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McCain Admits Tensions Over Palin Among Former Staff (VIDEO)

2009-10-11T09:32:39Z

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) demurred once again when asked to divine the kind of candidate for president his former running mate, Sarah Palin, could be in 2012.

"I have a degree of clairvoyance," the Arizona Republican said, "but in 2009 to predict what would happen in the 2012 election is -- I'm not capable of."

While McCain wouldn't wade into presidential politics, he did offer a bit of retrospection. In an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union," McCain acknowledged what has become quite obvious -- that during the course of the 2008 election, serious rifts developed within his campaign ranks. Asked about comments made by his former campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, disparaging the role Palin could play in the Republican Party, McCain offered the following reply:

Look, whenever there's a political campaign -- and I've been involved in them for many, many years -- there's always tensions within. You know, when you -- how -- with a high-pressure situation, there's always tensions that develop within campaigns. And there were clearly tensions between Steve Schmidt and people in the Palin camp.

There's -- there are fundamental facts, though, that cannot be denied. When we selected or asked Sarah Palin to be my running mate, it energized our party. We were ahead in the polls, until the stock market crashed. And she still is a formidable force in the Republican Party. And I have great affection for her.

Will Sarah and I -- did we always agree on everything in the past? Will we in the future? No. But look let's let a thousand flowers bloom. Let's come up with a winning combination the next time. We -- and -- and let's -- let's all go through the process, rather than condemning anybody's chances. And I'm happy to say we have some great people out there, and Sarah is one of them.

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Kristol Defends Palin But Says Lieberman Would Have Been As Good

2008-11-20T11:12:21Z

Bill Kristol defended yet again of the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's Vice President during a breakfast conference on Thursday. But the prominent neoconservative pundit and Weekly Standard editor did make one small concession: had John McCain tapped Sen. Joseph Lieberman for his number-two post, the results could have been just as good, if not better for the GOP ticket.

Speaking at a National Journal 2008 campaign retrospective event, Kristol argued that had the Connecticut Independent been the Republican vice presidential nominee, McCain would have lost "20 percent of the vote at the convention," staff would have "left the campaign," there would have been protests on the convention floor, and the news media would have been obsessed with the inter-party friction for a solid month.

Nevertheless, he added, "I think it could have been managed and it could have ended up net-net by the time of the election. But that is a very tough choice to make in real time..."

Kristol had, in fact, made the suggestion that McCain choose Lieberman as his VP in the period leading up to the convention. But he is best known as one of the media's most vocal Palin cheerleaders, once urging McCain to fire his entire campaign staff in part for mishandling the Alaska Governor.

During the event Kristol debated the notion -- put forward by Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg and confirmed by most empirical data -- that Palin was a drag on the Republican ticket. He acknowledged that the governor lost McCain some votes, "mostly blue state swing voters," but added that she gave McCain "at least a shot of getting the Electoral College votes he needed in states like Ohio."

Speaking earlier, Greenberg noted that in nearly every poll he had examined the top reason for voting against McCain was his choice of Palin. He argued that another choice, like Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney, would have made the election closer.

"I was very nervous about this election going into the Democratic convention when they were focused on national security and safety issues. Had they kept those core ideas... through the economic crisis, they would have been much stronger," Greenberg explained. "But they gave up experience, they lost fundamental points by choosing her."

McCain's pollster, Bill McInturf, was the last to speak and took umbrage with Greenberg's analysis. Arguing that Palin brought important features to the campaign -- enthusiasm and money, primarily -- he echoed Kristol in saying there would have absolutely been a crisis on the convention floor had McCain chosen Lieberman.

"Do you want to spend three to six weeks after this convention talking about the Republican Party or moving on," McInturf said he told McCain. "My point in the room was that it would be at least three straight weeks of discussion on the Republican coalition."

All of the panelists, including Democratic strategist Ruy Teixeira, said Palin would be a major player for the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

Erik Ose: Early Voting Flood in Swing States Predicts Obama Tsunami

2008-11-03T12:07:19Z

Beyond election-eve polls, the best indicator of how this election will turn out is to look at who has already voted. Early voting has now ended across the country, and the results are very good news for Barack Obama and the Democrats. In four swing states - Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina, the early voting period has seen numbers equal to at least two-thirds of all ballots cast in 2004. More than half of the '04 totals have been surpassed in Florida (54%) and Georgia (60%).

