine, VT, Tucson, and probably many other cases). Congress may take this up this term, but it will be an uphill battle. Fewer bullets mean fewer victims, and on the bright side for gun enthusiasts, it will encourage them to become better marksmen to make every shot count. Also, if we need licenses to drive cars, we should require certification to possess guns (basic competency, safety awareness, mental health). If employers make workers pass credit checks and drug tests, then the same should apply for gun buyers. We're just trying to protect ourselves and make sure only trustworthy people are armed. Even these measures won't prevent every attack, but it may help.

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I know what you mean. It's like when a coach fires up his players that we hate rival team X, they're a bunch of no-good punks, they're trash, let's kill 'em. When one of his riled up players pulls cheap shot in the game and sends a guy to the hospital, the coach can't just throw his hands up and say he never told him to do that. If you incite, you're partly responsible.

But for AZ, I am not sure if it's even established that he knows anything about Palin or watches FNC. He had some history with Giffords going back some years, so maybe it was just a personal obsession rather than a blind targeting of liberals or elected officials. After all, he killed a judge and a kid and others totally unaffiliated with politics, but maybe by then he was just berserk.

Those yahoos who interrupt town hall meetings or shout epithets at Obama and such are more likely directly influenced by right-wing media, but as far as I know they haven't really engaged in political violence. Maybe there were some assassination plots vs. Obama that we don't know about, but I'm not sure what to make of it.

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Just some updates on the AZ shooting story:

Apparently Loughner did say that he admired Palin and the Tea Party on some social media. He also liked Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, so like most semi-ignorant rebellious college-age kids (like I was), he's a bit politically confused. I think he distrusted government/establishment and viewed them as the enemy (yet he tried to enlist in the military?). It's too bad that he manifested his feelings on Gifford, who really contributes very little to government injustice. I guess this is a fairly common portrait of a paranoid schizo, unfortunately. Interestingly, some classmates thought of Loughner as a liberal pothead, but that was subjective of course.

FYI, the GOP opponent that Giffords ran against (and defeated) in Nov., Jesse Kelly, held a campaign event where he let supporters fire an automatic rifle, and used language like "targeting Giffords". Not sure if Loughner knew about it, but apparently people were ok with that type of campaigning until this weekend. Palin has also used gun references like "Don't retreat, reload". I have no idea what that means politically, but I doubt that she does either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/us/11district.html

I was wrong about conservatives/Teabaggers not being violent. Here is a local case with circumstantial evidence linking Fox News to political violence:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/21/oakland_police_shooting_beck_tides

Apparently Glen Beck has often railed against the leftist Tides Foundation (I've never heard of them until this week, but apparently they are on Professor Beck's famous blackboard of the liberal conspiracy). So one of his listeners (Byron Williams of rural Groveland, CA near Yosemite) was on his way to SF to shoot up the ACLU and Tides buildings in July, but was stopped by Oakland PD and got in a firefight with them instead (he had body armor and several guns). Beck had referenced Tides 5 days before the Williams shooting. I know it's not causal, but we invaded Iraq with less.

From Salon:

Williams' mother Janice told a local ABC affiliate her son often became angry watching TV news and "[h]e feels the people of this country are being raped by our government and politicians." She told the San Francisco Chronicle that Byron Williams was also upset at "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." 

If Williams was indeed motivated by anger at the government -- and it's important to note that police still haven't commented on motive -- then this is, by our count, the third recent case of people angry at the government or the Obama Administration opening fire on police. The other two cases share some strands with the Williams case (bullet-proof vests, lots of guns, traffic stops), but they resulted in the deaths of several police officers.

In April 2009, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly opened fire on police who responded to a 911 call from Poplawski's mother. Poplawski, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an assault rifle and two other guns, survived the ensuing four-hour gun battle -- but three police officers were killed. His friends said he feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon."

This past May, Jerry Kane and his teenage son Joe opened fire on police, killing two officers, when  after they were pulled over on the highway in West Memphis, Arkansas. Kane and his son, who were killed by police later that day, traveled the country giving debt-elimination seminars based on an anti-government theory that all bank loans and modern finance are fundamentally illegitimate. Kane had also complained about being stopped at a "Nazi checkpoint" in New Mexico and fantasized about beating up IRS agents.

Let's say the GOP held Washington, and right-wing media was in defense mode rather than attack. Then if McCain implemented the exact same policies as Obama/Pelosi (and he certainly would have done some), would we still have these incidents from angry conservative people ostensibly fighting gov. tyranny? If the answer is no, then we could arguably conclude the right-wing media and hateful political rhetoric led to violent acts against the police and innocent citizens. What's terribly sad is that the shooters were mad at government and Obama on false pretenses. I am not sure if FNC ever alluded to Obama taking our guns, but if they did (likely) then they are contributing to misinformation that led to deaths. If, without evidence, you tell a deranged person that the government is spying on him, and he gets all paranoid and shoots the postman, you are on the hook right? I know there are free speech considerations, but where do you draw the line?

New Yorker: Palin, Stevens, and AK politics

For the record, I don't know squat about AK politics and I don't think that this article is the singular, definitive authority (one source can never be). It's just a knowledgeable writer's viewpoint, but it presents an interesting story during this unique political period.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gourevitch

It's amazing how Palin's brief political career has already been well exposed and analyzed in the mainstream press, so really this article doesn't offer much new, but instead does a good job thematically piecing together what we know about Palin. It describes an interesting schizophrenia and conflict-of-message surrounding the GOP presidential ticket and Ted Stevens-style traditional Alaskan politics. That's like most other states and communities too of course. According to this source, AK society is torn between a fiercely libertarian independent, live-off-the-land frontiersman mentality at odds with the meddling federal government, and a literal dependence on playing the political game to secure federal dollars for the state's very survival (since it is one of the harshest climates in America). The author coined this cultural phenomenon as "subsidized subsistence".

So on one hand, you have 40-years-in-the-Senate Ted Stevens, who was voted "Alaskan of the Century" and proclaimed "Senator for life" (metaphorically) by his constituency. He is a "Rockefeller Republican" believing in fiscal conservatism and minimal federal interference in state's affairs. Yet every 6 years he is re-elected on a platform of "AK first", meaning that he will do everything in his power to secure as much resources for the impoverished state as possible, and being a former President Pro-Tem and senior member of the Appropriations Committee helps a lot. And to get things, we all know you have to give things. An FBI corruption probe of AK politicians' dealings with oil companies has already ended several careers since 2006, and Stevens is heading to trial this month. Combative McCain doesn't have a ton of friends in the Senate (GOP or otherwise), and is at odds with Stevens and others whom he views as "pork-peddlers", which puts Palin in an awkward position. Even if Stevens is found not guilty and wins re-election in November, business as usual will have to change. Some Alaskans really fear the post-Stevens and post-earmark-reform days ahead, where they feel that AK will be set on a starvation course.

