Top Republican Governor Has Heard No Talk Of Removing Palin From The Ticket

The New York Times talked to GOP Governor Mark Sanford about Bristol Palin's pregnancy today:

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said that he had heard no discussion about removing Ms. Palin from the ticket. In fact, he said, he thought her daughter's pregnancy would not hurt her with voters.

"People are looking for real," he said in an interview. "Real means blemishes, real means warts, real means real. These family imperfections make people say, 'That family isn't so different from my family.'"

Early reaction among women at the Republican convention to the news about Bristol Palin's pregnancy was almost uniformly supportive.

Comments

[robynuva]

Preganant daughter? Who cares?
Member of a radical group that calls for the succession of Alaska.
Investigated for ethics charges both as a parrt-time Mayor and Gov.
Copies her husband on all state emails.
Never ran a school system, left her city $20 mill in debt.
NO, border security experiece, foriegn policy experience, know idea what a VP does, thinks the founding fathers wrote the Pledge.
Doesn't believe in Evolution
Anti Choice under ANY circumstance, against birth control of any kind.

Oh yeah, and LIED to the American public in her very 1st speech. These are reason to question McCsame's judgement, and dare I say it, his patriotism.

[LaFlow]

Add to that list that she secured $27 Million in EARMARKS for a town with a population of 6700 during her tenure... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26504638/

Now THAT's hypocritical.

[SUSANINCOLUMBIA]

You are exactly right!

This woman is wrong for America on so many levels, it hurts!

[DebM]

Even if he drops her from the ticket and chooses a more appropriate candidate, of which there aren't many in the Republican party, we have to keep harping on the horrendous choice he made and the highly questionable judgment he demonstrated. If these are the sorts of low-information, knee-jerk reactions he'll make as POTUS, the entire country should be very very afraid.

[LeonBNJ]

Palin apparently has brought a lot of votes of the parties' religious wing and more importantly something like $10 Million in new money to McCain. She is also pro oil/nat gas drilling from domestic sources including her home state of Alaska, the domestic leader in such production. Despite the vetting by the media of Palin, and want has come out about her, those factors will make it difficult for McCain to drop her and get a replacement.

[CassandraPriam]

Why isn't McC being attacked more for his horrible decision making abilities?
That should be the focus.
Palin is history.
The heat needs to be on McC

[goldnchyl]

"Why isn't McC being attacked more ...."

Because he's not O

[Whatashame]

Don't you notice that McCain is not giving interviews. He refused to be interviewed on CNN by Anderson Cooper about hurricane Gustav because he knows that questions would be ask about his judgment and that is why his campaign is doing all the talking points instead of him. They know his decison was rash. Not even people close to him was aware that he picked PALIN. They all think that she has more experience than BIDEN who has been in the senate for 36 years. That means that she also has more experience than McCain because he has been there for 26 years. LOL.

[abby4ever]

But he WILL be hearing talk of it, if very many of the kind of voters McDrill had in mind when he picked P*lin, happen to see this video of P*lin's daughter's boyfriend using the F word with some frequency, it's on a thread here at Huffington:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/levi-johnston-bristol-pal_n_123089.html#postComment

Nothing shocks them as much as the F word, and they will ask: where was P*lin and her Chr*stian family values when her daughter was dating a boy who talks like this, for over a year? They won't vote for her when they see this, anyone with any background in far-right social Chr*stian conservatism, will know that. And if not and that is what McDrill picked her for, to get their votes, he might as well sack her today.

[ShakeYourComplacency]

How is she "Ms Palin?" Isn't she married?

[Kerris]

Yes. And "Ms" has been the marital-status neutral term used by, about and for women for about 30 years now.

[08politicaljunkie]

Ms could be married or single. Women who choose that prefix are not defining themselves by their marital status.

[Veratruth]

Her daughter is Miss Palin:) Sorry, I had to throw that in.

[Kerris]

Yes, maybe there are a lot of families who can say they have someone who got pregnant, married and had a baby all by 17 years old... mine included.

But how many little boys get to stand up for show-and-tell in nursery school and say, "Hey, me and my uncle Trig over there were toilet trained on the same potty!"

[bodo]

Elly May should not have held baby Trig over her belly to cover up her condition in that family photo. Will Jethro now have to get a second job? And how will pregnant Elly May keep up with her high school homework? Watch the next instalment of the Hillbillies.

[boatswain]

The republican party astonishes me. As a group, they spin every negative into a
positive like programmed robots, or aliens at least.

[ShakeYourComplacency]

Having babies as teens isn't necessarily a negative anymore, if you can show you have so called familly-values and raise the baby. Just the fact that you're foolish enough to not use contraception, and decide against abortion, gives you points. Now, if the daughter was promiscuous, didn't believe in Jesus, had the wrong friends, etc, then it might be a different story. As long as you have Jesus, you get a free pass. Believe me, our former Repub Gov down here had a daughter who was on crack and that was ok, too.

The negative that is being spinned into a positive, which is astonishing to me actually, is the fact that Sara Palin has a special needs baby that she's leaving to pursue a career in Washington. The daughter, pregnant herself, is always holding Sara's baby. I guess Sara figures she can take care of two babies. This is what I really don't get. Any other mother in her right mind would pass on the VP offer. Why this isn't getting bad family values press is beyond me.