More Democrats than Republicans have early voted in these states - in some by big margins. In most, this is a sharp reversal from the early voting edge Republicans enjoyed four years ago, when Bush won all six battlegrounds.

Just as Team Obama out-hustled Hillary Clinton by devoting time to organizing the caucus states, they have soundly beaten McCain-Palin on the early voting front. And they were helped by McCain's cash-strapped, strategy-challenged, demoralized, disorganized campaign. True to form, McCain dropped the ball. Judging by turnout figures, the GOP had no early voting plan.

Early voting in Charlotte, N.C.

For example, in North Carolina, where 2008 marks the third presidential cycle early voting has been made available, 2,573,899 voters cast early or absentee ballots, or 41% of the state's 6.25 million registered voters. This is an astounding 259% increase over the 992,231 early and absentee votes cast during 2004.

52% were Democrats this year, versus 30% Republicans and 18% unaffiliated, a 22-point Democratic advantage. In 2004, the Democratic Party also made early voting an integral part of their GOTV game, but only managed to gain an 11-point advantage over Republicans (48.5-37.5%) in a much smaller early voter universe.

Early voting turnout already represents 72.5% of all the 3.5 million votes cast in North Carolina during 2004, which skewed 56-43.5% for Bush over Kerry. Black voters are overrepresented in the statewide early vote numbers, accounting for 26.5% of the total. 2006 Census Bureau figures estimate North Carolina's African-American population to be 21.7%.

Research on early voting shows that it "disproportionately rewards campaigns that are better organized," according to UCal-Riverside political science professor Benjamin Bishin, who has studied early voting in Florida, because it requires campaigns to roll out more complicated GOTV efforts. It also may benefit Democrats because it "lowers barriers to participation," especially for working class voters who can't afford to take time off to vote on the Tuesday of Election Day.

Early voters in Fort Lauderdale, FL on Sunday, Nov. 2

The Obama campaign's early voting advantage was evident around the country. Celebrities and rock stars streamed into battleground states and drew crowds to rallies held during early voting hours, usually located close to early voting sites.

In Florida, Matt Damon and Jason Alexander headlined a string of early voting rallies. In North Carolina, Ashley Judd and Chris Rock held events in the vote-rich Triangle region during early voting's final days. Judd and Rock have also hosted rallies in Missouri and Florida for the campaign, and Colorado saw Kevin Costner pitch early voting. James Taylor returned home to North Carolina to play five free concerts across the state that doubled as early voting events.

Interviewed by the Miami Herald, Jason Alexander summed up why it made sense for the campaign to deploy stars at GOTV rallies:

"I don't think people like to be proselytized to because someone's been on a television show," he said. "It doesn't give us special powers . . . the key reason for a celebrity surrogate is to create an environment where people come out and then go early vote."

Even absent celebrities, Obama offices organized community marches to early voting sites. In Florida, 27 such marches were held statewide on October 27th, one march for each of Florida's electoral votes. Drum-line marches were staged in Miami's black neighborhoods. In North Carolina, early voting marches organized by students at the state's historically black colleges drew thousands to the polls on the very first day of early voting.

Early voting march in Nevada, Oct. 18

Banking base voters early is now allowing the campaign to focus its energy in the home stretch on independent and undecided voters. "You're simply able to throw that much more at the people who haven't voted yet," said Bishin. And Obama volunteers were sent not only to greet early voters at pollsites and arm them with information about each state's ballot design and down-ticket Democratic races, but to provide bottled water to voters when lines backed up.

This all builds on the historic gains in Democratic voter registration that the Obama campaign has engineered in the battleground states. Since 2004, voter rolls have surged by 946,000 in Florida (up 9%), 737,000 in North Carolina (up 13%), and 375,000 in Nevada, a 35% increase.

Democratic registrations have increased the most in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and shockingly competitive Arizona. Republican registrations declined in Colorado, Florida and Pennsylvania but were up by 16% in Nevada (compared with a 39% jump for the Democrats).

More about the actual early vote totals. In Colorado, 56% of the state's registered voters have cast 1,477,836 early votes or mail-in absentee ballots. Democrats have outnumbered Republican early voters by 37.7% to 35.9%, with 26.4% declaring other or no party affiliation. This is up from the 48% of registered Coloradoans who voted early or absentee in 2004, or 913,222 early votes out of 2,148,036 total.