25% of Alaskans are registered with the GOP, vs. 15% with the Dems, and many others do not choose to affiliate with a party. While the state could be labeled as "conservative" (it went red the last few elections and most of its top leaders are Republican), it also happens to be one of the most socialistic in America, with each Alaskan enjoying thousands of dollars in state dividend payments from collectively-owned natural resources (in good years or lean), as well as many protectionist laws for state workers and minorities. So I guess they try to have it both ways, and maybe it has to be. Much of AK is barren or Third World, and the cost of living can be quite expensive due to the need to import even basic goods. Although over a million barrels of crude a day flow from AK's soil to the lower 48, soaring energy costs have really hurt Alaskans who may need to drive 100 miles or even boat/plane to the nearest town, and heavily heat their homes when it's -50 degrees outside.

So where does that leave Sarah Palin? She is AK's favorite daughter now, but she was born in Idaho and actually her politics are very different than the AK norm. She has touted her anti-corruption and reform credentials on McCain's "Country first" ticket, yet her record suggests she has operated within the "AK first" political mindset. Most Alaskan conservatives are secular, pragmatic Rockefeller Republicans like pro-choice Stevens, yet Palin's dogma and views appear more "Bush-like" Southern conservative. So if Obama wants to paint McCain as "more of the same", actually he should start with Palin. Former sports journalist Palin became mayor of Wasila (part of Alaska's small evangelical "Bible Belt" in the Mat-Su Valley) by first rubbing elbows with the State GOP and getting on the city council. Gradually she booted out the other councilmen that she once sucked up to, and as mayor dismissed them as "good ol' boys". As mayor, she raised taxes, networked with the well-connected to secure millions in public-works earmarks for her community, while also driving Wasila into legal trouble and debt over an ill-conceived sports complex.

As governor, she wanted creationism to be taught alongside evolution in schools, but did not call for any anti-abortion legislation. She is pro-capital punishment, but did not try to overturn the state's no-dealth-penalty tradition. She has doubts that humans contribute to global warming, but now must back McCain's environmental policy. Well, McCain was originally against ANWR drilling (Palin and Stevens have always supported it), but now that gas is $4 and the Dems showed political weakness on energy, he pounced. So Palin has strong Southern Republican-esque beliefs, but as AK's youngest and first female government, she knew not to rock to boat too much and enjoyed an 80% approval rating (the highest of any current governor). So is she a reformer who took personal risks to challenge entrenched interests and the status quo, or not? Actually she feels that the highlight of her tenure in Juneau is delivering on a long-stalled new natural gas pipeline project. She claims that she thumbed her nose at Big Oil when they wanted their palms greased, and instead gave the contract to a Canadian firm with no kickbacks. This is another Palin half-truth, because currently the project is still stalled over $500M that the legislature can't come up with (administrative costs that the state promised to the Canadian firm before they break ground). And actually the upstream gas producers haven't even agreed to ship product through the pipeline yet, so the project won't do anyone any good if the pipe is empty. She may have to suck up to Big Oil after all. All political mavericks learn that in order to survive, you have to get along and go along sometimes. Change usually comes from the inside, and you can't force change down people's throats, especially powerful people who you still need to get things done. This has and will apply to Obama as well.

I thought this article did a good job of presenting the current headlines on Stevens and Palin (Troopergate, Bridge to Nowhere, etc.) within the context of the unique AK political mindset. I find it interesting that if McCain and Palin get the chance to make good on their promise of "cleaning up Washington", they may actually have to start with AK appropriations, even if many Alaskans depend of subsidy for survival. Something's gotta give. It's hard to be a true fiscal, or even social, conservative if you come from AK. But maybe that shows how rugged, independent AK is more representative of America than we might think. Maybe us in the "lower 48" have become too engrossed in party ideology and accepted this artificial, simplistic, binary political identity for too long. There is no such thing as being totally liberal or conservative, and anyone who is really scares me. Each voter is unique and each issue means different things to different people, depending on the circumstances - which can change constantly. That's why I think the political flip-flop argument is really laughable in most cases. Obviously AK's circumstances are much different than Washington's, and therefore that state produces singular leaders like Stevens and Palin.

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Some highlights of the article:

Many Alaskans enjoy being disconnected from the Lower Forty-eight, which is sometimes referred to as if it were a foreign country. There is pride in this sense of apartness, and that pride has been stung repeatedly since 2006, when the F.B.I. began raiding state lawmakers' offices in an ever-expanding anti-corruption campaign. There have been indictments and guilty pleas. Oil-industry executives who were caught on videotape in the Baranof Hotel, in Juneau, the state capital, giving cash handouts to a state legislator have coöperated in pointing out other state legislators who liked to get paid before voting on oil-industry tax rates. Last year, the F.B.I. hit the home of Ted Stevens, Alaska's six-term senator, and he became a favorite figure of ridicule on "The Daily Show": an angry little man, with an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Magoo, who had once made himself seem even older than his eighty-plus years by describing the Internet as "a series of tubes"; Jon Stewart called him a "coot," and portrayed him as a bully and a crook. As I travelled around Alaska in mid-August, Alaskans wanted me to understand that, sadly, he might well be all of that—and a very good thing for the state, too.
So Ted Stevens may have saved my life—and that was something a great many Alaskans could say as they looked about at the roads and bridges, the hospitals and flood-control systems, the satellite weather and global-positioning relay stations, the sprawling Army and Air Force bases, the rural landing strips and postal air-cargo flights that sustain existence in Alaska as it enters its fiftieth year of statehood. Much of this infrastructure was the result of Stevens's work on the Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees, and he made no apologies for his transactional approach to politics. On the contrary, as he brought Alaska the highest number of federal dollars per capita in the nation, he boasted that he was doing his job. Still, Stevens's decision to launch a reëlection campaign in the middle of a federal investigation required more than ordinary moxie.

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Ralph Seekins, a former state senator who runs the Ford dealership in Fairbanks and serves on the Republican National Committee, told me, "There's a natural suspicion among most Alaskans of the federal government, and the leader of the resistance against that federal government is Ted Stevens." It was a curious description of a man who had done more than any other to wring from the federal budget the funds to make Alaska thrive and grow toward self-sufficiency. But it made sense. Confronted with the choice between subsistence and subsidy, the Alaska patriot has traditionally favored the pragmatic compromise: subsidized subsistence.

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Back in Bethel, I met a dentist, a man who ran a janitorial-supplies service, and a man who ran a fuel service. I asked them how they thought Bethel and the villages it supported would fare without Ted Stevens in the Senate, in a time without earmarks. The dentist said, "We're fucked," and the janitorial-supplies man said, "There will be ghost towns." The fuel-oil man pointed to a hard black, jagged, wedge-shaped object on his desk, and asked if I knew what kind of tooth it was. "Mastodon," he said.