[Sunflower1]

Shake, I agree completely! She has a small, special needs child, and she won't be around for a long time...the campaign trail is arduous, and her brand new baby will suffer because of this decision. Talk about your family values! Going on the campaign trail when your home life has been turned upside down is morally wrong. I don't have a problem with the fact her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, I have a problem with the fact that when her children need her the most, she is taking off. She didn't have to take this position. She knows her family needs her at home right now, this moment. (and I don't mean she can't be a successful working governor, but taking on this position, at this moment in time was a selfish move on her part)

[Veratruth]

Don't worry they have/had/will have nannies.

[gmlaster]

Anyone who thinks that McCain knew about this kid is not using his common sense. He meets her twice before selecting her, and we're supposed to believe that in the time they spoke, she told him about this teen pregnancy and all the other drama in her life, and he said, "Oh, that's okay. It can only help my campaign". She's a political big fish in a very little pond, and suddenly McCain offers her the golden ticket to the Vice Presidency of the United States? Yeah, sure she's going to tell him not to consider her because she's got family problems.

You couldn't make this crap up. Let's see, you have a choice between Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, both of whom have been vetted. But you choose a woman you don't know who's under investigation for abuse of power, and has a pregnant teenage daughter in an effort to win evangelicals who are looking for a moral standard-bearer.

McCain's old school. In his day, just having an affair could kill your candidacy. Gary Hart got knocked out of the running for having an affair, and hey tried to nail Bill Clinton to the wall for his sexual indiscretions. If you're the candidate for the moral majority you run from sex scandals, and you DON'T pick a VP who's got a pregnant teenage daughter. There's too many other people to pick from that don't have the baggage.

NO WAY HE KNEW ABOUT THIS!!!

[abby4ever]

I'ver had enough, and I realized that when, on Larry King Live, Ed Schultz asked: "What kind of a mother would parade her teenage pregnant daughter on national television, especially where that mother has a degree in journalism and knows what journalists do with a story like this?"

My answer: a hard-hearted, ambitious, insensitive mother.

And that says enough about P*lin's character, to me, anyway, to make me glad that McDrill is going to lose this election. I don't want anyone with a character like that as next in line to the top job. If she is that ruthless with her own children, what chance would anyone else have?

[UpstateSC]

Agreed. Palin has shown poor judgment, but far too much ambition. If it were Mr. Palin running for VP, I'd say they same thing - he would be a father putting career before family.

[DebM]

I wholeheartedly agree. I posted yesterday on huffpo how offended I was by her treatment of her children, and of course got ripped by a couple of lost souls, but the fact remains that has demonstrated herself to be a horrible mother, putting her own career before her children. No one is saying that she can't effectively deal with these challenges as gov of Alaska, but VPOTUS is a far-different story.

[buyaclueplease]

Seriously though, how many families can relate to having a daughter get knocked up at 16? 1 in 250?

People who are now thinking "Lookie der! There's a woman who raised a young'en who was silly enough to get knocked up just like my young'en. I reckon I like that..." - those people: 1) either don't vote or 2) were already voting straight ticket republican because they have no common sense or understanding of what modern republican politicians represent.

I think this hurts them with the "average suburban" vote. I am from the "average suburban" voter block, and generally they tend to blame any flaws in children on the parents, rightly or wrongly.

I think the evang's will give this a thumbs up, because it seems the more twisted and messed up you are, so long as you believe in the rapture and say you are pro-life, the more they like you.

McCain is in a catch 22... remove her, it's over, keep her, it's over.

NOW... listen... don't overplay this Palin issue and all of her flaws. In the end, it is McCain vs Obama... don't fall into a trap here. We need to keep the attention on McCain and this being proof of poor judgment, and not as much focus on every little detail about Palin's life. Otherwise, McCain is off the hook and they start to make it a race of Palin vs Obama in the talking points, bringing him down to her level.

[ThursdayAgain]

Having been less than frank (it would seem) with voters & the campaign staff, & with what some are calling the "mother of all f*ck-ups" still to leak out Ms Palin is going to have to either jump or be pushed.

'Bye.

[BushBites]

Hey Sanford.

Is this the kind of "real" people are looking for also?


* This so-called reformer directed Ted Stevens' 527.

* This so-called reformer received millions in earmarks.

* She's under investigation for Trooper Gate, has made contradictory statements and is now lawyered up.

* She was involved in another firing scandal when she was mayor, for which she was almost recalled.

* She bankrupted that little town she was mayor of.

* She and her husband once belonged to a political party whose goal is to make Alaska secede from the union.

* She claimed to be against the Bridge to Nowhere, when tapes of her speaking to the people of that island clearly record her supporting the bridge.

And, of course, that's not including all the personal stuff I'm not going into.

[WilliamGossett]

I wish the below comments were true but I fear we are in for very bad times coming up...

The mentality that will elect McCain and her will soon go after others who disagree.

As bad as she is that's the best that America has become...

I can see no alternative.

[Chicago48]

McCain won't lose the election because of Pallin. He'll lose it because he's a poor debater and he's an oldy....sorry, but this is a rematch between Bob Dole and Clinton all over again. And the younger guy wins -- if he doesn't make a mistake.