Early voters in Colorado

Four years ago, Republicans led Democrats in early voting by a 42-34% margin, on their way to carrying Colorado for Bush with 51.7% to Kerry's 47%. In 2008, the number of votes already recorded during the early voting period in Colorado is equivalent to 69% of all votes cast in that state in the 2004 general election.

The Obama GOTV operation in Colorado has gotten out more of the core Democratic vote than its GOP counterpart. In the state's Democratic strongholds of Denver and Boulder, early vote turnout ran higher than in rock-solid Republican El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs. Enough votes have already been cast in Denver County to equal 58.7% of its 2004 totals, and 62.7% for Boulder County, versus 52.6% in El Paso County.

In Florida, Democratic voters have cast 46% of the state's eye-popping 4.1 million early votes and absentee ballots, versus 38% for Republicans. During 2004, GOP voters led Democrats in early and absentee balloting by 44-41 percent. Florida's early voting turnout this year represents nearly 54% of votes cast in 2004 (7.64 million), when Bush beat Kerry by 52-47%.

African-American turnout is sharply up in urban areas. Through last Thursday, black voters had cast 39% of all early ballots in Broward County, 30% of votes in Miami-Dade and Orange counties, and 36% in Duval County. As of 2006, African-Americans made up an estimated 15.4% of Florida's population.

Early voting rally in Nevada

Early voting is here to stay, and Democrats adapted to the new environment first, culminating in this year's Obama-led nationwide early vote effort. Its success marks the clearest indicator seen so far that Tuesday night will bring a Democratic landslide in the wake of Obama's tsunami.

(To report voter suppression tactics at the polls, call the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition toll-free at 1-866-OUR-VOTE, or visit their website to see the latest reports from your state.)

(UPDATE 11/5 - En route to his historic victory, President-elect Obama carried most of the battlegrounds his campaign targeted, helped enormously by his early voting leads in states including Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. With 100% of precincts reporting and only provisional ballots still to be counted as of Wednesday morning, McCain trails Obama in North Carolina by slightly over 12,000 votes. Defeated Republican moderate Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut summed up the election:

" 'There was this tsunami throughout the country,' said Rep. Christopher Shays, a 21-year House member from Connecticut and the last Republican in the New England delegation, who suffered defeat at the hands of Democrat Jim Himes.")

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Eagleburger Blisters Palin: "Of Course" She's Not Ready

2008-10-31T00:39:32Z

A former Republican Secretary of State and one of John McCain's most prominent supporters offered a stunningly frank and remarkably bleak assessment of Sarah Palin's capacity to handle the presidency should such a scenario arise.

Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment's notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an "adequate" commander in chief.

"And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested," he added for good measure -- referring both to Palin's policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office. (Listen to audio below.)

The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as "making the case" for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.

"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not."

Eagleburger explained: "I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?

"Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year... well I hope not... get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested."

The indictment of Palin was all the more biting because both she and McCain have held Eagleburger up repeatedly during the past several weeks as evidence that the Republican ticket has firm standing and support within foreign policy circles. (In fact, McCain conferred with Eagleburger by phone just this week, on matters pertaining to national security.)

In a recent co-interview on NBC, Brian Williams asked McCain and Palin "about what must have been a hurtful Sunday for you," referring to Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama and specifically to the "heart of his quote" -- Powell's claim that Palin is not "ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of vice president."

"Obviously General Powell does not know Governor Palin's record," McCain responded. "All I can say is, I see all these attacks on Governor Palin. I don't live in a bubble. But those people obviously are either not paying attention to, or don't care about the record of the most popular governor in the United States of America."

Palin interjected, citing the "five former secretaries of states" that have endorsed their campaign and see in their candidacy "the ability to win the wars and to keep our nation safe and on course."

Days later, the Arizona Senator again touted the Eagleburger endorsement during a spot on CNN. During that interview, McCain tried to downplay the significance of Colin Powell's criticisms of Palin by noting that Powell had never taken the time to understand her political gravitas.

"I especially disagreed when he said the comments that he made about Governor Palin," McCain said. "And I hope that sometime General Powell will take time out of his busy schedule to meet with her. I know she'd be pleased to meet with him."

Perhaps Eagleburger, too, should sit in on that meeting.