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"It's the most momentous political season I've lived through in Alaska," Pat Dougherty, the editor of the Anchorage Daily News, the state's largest newspaper, told me—and that was three weeks before the governor, Sarah Palin, became the human cannonball of the Presidential campaign and blasted into overlapping orbits of political and tabloid super-celebrity. Just about everyone in Alaska knew that Palin was on John McCain's list of potential running mates, but no one in the state's insular, Republican political world had seen any indication that the campaign was checking her background. That made sense to Dougherty. Palin was forty-four years old and had served only a year and a half as governor, and he said, "The idea of her as Vice-President is ridiculous. She'd be way in over her head."

Then again, two years ago Dougherty hadn't considered Palin ready to be governor, even after she prevailed in the Republican primary against the deeply unpopular incumbent, Frank Murkowski, who had previously spent twenty-two years as Alaska's junior senator. "We endorsed the Democrat in her race," he said. "We didn't think she had the experience." Looking back, Dougherty allowed that he had underestimated Palin. After twenty months in office, she enjoyed an eighty-per-cent approval rating—the highest in the nation—and although he said he wouldn't yet call himself an admirer, he described her performance as "great spectator sport." Dougherty was particularly impressed by her tough, you-deal-with-Alaska-on-Alaska's-terms attitude toward the big oil producers on whom the state's economy largely depends.

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Palin's record as the mayor of Wasilla, a town forty miles north of Anchorage, told a somewhat different story. According to "Sarah," a biography by Kaylene Johnson, Palin had got into politics after she befriended the man who was then mayor and his police chief at a step-aerobics class. She made them her allies and ran for City Council. Then she challenged them for control of City Hall, and drove them out. As she purged her former friends and patrons, she denounced them as "good ol' boys," although her takeover of Wasilla had been aided from the start by Alaska's Republican Party establishment.
Palin's style of governing was unorthodox and at times impulsive. Although she boasts of a record as a fiscal conservative, she raised the sales tax while she was in office. She left the town saddled with millions of dollars in debt from the building of a new sports complex, and with legal fees, because she had failed to secure title to the land on which the complex was built. Casting herself in the Ted Stevens mold, however, she had proved herself skilled at collecting federal earmarks for Wasilla, bringing in twenty-seven million dollars for her small town in three years.

Palin's biggest difference with Alaska's Republican establishment, then, was not so much fiscal as it was social. Ted Stevens is one of the last of the Rockefeller Republicans—the real thing, as he supported Nelson Rockefeller over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential race. He is essentially secular and skeptical of government, and favors abortion rights—a common profile in Alaska, a state that attracts a strong streak of libertarians and rugged individualists. By contrast, Palin belongs to the state's small evangelical community, which is centered in the Mat-Su Valley, around Wasilla. She thinks that creationism should be taught in the public schools alongside Darwinian evolution, she was called the town's "first Christian mayor" by a local TV station, and she asked the town librarian about banning books, but did not follow through.

As governor, Palin has done nothing to impose her religious or social views. Alaska has no death penalty, and during the campaign she said that she would support one, but never made an issue of it; she opposed abortion even for pregnancies caused by rape, but this was a personal opinion, not a legislative cause. In fact, she refused requests to put abortion bills on the agenda during a special legislative session this summer, preferring to discuss the natural-gas pipeline, which she pursued in such a bipartisan manner that she ultimately won more solid support for it from Democrats than from Republicans. While Republicans hold most of the state's top political posts, only twenty-five per cent of Alaskan voters are registered Republicans. Fifteen per cent are Democrats, and three per cent belong to the Alaska Independence Party—the extremist states' rights, quasi-secessionist faction to which Todd Palin once pledged his allegiance. A solid majority of Alaska's electorate claims no party affiliation. Alaskans kept telling me that Alaskans vote for the person, not the party.

So it was startling to see Palin emerge in the last days of August as an icon of the evangelical base of the Republican Party, and as a fierce—often vituperative—partisan scourge, mocking Barack Obama's character and positions. It was startling, too, to hear her, in her début speech to the Republican National Convention, reading a script that consistently distorted her own record. She said that she had put her predecessor's jet for sale on eBay, which was true, except that this is how government property was often disposed of in Alaska, and the plane didn't sell online; it had to be unloaded through a private deal, at a loss of half a million dollars.

Palin also said that she told Congress "thanks but no thanks" for the notorious Bridge to Nowhere—a Ted Stevens and Don Young earmark project that had long been a target of John McCain's ridicule. (The bridge, which would have cost nearly four hundred million dollars, was intended to provide access from one island to an airport on a smaller island, with a population of fifty people.) In reality, Palin had supported the bridge in her gubernatorial race, even after Congress revoked the earmark, but abandoned it following the election and directed the money Alaska had received to other projects.

And, of course, Palin touted her gas-pipeline project. "I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history," she said. "And, when that deal was struck, we began a nearly forty-billion-dollar natural-gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence." That was not entirely accurate. She was still waiting for the state legislature to release the five hundred million dollars she'd promised the pipeline company to help pay for administrative costs. But the crowd loved it. Many of the delegates wore lapel buttons that said, "Coldest State, Hottest Governor."

That same week, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, announced, "This election is not about issues." What mattered, he said, was the "composite view" that voters would form of the candidates. On a talk show, the Washington bureau chief of Time told Nicole Wallace, a McCain spokesperson, that it was still unclear whether Palin was ready "to answer tough questions about domestic policy, foreign policy." Wallace laughed. "Like from who? From you?" And she asked, "Who cares if she can talk to Time magazine?"

Attacking the press is nothing new in the playbook of political defense, but it took a bold twist when the McCain campaign contrived to transform a family problem—the pregnancy of Palin's unmarried seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol—into a vindication of Palin's Christian family values. Surely, it had not been part of McCain's plan for his untested Vice-Presidential pick to start Day Four of her rollout by announcing Bristol's plans to marry the baby's father, Levi Johnston, who, as the Times reported, recently dropped out of high school. The campaign said that it was going public in order to quash offensive rumors that were circulating on the Internet: that Sarah Palin's five-month-old baby, Trig, who has Down syndrome, was not really hers but Bristol's, and that the Governor had faked her pregnancy in order to cover for her unwed daughter. This Faulknerian story had been making the rounds in Alaska for months—I heard versions of it in Anchorage and Juneau within twenty-four hours of arriving in each city—and it derived from the peculiar circumstances surrounding Trig's birth.

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Sarah Palin's makeover was just beginning, but the campaign had scored a critical victory: the press, in asking about the least-known potential President in recent memory, had been made to look contemptible. When, at last, Palin appeared at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, most of the forty million Americans who watched her on TV were seeing her for the first time.