UPDATE: McCain is asked to respond to Eagleburger's remarks during an appearance on Good Morning America Friday. And... he's not troubled by them.

"Larry has never had a chance to meet Sarah," he says.

Erik Ose: McCain Campaign Tried Using Assault Hoax to Slime Obama

2008-10-24T17:00:33Z

The day after her story of a politically-motivated assault made headlines around the nation, coverage pushed relentlessly by McCain-Palin campaign officials, a McCain campaign worker admitted she made it all up. Ashley Todd, 20, told Pittsburgh police on Wednesday night that she had been held up at an ATM, and the mugger, a 6' 4" black male, had become enraged once he saw a McCain bumper sticker on her car. Todd claimed her assailant had then pinned her to the ground and used a dull knife blade to carve a "B" into her cheek, after telling her, "you are going to be a Barack supporter."

The most appalling part of this episode was the McCain team's reaction. Desperate for a turn of events that would paint their opponents in a negative light, they rushed to disseminate the story to media outlets before all the facts were known. McCain's Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman actually peddled a version to reporters that was far more incendiary than details confirmed by police at the time. Feldman claimed the attacker told Todd, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson," and that the carved "B" definitely stood for "Barack."

But it was all a hoax. Friday morning, police stated that "we have learned that the victim's statement has a few inconsistencies in it and her statement has changed." A few hours later, police said Todd had confessed that there was no robbery or attacker, and would be charged with filing a false police report. She also told police she had prior mental health problems.

According to one of the actual police reports documenting the charade's unraveling, Todd says she can't remember whether she mutilated her own face, or had someone else do it. And Todd now claims she can't explain why she invented the story, but her motivation behind staging the incident seems clear from details in the police report - to smear Obama supporters.

Todd said she was driving around in her car, looked in her rear-view mirror, saw a "B," and the first thing she thought of was Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, according to a police report obtained by WTAE Channel 4 Action News.

Todd, from College Station, Texas, had been campaigning in Pennsylvania for the past few weeks. She was volunteering through the College Republican National Committee to recruit other college students to volunteer for McCain-Palin. CRNC executive director Ethan Eilon told FOX News that Todd had taken a year off from Blinn College in Texas to work on the campaign. She is also apparently a former Ron Paul volunteer.

Todd with Ron Paul at campaign appearance in February, 2008

Police doubted her story from the beginning, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division:

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

Bryant confirmed that police were also suspicious as to why the "B" on Todd's cheek was backward.

This tale faced a skeptical public from the moment it hit. Even rabidly far right blogger Michelle Malkin pointed out numerous holes in Todd's hard-to-believe account of being the victim of a political hate crime.

The entire mess is a tragic development, and I hope this young woman gets the mental health treatment she needs.

Yet a double standard is obvious based on the amount of coverage this incident received prior to any suggestion that it might be a hoax. The story was pushed hard by the Drudge Report, and most conservative talking heads ran with it. Sean Hannity devoted most of his Thursday afternoon talk radio broadcast to the topic, broadcasting live from Pittsburgh. Local news stations around the country featured the story on Thursday night's evening and late night newscasts.

Compare this with how little attention has been paid to a recent wave of politically-motivated, violent acts perpetrated by McCain-Palin supporters, several of which occurred in North Carolina and were covered on HuffPo earlier this week.

The crucial difference is that Obama and Biden are not traveling the country stirring up hatred among their supporters that would incite violence, while McCain and Palin clearly are. But let loose the spectre of a scary, hulking black criminal knifing up a poor, defenseless white girl, and predictably, the media lights swarmed.

Thankfully, McCain and Palin's disgraceful attacks on Obama have backfired, contributing to their meltdown in the polls. And the McCain camp's shameful eagerness to exploit hurtful situations like this hoax for political gain helps explain the revulsion that decent citizens have developed for the GOP ticket's increasingly desperate, unbalanced campaign.

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Erik Ose: McCain and Palin Inciting Violence in North Carolina

2008-10-22T18:41:43Z

Forced to defend what should be reliable red state turf, John McCain and Sarah Palin finally showed up in North Carolina over the past few weeks. So far in October, the GOP running mates have appeared at four campaign rallies here. And in the wake of their visits, a string of election season crimes have occurred around the state involving violence, vandalism, and harassment.

First, a reporter was assaulted at a Palin rally held last Thursday at Elon College. Greenboro News & Record reporter Joe Killian was kicked to the ground by a Palin supporter as he was trying to interview protestors at the event who backed Barack Obama. From Joe's blog:

"Oh, you think that's funny?!" the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. "Yeah, that's real funny..." he said.
And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

An MSNBC sound technician was hit in the head by a rock thrown by another Palin supporter at this same rally.

Next, over the weekend, about 30 Obama supporters had their tires slashed while attending an Obama rally that attracted an overflow crowd of more than 10,000 at the Fayetteville Crown Coliseum. Among the citizens left stranded were a single mother and toddler. "This is an embarrassment to this city and to me as a citizen," said a nearby resident. "This is a crying shame."

After the rally finished, a mob of white McCain-Palin supporters jeered and harassed a steady stream of mostly black Fayetteville residents standing in line to vote early at the downtown Board of Elections office. According to the Washington Times correspondent who reported the story, "people were shouting about Obama's acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word 'terrorist.' " In doing so, they almost certainly violated the Voting Rights Act of 1964, which states:

"No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote"

McCain supporters heckle early voters in Fayetteville, N.C., Oct. 19

And this Monday, a black bear cub was killed and left at the entrance to Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, with Obama campaign signs wrapped around its body, including two taped together over its head. Police reports are calling the incident a "prank," and claim seven students are being questioned. Whatever the motive, this latest development was met with immediate public revulsion and condemnation. As the Asheville Citizen-Times editorialized today, "It was an innocent bear cub that lost its life this time as some deranged person or persons expressed their political rage. Next time, it could be an innocent person."

These incidents have all been perpetrated by or linked to McCain supporters, and stirred up by McCain and Palin's angry, hateful campaign rhetoric. Like during Palin's first stop in the state at a Greenville rally on Oct. 7, when she continued trying to smear Obama over his tenuous connection to Bill Ayers. With uniformed service members standing in the crowd behind her, she again peddled her discredited attack line that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" by asking, "He didn't know that he had launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?"

The McCain campaign is currently flooding the state with robocalls making identical false charges. The N.C. Republican Party is aiding the attack with a scurrilous mailer sent to N.C. voters headlined, "Obama has close ties to domestic terrorist," with mug shots of Ayers from 1968 and a recent photo of him wearing a Cuban national baseball team jersey. This is the same ridiculously far right state GOP party that ran an attack ad during the primaries tying Obama to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which McCain repudiated at the time.

Briefly, McCain realized the angry tone of his rallies was turning off voters, and rebuked an elderly supporter who called Obama "an Arab." Within days, he was back in the gutter at their final debate. Before 56.5 million people, he linked Obama to the community organizing group ACORN's voter registration efforts, and hysterically insisted ACORN was "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

On Saturday, McCain recorded a radio address in Concord, N.C. in which he made the racially loaded claim that "Barack Obama's tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency," then appeared at a rally attended by several thousand supporters. There McCain was introduced by loony Republican Congressman Robin Hayes, who informed the crowd, "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God." Hayes is locked in a tight rematch against challenger Larry Kissell, a progressive former textile worker who lost to Hayes in 2006 by only 329 votes.

Last week, Palin told big donors at a fundraiser in Greensboro that she was thrilled to be visiting the "pro-America areas of this great nation," a gaffe so ill-advised and guaranteed to offend that she actually apologized for it, a first for Palin. But it was entirely consistent with her worldview, which is warped and narrow minded, categorizing anyone who doesn't share her extreme beliefs as "haters" and enemies.

The same day, she was asked by a local reporter what she thought of the late Sen. Jesse Helms, who was the last unapologeticly racist U.S. politician of the segregation era, held legendary, disgraceful campaign rallies of his own, and whose ultra right wing views were cut from the same cloth as Palin's. No wonder she expressed admiration for the man, admitting that "I do respect those years of service that he had provided." She also did her best to whitewash Helms' shameful legacy by falsely claiming he had apologized for his past misdeeds.

Interviewed by the Washington Post for a recent story on McCain's early political career, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party Jon Hinz gave some insight into why McCain shows little concern over his campaign stooping to such lengths to trash Obama. "He needs to make enemies of the people he's going against in order to get fired up," said Hinz.