The control of Palin by the McCain campaign was one of many ways in which it transformed her into someone largely unrecognizable to people who knew her in Alaska, where she hadn't shown a great interest in national economic issues other than energy policy, or in international affairs, and where she was viewed as more often seeking the attention of the press than avoiding it. For her first two weeks on the Presidential ticket, Palin was kept cocooned by handlers, except at rallies, where she read an adumbrated version of her Convention speech over and over, even as many of its claims were being debunked. When a Fox News anchor demanded to know when she could be interviewed, Rick Davis explained that he would allow access only to reporters who showed "deference."

Would Hillary have "Palin-proofed" Obama?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080910/pl_politico/13317

Well, let's be honest - if Obama picked Hillary, Palin wouldn't even be on McCain's ticket. But JMac saw an opening and he took a big risk, which at least for now appears to be paying off. Even if she lies about the Bridge to Nowhere and may know less about foreign policy than us, it doesn't really matter because she has done what she was asked to do: "energize" the GOP, which is what they needed more than a boring veteran DC wonk like Biden.

But this ongoing (and clearly it is still ongoing) Hillary-Obama feud may continue to divide and hurt the party more than it already has. Sure the Clintons have enthusiastically endorsed Obama (publicly at least), and Obama has swallowed his pride to seek out advice from Wise Bill as his lead in the polls evaporated. Millions of Hillary supporters have been convinced and rallied behind Obama, but millions of others haven't, even though those two candidates' stances on the issues are 90% similar. For any of them to even consider McCain-Palin demonstrates that there's clearly a major personal rift that I don't think the Obama camp has sufficiently addressed. It's not enough to just say "Can't we all get along?" and stress party unity for the sake of beating the GOP. Anyone can say those things, but if Obama is truly a uniter and a transcender, then he needs to do more, personally, to heal the party and convince/reach out to hesitant or angry Hillary supporters. Is it that hard to figure out why they still dislike him and rectify it?

It made a lot of sense to get Hillary on the ticket, but the Obamaniacs ignored better judgment. If the objective in selecting a VP is getting someone who will give you the most help to win the election, then Hillary is the best choice by far (assuming Gore is retired). If the objective is to pick someone who will work well with you, then she's not so attractive (she can compliment him though). If the objective is to pick someone wise who can help the president craft policy, Hillary has some knowledge but clearly there are others more astute. But that is what a cabinet is for! Biden could be Sec. of State or whatnot. Those two were already colleagues and friends, so Biden would obviously do a lot to help an Obama presidency - he doesn't have to be VP. Clearly many Americans think Hillary can be a good president, but Obama has spent the last year trying to de-legitimize her (and the media haven't been "fair" with her either). Of course she and Bill have screwed themselves too. Maybe Obama wasn't ready to reverse course so drastically now and seek the help of a former enemy, which also might be seen a sign of weakness to the GOP (but as if they have an answer to the Dem's dream ticket!). But it could also be construed as a great sign of leadership, "change", and reconciliation that might play out well with independents and the white people that Palin is attracting.

I thought it was also interesting that on Day 1 of the DNC, before the Clintons' speeches, prominent Hillary-supporter and SF Mayor Gavin Newsome said that he and other Hillary supporters got a general feeling of disrespect from the Obama campaign leading up to and at the convention. This seems like a petty divorce court feud for the soul of the Dem Party. Are we the Clinton's party or Obama's? Neither of course! We're the people's party, and we're all just Americans. We should stop this cult rivaly crap before we lose the White House, and clearly it is the Dems' game to lose.

From L: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-mckay/were-gonna-frickin-lose-t_b_124772.html

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Also from the Huffington Post that L sent me, advice for Obama:

3. Stop talking about Sarah Palin and rebutting her lies. NOBODY CARES WHAT THE FACTS ARE. They are influenced by her persona -- the impression they take away from her appearances. When you allow yourselves to become distracted and start serving as a Republican fact-checker, you come across as petty and self-congratulating. Same applies to McCain.

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Could Clinton have Palin-proofed Dems?
Glenn Thrush, Martin Kady II Wed Sep 10, 5:32 AM ET
Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller says Barack Obama had only one shot at Palin-proofing the Democratic ticket — and he missed it when he passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate. "Every woman in America knows what Barack Obama did to Hillary Clinton: He looked at her and thought, 'There's no way I'm doing that,'" said Miller. "If Hillary was on the ticket, he'd be in a much better position to win women voters."
Sarah Palin's presence — coupled with Clinton's absence — may be altering one of the great verities of American politics: that women voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week showed white women swinging hard against the Democratic ticket. Obama left Denver with an 8-point lead among white women; by the time John McCain pulled out of St. Paul, Minn., with Palin at his side, he had taken a 12-point lead.
Former Clinton strategist and pollster Mark Penn on Tuesday said that it's too soon to know where women will wind up in November, and he declined to engage in any "woulda, coulda, shoulda" speculation about how things might be different if Clinton were on the Democratic ticket. But another former Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the "Obama people have got to be kicking themselves" for not putting choosing Clinton as his No. 2.
Julia Piscitelli of the American University's Women and Politics Institute agreed. "I don't think Palin would be seeing these kind of gains if Hillary was on the ticket," she said. "When Obama picked Biden, it gave Republicans an opening, and they are taking full advantage of it. ... The question is: How long will it last?"
The answer, some Democrats say, is not long. "I don't think this is a real swing [in the polls] until it's been a week, said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of Obama's busiest female surrogates. "We'll need to see whether Sarah Palin is willing to answer questions. ... No one will be a stronger advocate for Barack Obama and Joe Biden than Hillary Clinton."
Sen. Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Ark.) also sounded the Palin-will-wilt-in-the-spotlight theme. "Sarah Palin delivered a great speech, but we haven't heard anything else about what she's going to do," Lincoln said. "American women are smart, they're bright and this election isn't just about Sarah Palin. This is about what they want to do for the country."
The Obama campaign has denied that it has a serious problem with female voters. On Monday, campaign manager David Plouffe told a Washington Post reporter, "Your poll is wrong," adding, "We certainly are not seeing any movement like that. Polls, time to time, particularly on the demographic stuff, can have some pretty wild swings."
That view won support from two unlikely sources Tuesday: Penn and a Republican senator who backs the McCain-Palin ticket. Penn said that women are going to be "the absolute swing vote in this campaign, and it's not clear which direction they are going to go in. "I don't think it's a Hillary backlash we're seeing," he added. "With Palin on the ticket, we're going to be seeing this thing swing back and forth."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has had a strained relationship with her state's governor, downplayed Palin's power. "I find it difficult to believe that many of the Hillary supporters are going to come over just because of Sarah Palin," Murkowski said. "It should be about strength of positions" and policy.
But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is locked in a tough race of her own, says several women — former Clinton supporters — have come up to her in Maine to say Palin gives them a reason to back McCain. "I have never seen such excitement in the Republican Party as we're seeing in response to Sarah Palin," Collins said. "I've had a lot of Democrats and independent women in Maine who say they're happy to see a woman on the ticket. Many of them saw an Obama-Clinton ticket as unbeatable. ... That is significant and remarkable."
Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Assistant Director Peter A. Brown said the Obama campaign is fooling itself if it discounts the importance of the problem. "This isn't about Hillary; it's about Obama's problem with white women voters," he said. "Hillary won about 10 million votes from women voters in the Democratic primaries — there are 52 million women voting in the general election."
Clinton has said she'll hit the road for Obama, but her team says she refuses to be an anti-Palin "attack dog." Further complicating matters for Obama, Hillaryland fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell is leading a group that will fight media sexism against the Alaska governor.