The violent incidents we've witnessed in North Carolina are all lower than low, in fact, they're despicable. But McCain and Palin are to blame for creating an environment where their more unbalanced supporters feel these kinds of actions are legitimate.

Supporters line up for a McCain rally in Wilmington, N.C., Oct. 13

It shows what dangerous ground McCain-Palin are traveling by relying on increasingly desperate, unfounded character attacks on Obama in their attempts to distract our country from the ongoing economic crisis. Yet as polls continue to indicate, these attacks have backfired. They are contributing to voters' distaste for the Republican ticket.

And they're leaving behind a hollowed out party destined for minority status. As independents and moderate Republicans like Colin Powell abandon the McCain-Palin GOP in droves, all that remains are increasingly bitter, frustrated, far-right voters. This election's coming Democratic tsunami will exile Republicans to the political wilderness, where they will have to decide whether to keep clinging to yesterday's politics of fear.

As for John McCain and Sarah Palin, shame on both of them. After resorting to careless demagoguery and stirring up hatred and division so recklessly, neither deserves to hold public office.

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Fred Goldring: The End of the Bradley Effect -- and the Dawn of The Palin Defect

2008-10-19T21:56:20Z

There has been much discussion recently about whether the so-called "Bradley Effect" will contribute to the outcome of this presidential contest; whether voters in the private confines of the voting booth will actually pull the lever or punch the ballot for an African-American candidate. When Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American, ran for governor of California in 1982, the polls had him widely ahead on Election Day. He lost, it is believed, because those polled were not truthful when asked if race would affect their choice.

Many pundits caution that such racial prejudice still lurks in the background today. They argue that despite Obama's comfortable lead, the Bradley Effect could rear its head at the last minute and become a significant factor in the outcome of this election. Others believe that race has already been factored into the polls and is the major reason why Obama is not leading by a much wider margin with all conditions seemingly pointing his way.

An Obama victory on November 4 would be the death knell of the Bradley Effect. With an African-American in the White House, our country would finally be post-racial. The next generation of minorities born in this country, whether African-American, Latino-American, Asian-American or Indian-American, would truly not comprehend that race was once a barrier to high public office, much in the way that young women today cannot really fathom that they did not always have the right to vote.

The Bradley Effect thus behind us, the legacy of the 2008 presidential election would be what I call the "Palin Defect." I believe that the majority of independent swing voters who are on the fence about whether to vote for John McCain or Barack Obama will ultimately choose Obama in the voting booth because of Sarah Palin. They will not be able to shake their nagging feeling that Palin is just completely unqualified to be the vice president; that her views and campaigning style are divisive, her knowledge base is laughable and she is downright dangerous for our country. While she may possess style and be able to deliver a performance, she has negligible substance -- something we just cannot afford to live without in these complex times.

So despite their affinity for McCain, they will ultimately be swayed by the thought that on day one Sarah Palin would be a heartbeat away from a president who would be 72 years old with a history of melanoma and with what clearly seems to be her own separate agenda. And they will be reassured in their vote for Barack Obama by his much more reasoned and thoughtful selection of Joe Biden as his VP.

In retrospect, McCain's choice of Palin would be seen as a major cause of his defeat and the primary reason many of those even in his own party turned against him. The Palin Defect would thus forevermore dictate that: (1) the choice of a vice presidential running mate actually does matter and selecting a mate perceived as unqualified has real consequences; and (2) failure of the first real public test of a candidate's decision-making process, priorities, and judgment in the act of selecting a running mate can prove fatal to a candidate's prospects.

The Palin Defect would force future presidential candidates to place paramount importance on a running mate's actual ability to step in on day one should something happen to the president with the necessary seasoning, judgment, gravitas, and intellect to handle the job. A selection would no longer be able to be motivated strictly by political pandering or "playing to the base" the way that John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin and George H.W. Bush's selection of Dan Quayle were. Going forward, presidential candidates would truly have to put "country first" in choosing a vice-presidential running mate; otherwise, they could potentially suffer the outrage and backlash of the public and the media as they begin to expose the charade.

Will the 2008 election be the birth of a new guiding principal -- the Palin Defect -- in presidential elections?

Thankfully, we'll all know soon enough.

Erik Ose: Signs of Growing Friction Between McCain and Palin

2008-10-06T15:38:58Z

The call to "Free Sarah Palin!" has been answered, and Palin off the chain is proving to be a loose cannon. The day after her debate with Joe Biden, Palin told FOX News she learned about the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan when she read about it in the newspaper that morning. Maybe this was just to reassure us she stays well informed by reading newspapers like The New York Times, part of her post-debate strategy to try a damage control re-do of her Katie Couric interviews that continued to drip out one Palin gaffe after another earlier in the week.

But then she claimed to have "fired off a quick e-mail" in which she said, "Oh come on, do we have to?" Over the weekend, she again questioned the decision to reporters outside a diner in Englewood, Colorado, saying she "would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows that we haven't given up there."

And yesterday, in a phone interview with William Kristol, Palin leapt at the chance to resurrect Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a way to drag Obama through the mud. "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more," she said. "Because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country...I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

When the far right wing clowns running the North Carolina Republican Party ran a racially-tinged attack ad during the primaries tying Obama to Wright, McCain graciously denounced it. "I've said again and again, I do not believe that Sen. Obama shares Rev. Wright's extremist views which he has stated," said McCain, and promised to "disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."

Either Palin never got the memo, or McCain has flip-flopped and flushed his honor down the toilet yet again in his quest for the presidency. The latter is certainly possible. With McCain-Palin's chances cratering like the economy, McCain has clearly signaled it's time to get McDesperate.

Responding to rising GOP fears that the election is slipping away, the McCain campaign has decided their only hope is "turning a page on this financial crisis," in the words of one senior McCain adviser, and relentlessly tearing down Obama.

"It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice," echoed another top McCain strategist to the NY Daily News. "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

But there's more going on with Palin's off the reservation moves than simply carrying out the McNasty plan of attack against Obama. Sarah Palin has her own agenda. She wants to be president, and knows this election is her best shot at elbowing her way into the Oval Office.

Laura Chase, Palin's campaign manager during her first run for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, remembers a night they chatted about her ambitions:

"I said, 'You know, Sarah, within 10 years you could be governor,' " Ms. Chase recalled. "She replied, 'I want to be president.' "

And she's not going to let John McCain stop her. At a rally yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska, playing defense far within the red state zone, Palin also claimed to be making her own calls about which states she barracudas into:

"The pundits were saying, 'Check out where she's going. She's going to Nebraska.' The pundits were saying, 'The only reason she would be going there is because they're scared. They have to shore up votes,' " Palin said. "I so wanted to reach into that TV and say 'no.' I'm going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska," Palin said.

These incidents are not the first time Palin has bared her naked ambition. In September, she made a revealing slip when she flipped the ticket at a rally in Iowa, referring to a "Palin and McCain administration." This happened back when the campaign was still babysitting Palin by restricting her to joint appearances with McCain. Now all bets are off as to what she'll say next out on the trail on her own.

Unless McCain reins her in again fast, we can look forward to another month of jarring moments like on Saturday when she misread a saying from Madeline Albright. Quoting off a Starbucks cup, she warned female voters at a rally in California, "there's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women."

In Palin's Mary Poppins bubble, why shouldn't she strut her stuff? At the moment she's pumped up from surviving her debate with Biden, although failing to realize she didn't do nearly enough to prove herself competent enough to be Vice President and reverse her drag on the ticket. But by stepping over the bar painted on the floor, her performance quieted the voice of reason that was beginning to percolate among conservative talking heads calling for her replacement.

Since she now knows McCain won't dump her, Palin is in the driver's seat and plans to stay there. And her take-no-prisoners nasty streak and extreme right wing views have found kindred spirits now that she's fully staffed up with veterans of George W. Bush's slash-and-burn, hyper-partisan campaigns. Like Tucker Eskew, Palin's new chief of staff, who was instrumental in trashing McCain when he helped run Bush's 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina.

Far from a fresh crop of reformers, the Republican operatives who are currently stage managing Sarah Palin are virtually all transplants from the Bush White House. As one Republican strategist told the Washington Post:

"It's insane to me that at the same time that it's running saying it's not going to be the Bush administration, this campaign looks like the Bush campaign on steroids."

Reminiscent of how John Edwards helped keep the Democratic ticket disorganized in 2004 by sticking to his own playbook, Palin is showing the nation McCain is already an afterthought for her. She even said so at the debate, reminding us she "joined this team that is a team of mavericks with John McCain, also." Mr. DeMille, she's ready for her 2012 closeup.