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I have two complains with this email.

I think you are gravely OVER estimating how many Hillary supporters will actually vote for McCain. Especially now that Palin is on board. The latest poll I saw, which may have been before Palin was selected, had the VAST majority of Hilary supporters on board with Obama, 90/10 kind of vast. And with Palin on the ticket, with her extremely conservative pro-life views, it is hard to believe she will pick up many Hilary supporters.
I think that there are many problems with putting Hilary on the ticket as the VP. It may seem like appeasement to her voters but it also may seem like pity, or a superficial ploy. And were they to work together, it is hard to fathom Hilary taking a backseat by choice. And as we have seen with Cheney, a VP has more leeway than one might imagine for the easiest job in America. It is just too dangerous politically to let someone that powerful in Washington with that many backers be your running mate when she STILL wants your job. A lot of that is based on hypotheticals, but plausible in my opinion.

I think the best way to have done it was to have a pseudo offer to Hilary which she would gracefully decline. Maybe not a public rejection, but a press conference where Hilary or Obama mentions a private chat they had with the other concerning the VP spot and a graceful but firm no. Save face and show support. What Hilary folk seem to fear is that they are forgotten/not important to Obama, which I think that would have alleviated somewhat.

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Yeah I agree with that. I was not saying that Hillary's Dem supporters are flocking to the GOP - as you said, it's like 90-10 (though that "10" is still about two million passionate voters). But Hillary could have given Obama the full 100, plus swayed a lot of undecided, blue-collar types who may be disillusioned with the Republicans after the Bush years. Biden really means nothing to them (I refuse to believe that his humble upbringing in PA 50 years ago will win battleground states for the Dems). Now Palin is a gimmick who offers them an intriguing option.

Sometimes a VP is a blessing and a curse to a ticket, and there's no way around it (I don't know pre-WWII presidential history, but we have the LBJ, Agnew, Cheney, and Quayle examples at least). Hillary would get a lot of attention and maybe cause some rivalry/tension with Obama, but what is wrong with that? In European governments, the top leaders compete and feud with each other all the time, yet stuff still gets done. Maybe with Hillary and Obama to keep each other in check, we can actually make government cooperative/collaborative instead of being so caught up in who gets the credit and who is the visionary. They would be a dysfunctional ticket at times, but what else is new? It's not like Biden won't be a liability here and there.

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I think perhaps that I think more of Hilary’s ambition than you. I don’t think she would cause “minor” problems, I’m considering more of a purposefully undermining his presidency to give herself the next term, even that term if she is lucky. But that is not a reality at this point, so who can say. And I agree, Biden is a nothing VP choice, Obama is so magnetic and different that it is hard to be in his shadow on the national scene.

What I DO disagree with wholeheartedly is that Palin is an intriguing option. I was reading just today how she is claiming executive privilege on her emails (sound familiar) that were from A) her personal account (gov.sara@YAHOO.COM) and B) many of them were addressed to her husband. So…where is the executive privilege? Home account…to husband…I’m not seeing it. But it sounds like a whole lot more of the same. Just one of the many steps I have seen that takes Palin from a nobody who I can’t believe made the ticket to someone I am actively against having in office.

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I guess because she is an "executive" and backed by more lawyers that we are. Well, if she read her Yahoo! user agreement carefully, she really has no security, privacy, and "rights" to her public account.

I don't know if I'd rate Hillary's prospects as a statesman(woman) so poorly. I agree that she is a pure ambitious political animal, sometimes quite phony and self-serving. But for a VP to try to undermine her own president while in office is nearly unprecedented in Western politics and worse than The Sopranos (well, her campaign ad with Bill did make an allusion to that show!). Plus, what can a VP really do to help or hurt a president anyway? So if I read you right, you think that she would try to ruin Obama's first term, and then try to weasel her way to the head of the ticket when they're up for re-election? "Obama couldn't get it done, so for the good of America I must step in." I mean, it's possible, but no way the Dem Party or media would let her get away with that. Also remember that she didn't run for president in 2004 when she could have, and might have had a better chance than Kerry to beat Bush. She probably wanted to run, but was dissuaded by Party bosses or other factors. If she was 100% ambitious as you said, wouldn't she have taken her first chance then? I think part of her does love America more than herself and wants to do the right thing, but that part is buried deep inside her, like Darth Vader.

And for Palin - of course I'm not saying that she can be a great leader with what little I know of her. But you can't deny that she is captivating a lot of Americans and getting them more interested in politics, as Obama did for the left (though some of that is starting to wear off). Some Americans are intrigued by her, which is a boost to the GOP. Was McCain's big convention bounce (maybe 5-10 points) because of Rudy's speech? On The Daily Show they were interviewing GOP delegates as to why they liked Palin (to demonstrate that they don't really know why they like her), and one said, "Because she shows that anyone can be VP." Of course that was meant to mock her, but it is also amazing how quickly this previously anonymous politician has been embraced by the skeptical right as "one of us".

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Hillary's ideal scenario here is not to be VP. It's that Obama loses this election and in 4 years she's again the obvious Dem pick for President (and the Clintons regain control of the party). She can't be seen torpedoing Obama because that would get her shut out, so she presented a strong convention speech and all that. But her incentive is to hold back some of her support.

I don't know that the Palin pick is expected to go after the hardcore Hillary supporters, the people who go to caucuses and carry signs and all that - it would be hard to imagine politicians who have fewer policy points in common. Rather, it's aimed at the far larger group of independent female voters (and more casually-Democratic voters).

And the trap the GOP has set with Palin is actually more subtle and evil than just "Hey lady-voters, we've got someone on the ticket who has the same gender as you!" It makes it very easy for the GOP to cast people who oppose Palin as sexist. This is fairly cheap, but it's reasonably effective at galvanizing voters - the GOP can paint it that the Democrats are trying to keep women out of the White House, present it to women as an "us vs them", and so on. It's certainly hilarious to watch; I saw James Carville get caught out by this on some news-debate show a week ago, and then spend several minutes having to backpedal as the GOP congresswoman he was arguing with beat him about the head and shoulders with the sexism card. And I'd expect to see a lot more of this after the VP debates, charges that Biden bullies or talks down to Palin, etc.

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Thanks for your input J, we've missed you these last few months!

Yes I agree that VP is not necessarily in Hilly's best career interests, but if she cares about her party and cares about the country, it should be on her mind. She was interviewed about being Obama's VP, and said that she would take the offer if it was given (first link). Maybe it was just lip service, but she put it out there. The second link is another article further promoting the potential benefits of an Obama-Clinton ticket. But I guess big egos and especially big Dem egos have trouble playing team ball.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/03/ap-clinton-says-shes-open-to-being-obamas-vp-candidate/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-reardon/why-obama-and-clinton-wou_b_101603.html

Hillary's senate career is not promising (she's still Schumer's junior in NY and won't head a cmte. for years), so veep could have been better for her. Yes it does "work in her interests" if Obama loses (and then could chastise the Dems, "I told you so"), but as you said, it will come to haunt her if she is perceived as not having done everything in her power to get the Dems back to the White House this year. Already she didn't do much to promote Kerry/Edwards in 2004. I think many black Americans and hardcore Obamaniacs already feel that way and don't trust Clinton, which is a sad reflection on the party today. But still, there is sexism involved because people hold her to higher standards. Why does she have to be Obama's #1 champion, the man who stole her show and let down millions of American women who thought this was "their time"? Of course Clinton let them and herself down too. But where is the criticism about silenced Edwards not supporting Obama enough (he has his marriage to repair), or famous Clinton backers like Mayors Villeraigosa/Newsome, or even another female like Pelosi, who didn't take a side in the Obama-Clinton war? I guess Hillary wanted to be better than everyone else, and now she's got to deal with extra scrutiny.

Regarding what you said about the GOP Palin sexism trap, I totally agree and that was one of my first thoughts when McCain announced her as running mate a couple weeks ago. Biden already roughs up his male colleagues plenty, so I'm sure his handlers will shoot him up with valium before the debate with Palin. Of course the Dems and Obama camp are playing it safe, and only sending out fellow popular female governors Sebelius & Napolitano to badmouth Palin. Supposedly sexism-proof attack dogs? Clinton, however, said that she wouldn't go that far for Obama, and her people said that Obama has not asked her to do so, at least on the record. Though who the hell would admit to asking a popular feminist voice to badmouth a rival female politician? I think it's at least on their minds.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080905/pl_politico/13193_1
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/condon.palin/index.html?section=cnn_latest

As you said, I don't think anyone in the GOP are foolish enough to believe that Palin alone can sway the hardcore Hillary backers who are also hardcore feminists and liberals. She may have sway with the suburban moms and centrist undecideds, as you, M, and I said before. But even before the Palin VP pick was announced, millions of angry Hillary backers had already shunned the Obama alternative and started groups and blogs like "Hillary supporters for McCain" (some examples below). Of course this is just the Net, so not sure how representative such attitudes are of the Hillary Dems in general. As we previously discussed, 90% of them are behind Obama, but that number is a lot lower than it should be. Did disappointed Dean or Gephart supporters refuse to back Kerry in 2004? It's a sad personality feud, which is something that the Dems can't afford now or ever.

http://hillarysupportersformccain.blogspot.com/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/26/clinton.backers/

Well another boost that Hillary could bring to the ticket is money and influence. I know Obama has plenty of both (the former in record amounts, and no, it's not all from patriotic "small donors" online). Hillary's finances were a mess after the primaries, but she could connect Obama to her elite fundraising networks, famous fans, and other power players. Of course Obama supposedly wants to shun such campaign influences, but we all know he holds plenty of private VIP fundraisers and no-media-allowed exclusive events too. Well, maybe all this worrying is unneccesary because Obama still has a good chance to win without Hillary on his ticket.

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T wrote in his first email that Palin was picked to "energize" the GOP. To be specific, she was picked for the very traditional reason that all of her views are in line with the people who don't like McCain. McCain calls himself a maverick partly on this reasoning, there are a lot of people in the GOP (mostly traditional far right and religious types) who hate his guts. Palin offsets that. And I believe that is a very traditional common way to pick a vp, find someone to offset your weaknesses. The problem is that these far right types don't simply dislike McCain but actually pray for him to die in office.

http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/221089.html#cutid1
Warning: This guy is a hardcore left wing type. But he quotes another website that's amusing. Also it's probably immoral for me to copy and paste a whole page but people on the internet in general (me=guilty) tend not to go to links. So whatever.

"A few days ago, I posted a snarky little piece on Sarah Palin. In it, I suggested that McCain, in giving Palin the VP slot on the GOP ticket, was rallying the far-right base by dangling the very real possibility of his imminent death in front of their hateful, blood-thirsty little eyes. To the left, I suggested, Palin is a veiled threat, but to the right she's a coded promise.

The piece was intended as a kind of dark imagining of the far-right mind, satire, perhaps, if you will. Well, if there's anything the past 8 years have taught me, the morning's satire goes stale by lunchtime as the far right catches up to it and makes it news instead of comedy.

Jay Rogers, a real-life evangelical, has a website, The Forerunner, where he talks up Jesus. Part of the site is his weblog, where he talks about more political stuff. He's supporting someone named Chuck Baldwin for president, which is his right and good for him.

The other day he published a piece on Sarah Palin. His only problem with Palin, it seems, is that she's running for vice-president instead of president. If she were running for president, he'd toss his fave Chuck Baldwin overboard like week-old manna. Why does he like Palin? I'll let him talk: "She's pro-life and would work to overturn Roe v. Wade. She would lower taxes and return America to a supply-side free market in the philosophy of Adam Smith. She's a strong Christian who isn't afraid to confront moral issues and corruption in politics." Which, again, good for him. And, he seems to want to fuck her brains out. Which, okay, to each his own, I can think of worse reasons to vote for someone.

But, you know, there's a problem. Palin, that fine, foxy, hypocritical, corrupt, book-banning, oil-money-loving Christian babe is still anchored to that godless heathen McCain. What is a hateful, intolerant fundamentalist Christian to do? Luckily, Rogers has a "three point plan:"

1. Vote Constitution Party. (I vote my conscience and cannot support McCain even with Palin.)

2. Hope and pray for McCain/Palin to win. (I am an idealist, but also a realist!)

3. Pray for John McCain's salvation and pray specific imprecatory prayers if he fails to pro-actively defend the sanctity of human life.

Huh. Funny thing about those "imprecatory prayers." There's something a little threatening about that phrase. I wonder if there's another meaning behind it? In fact, I wonder if there's an earlier version of this column, posted but redacted, that might better clarify Rogers' position? What? There is?



Ah, there it is: "Pray for John McCain's salvation and speedy death." How very Christian.

I hate it when I'm right.

This original was, of course, scrubbed from Rogers's site within hours, but speedy hands were able to recover it.

I knew that McCain was eager to rid himself of any shred of dignity he possessed in order to win this election, but even I would have thought he'd stop short of promising his own death to get votes. It seems there is no underestimating the man.

(If you would like more bile, there's always Ixion, who goes so far as to stage an inspirational image of the assassination of John McCain. These are, seriously, the people McCain wants to vote for him -- the ones who want him dead by the end of January 2009.)"


So Palin being a woman probably factored into it, (as if they couldn't find a man with those values) but her views are the primary factor in her getting a vp nomination. On the positive side, I never imagined hardcore republicans wanting to get a woman into office so badly.

I don't have much to add on the Hilary being a vp thing other than that public perception is that they are not big fans of each other. Whether that is true or not (I'm pretty sure it is) its enough that I think an Obama/Hilary ticket would have been more harmful than helpful. I also agree that her ambition for the office would be transparent and harmful to the democratic party and all that other stuff others have mentioned.

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It's good that you brought up these points, Glarg. Of course with all the BS in the media about "culture wars", "true conservative", and whatnot, I think hatred for McCain by the religion right is ludicrous, and I don't envy him for having to work with them to try to become president. Is it just because he doesn't invoke Jesus every day to help us win our "crusade" against terror? Just because he called out extremists like Robertson and Falwell for what they are? Just because he won't kiss their born-again asses and pander for their support like Bush and others might? Huckabee, despite being a former minister, didn't sink that low either. Many old school conservatives feel that the hijacking of the GOP by the Christian Coalition/religious right is a bigger danger to their values and the future of their party than the Dems.

Is McCain a "maverick" because he tries to reform corrupt campaign finance, actually speaks to people on the other side of the aisle, and doesn't want to deport 12M undocumented workers overnight? I thought that was called being "reasonable". McCain's views vacillate when convenient like most politicians, but consistently he has been for small government, free trade, low taxes, ethics, anti-abortion, and ant-gay marriage. What's not to like there for a church-going conservative? Just because he doesn't publicly endorse creationism means he's not one of them? Bottom line, McCain was going to pick a "typical" modern conservative as his running mate, Palin, Pawlenty, Romney (despite his universal health care baggage), or otherwise. As you said, the veep should compliment the president. And to have it both ways, they're selling Palin as a true conservative who also happens to be a reformer (in their imagination at least).

Chopes and I were discussing how maybe JMac's old trusted friend Lieberman was his first choice, but obviously it would have angered a lot of GOPers and split the party with little political gains for them. Some Reps can't fathom a non-Rep on their ticket, especially one that used to run with Gore and Clinton, but is now a Dem pariah. And let's be honest, Lieberman only chose to distance himself from the Dems when they rejected him for his pro-Bush positions on Iraq and the War on Terror. They created the liability by running a "true liberal" against Joe in the CT Dem primary. If the war in Iraq was going well (or never happened), Lieberman would still be a Dem and Hillary would be our nominee now. But such hypotheticals don't really serve a purpose, so sorry for my digression!

Republican reformers?

Do you guys think the Palin pregnancy business is benefitting either party, or just the tabloid media? Well, many GOPers interviewed say that Palin is energizing the party and making their campaign more exciting, but of course they would only say positive things about their party. Maybe all this hype is giving them more attention than their otherwise boring ticket would produce. Personal controversy obviously never hurt Bill Clinton, and the last time I checked, teen pregnancy still isn't illegal. I think attacks on her "parenting record" is walking a slippert slope, because people may find it intrusive and offensive to "go after a mom", and Palin is really adored by the GOP despite not having accomplished much (their response to Obama?). But try telling the media to tone it down on anything involving sex.

Also, is it just me, or is Joe Lieberman like the worst public speaker ever? I don't recall his speeches back in 2000. Not only was he boring and monotone last night (with a creepy looking mouth), but the content of his speech was nondescriptive and forgettable. He also forgot his flag lapel pin... for shame!

I thought his colleague Norm Coleman from MIN gave a much better speech welcoming everyone to St. Paul. But for Lieberman, Thompson, and others, I am kind of tired of them painting McCain/Palin in such broad brush strokes: "They took on the Washington power brokers and want to clean up politics." Well they say that every election, so can someone tell us specifically how each of them challenged the establishment and fought for what was right for ordinary Americans? I know after he was lightly implicated in the GOP Savings & Loan scandals of the 1980s, McCain got a lot more sober with his politics and made anticorruption a bigger part of his career, of course most famously with McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. He spoke out against Bush's torture doctrine and mismanagement in Iraq when the other GOPers fell in line, and I think co-wrote the legislation to ban torture.

From WSJ: Sen. McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the 2001 tax cuts and one of only three GOP senators to oppose the 2003 reductions. Furthermore, his reason for opposing the cuts was taken straight from the playbook of the most radical left-wing Democrats. In 2001, Sen. McCain argued, "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117375309308735018.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

I guess nuance like that will encourage and discourage some voters depending on their background, though of course now he promises to make Bush's cuts permanent and maybe even expand them. I thought his initial opposition to the cuts was also due to the fact that we were at war, and that requires more public sacrifice to support the war effort, not more payouts. He voted against the Dem's minimum wage increase, but also voted against Bush's uber-expensive Medicare drug bill. He has always favored privatizing Social Security, which the Dems will use to scare seniors. Well no matter who wins, it's clear that we won't be able to sustain SS for another 2 decades without drastic changes. McCain also worked with Kennedy and Edwards on the Patient's Bill of Rights, though not sure how much good it has done so far. The 2nd link below also suggests his ties to lobbyists are quite robust, and the 1st link discusses some of his campaign finance issues.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/331143/ex_reformer_mccain_attacks_ex_reformer_obama
http://www.alternet.org/election08/90006/mccain_the_reformer_you've_got_to_be_joking/

I can't find much about Palin online. I guess she voted for the Bridge to Nowhere before she voted against it. As mayor of Wasalia, she hired a federal lobbyist to help secure over $37M in earmarks for her community. But the spending was for an airport, commuter train line (that was shared by other towns too), and water/sewage, so I guess you can make an argument that it was justified, and pork is in the eye of the beholder. I've never been to Wasalia, but I'm sure it's not all posh like Midtown Manhattan. AK communities are very remote, so it's hard to connect people together and provide basic services, and their weather/geography probably necessitates more infrastructure spending than a typical lower 48 community. AK get the most earmarks and tax dollars per capita of any state, but then again they're so lightly populated that they cost Uncle Sam a lot less than say poor and old people in CA or TX. I guess she did reduce her earmark requests to Congress from $550M her first year in office to $200M her second year. She also sacked state officials and lobbyists connected to the pork game. She negotiated a deal with Conoco and BP on long-stalled new gas pipelines without having to offer them any new concessions. She sold the governor's private jet that her predecessor Murkowski purchased on behalf of the state, and prefers to get around by car and commercial air (she also declined security escort, saving the state some money there too). I guess all this contributes to her populist image and makes her very well liked in the state, causing resentment and jealousy among the traditional AK political-business elite. I guess this may be the closest thing to having a non-rich person in the White House.

A funny side-note: you know how Palin is in a bit of trouble for firing an official for supposedly not firing her sister's ex, a state trooper? Well the grounds they cite for the ex's dismissal include threatening the Palins, killing a moose without a permit, and using a stun gun on a 10-year-old. An investigation revealed evidence of the last two and he was suspended for 10 days. In his defense, the ex said that he stunned the kid at the kid's request. As if that makes it alright!?! These are the people protecting us from crime haha.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122002615833483595.html?mod=fpa_mostpop
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/09/03/goppalin.html

Well clearly she's not the most qualified to step in if McCain passes, and it kind of makes me laugh that the GOP couldn't find a better female running mate in their whole party for McCain. But maybe some fresh blood every now and then is good for politics; isn't that Obama's rationale?

McCain's VP pick

Here's an interesting development: McCain selects a female VP!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7588435.stm

And here are the Dems' immediate criticisms of her: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/sarah-palin-obama-respons_n_122392.html

We previously discussed how the unlikely Obama candidacy was mostly a product of public backlash from the Bush years. Maybe McCain too. But now McCain's VP choice is mainly a product of Obama and Clinton in the national spotlight for the last year. Well, I guess that Romney and Pawlenty wouldn't have really helped much, and their states are solidly blue (Minn and Mass, not Utah). Ridge is a pro-choice ex-Bushie, and would have played into the Dem's "4 more years of the same" argument. Lieberman is too controversial, and the hard core right would have a cow. Arnold isn't eligible!

Well, with Palin you get a young, working mom with strong conservative bona fides, down-to-Earth appeal, and little baggage. She's also runner-up Miss Alaska apparently (well, not much competion up there!), though my female coworker thinks that her beauty may actually irk some Hillary supporters, who might be expecting tougher, older, but not so photogenic ladies like Hillary, Albright, and Reno. Romney has the perfect family, but Palin isn't far behind (son fighting in Iraq, caring for another child with Down's). She's naive on foreign affairs and defense, but that's McCain's department anyway. My friend from AK says she is tremendously personable and popular up there (80% approval rating), gives great speeches, and has actually taken a stance against bloated oil profits too, despite the typical Dem attack that every Alaskan Republican is "in bed with Big Oil". However she has only been governor for 2 years, and some think she's over her head with her smart advisers doing most of the heavy lifting. So if she can't handle tiny AK, Washington might be out of her league. Though it is refreshing to see two VPs from small states getting a chance.

But let's remember that the VP is a mostly ceremonial, powerless position, at least historically. Only recently has Cheney "revolutionized" the job, and I'm doubtful such an extreme presence will persist with Biden or Palin. Sure she is one heart attack away from Commander-in-Chief and her inexperience might be a concern. But if a future President McCain dies in office, it's going to be very traumatic and difficult on the nation and any VP. Even Thomas Jefferson would have trouble filling the void immediately and helping the nation move forward. But I'm sure that after 6 months in Washington, she'll be a seasoned veteran if she survives. This news is so hilarious. I've never seen such calculated politcal guerilla warfare, copying opponents and neutralizing their advantages. All of a sudden the "experience", "working class roots", and "change" criticisms and credentials from both sides get a lot cloudier. Each ticket can't so easily criticize the other for the shortcomings that they also exhibit, nor can they take credit for qualities that their opponents also possess. I'm glad we've mostly moved past the "patriotism" debate. Now change and experience are no longer the exclusive possessions of a political party, as it should be.

I am not sure if Palin would swing young or women voters to McCain, but definitely adds diversity and somewhat neutralizes "4 more years of the same". I am surprised he didn't try to go after Colin Powell, though maybe he did and Powell declined. That would have really thrown a wrench in the Dem's plans. Two war heroes and a black man versus another black man whose own VP said he wasn't ready to lead a few months ago! Or maybe any former Bushie (even a dissenting one) would hurt McCain and validate the Dems' argument. Well it's true that Palin might be the next Quayle or Ferraro, but I disagree that it's a show of panic and desperation from the GOP. McCain is not broke and he's neck-and-neck with Obama in some national polls. Actually the fact that the Dems are so quick to forcefully denounce her shows that actually they're concerned by her potential impact. This campaign is getting somewhat interesting after all. Well after all these millions spent, we "customers" better get our money's worth!

This news will send ripples around Washington for a while. What a big, calculated risk (or gimmic or Hail Mary pass) - we'll see if it pays off. It may even blunt some of Obama's post-convention bounce. For once, cable news will want to talk about something more than Obama's historic campaign. I wonder how the ultra right feels about it. I wonder if the Obama camp is regretting not selecting Hillary as VP! I know some of her hard core supporters felt it was strange that the Clintons got such prominent speaking roles at the convention, yet she didn't get the nod for VP, even though she got almost as many votes as Obama. An outsider wouldn't have been able to tell if the convention was for Hillary or Obama at times. Well, they say that 2 prima donnas can't coexist on the same ticket, and no one wants the veep to take the spotlight. But if they really wanted to guarantee a Dem in the White House, maybe it was the smartest choice to make? That way not a single Hillary supporter would have jumped ship for McCain, and she has much more clout with Latinos and "working class" whites than Biden, who is far from being a household name. It would have been a slam dunk (not the George Tenet kind). But I guess the Dems let their personal grievances get in the way of what was best for the party, as usual. And even though Biden can wipe the floor with Palin in their scheduled debate, his brusque style may come off as bullying the more sympathetic, younger, and prettier Palin. That was the case when Hillary was in the lead before the Iowa Caucuses, and Edwards/Obama were on the attack.

Well, I guess the GOP has been much better at teamwork and campaign strategy than the Dems since Reagan. The Kennedys hated LBJ, but they needed Texas and frankly it would make their presidency easier if LBJ was out of his power-trip role as Speaker of the House, so they did it for the sake of winning and advancing their agenda. Or maybe this is just hype and won't make a big difference, and Obama's people feel his lead is large enough to win without Hillary. Though now I'm sure his campaign will be begging for her help down the stretch, and Clinton will be accumulating some favors and goodwill within the party. Well, maybe decisions like these and campaign strategy are not totally in Obama's hands, as weird as that sounds. Maybe his staff, funders, or Dem Party pressures really force his hand on some decisions, and he has to make the best of it. But that says something about his leadership limitations too, and it's unfortunate that American campaigns seem to be won or lost over strategy decisions and personal characteristics more than actual policy and leadership considerations.

Also, the McCain camp ran an ad during the DNC that congratulated Obama for his historic nomination. A classy and unexpected move as well. Maybe it's insincere and just a political stunt, but it was a conscious choice that recognized a legitimate accomplishment. I don't know the last time a Dem congratulated a GOPer for anything.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/mccain-to-rebut-obamas-bi_n_122102.html