(UPDATE 10/25 - Politico published a jaw-dropping story today confirming that the McCain-Palin rift first spotted here three weeks ago has only gotten worse. Heavy on not-for-attribution interviews with four senior Palin advisors, it revealed that Palin "blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image." These are the same former Bush campaign veterans and dirty-politics practicing Karl Rove proteges who were hand picked by McCain's team to guide her. Meanwhile, McCain stalwarts on the inside describe Palin as "simply unready -- 'green,' sloppy and incomprehensibly willing to criticize McCain." Other stories that have trickled out in recent weeks tracing the McCain-Palin divide can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.)

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Martin Lewis: Exclusive! Tapes Of Palin Debate Cram Session!

2008-09-30T20:20:32Z

I KNEW we'd heard that voice somewhere before!

And I knew we'd heard this ANSWER somewhere before!

"Something doesn't smell right..." - David Letterman (September 24th 2008)

Paul Slansky: Still More Questions About Sarah Palin and that Combed-Over Guy with the Creepy Smile Who Hangs on to Her Skirt for Dear Life

2008-09-22T22:07:18Z

Erik Ose: Sarah Palin's Inbox Reveals Possible Troopergate Smoking Guns

2008-09-19T13:40:10Z

Lost in the hoopla surrounding the hacking of one of Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail accounts are a couple of key points.

As first reported on HuffPo, the hacking incident gave Palin aides a convenient excuse to delete not one, but two of Palin's Yahoo accounts. After 27 year-old Palin assistant Ivy Frye was notified of the hacking on Wednesday morning, the compromised account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) vanished, along with the other private Yahoo account that Palin has acknowledged using for public business (gov.sarah@yahoo.com).

A public records lawsuit has been filed to release Palin's Yahoo! e-mail trail, which is thought to contain multiple e-mails pertinent to the Troopergate investigation into whether she abused her power as governor.

Also important is what exactly was leaked during the hacking.

Forget the screenshots of fairly innocuous e-mails, partial shots of Palin's inbox, two family photos, and her personal contact list. The most intriguing thing posted online was a cut-and-pasted, text-only inbox list showing subject headers, dates and senders of e-mails addressed to Palin at this account. The inbox list goes back to early August, almost a month before John McCain recklessly picked Palin as his VP.

On July 28, a bipartisan panel of Alaska legislators voted unanimously to hire an independent investigator to probe Palin and her staff over Troopergate, events set in motion by Palin's July 11 firing of DPS (Department of Public Safety) Commissioner Walt Monegan.

Top Palin aide Frank Bailey figures large in the Troopergate scandal. Bailey was placed on paid administrative leave by Palin on August 19 after an audio recording surfaced of a call Bailey had made in February pressuring Alaska state troopers to fire Palin's ex-brother-in-law Mike Wooten. Yet although on leave, Palin's inbox shows another two e-mails from Frank Bailey (using the e-mail address "ftb907@hslak.com") were received on Sept. 5.

Michael Nizich is Palin's chief of staff, and has also been implicated in and subpoenaed over Troopergate. On August 7, he sent an e-mail to Palin's Yahoo account with the subject line, "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter." The following week, on August 13, Palin held a press conference disclosing that in addition to Bailey's phone call in February, members of her staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about her ex-brother-in-law.

Palin at Aug. 13 press conference

Randall Ruaro serves as deputy chief of staff for Palin. On August 19, the same day Palin announced that Frank Bailey would be placed on paid leave, Ruaro sent an e-mail to her private Yahoo account titled, "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues." The following day, he followed up with another e-mail, "FW: DPS Employee Draft."

At the very least, these leaked inbox glimpses all show Sarah Palin was using "gov.palin@yahoo.com" to conduct state business, which she had not previously disclosed, despite an ongoing public records lawsuit to release all e-mails related to her official duties.

She had admitted using "gov.sarah@yahoo.com" for official business, so why not reveal this second Yahoo account? If not for this week's hacking incident, it would have remained unknown to the world. Why the secrecy? Why try so hard to cover up your e-mail trail? What exactly is Gov. Palin trying to hide?

The irony is that as numerous observers have noted, relying on Yahoo! e-mail accounts instead of a proprietary, secure system means Palin's accounts have not been deleted forever. E-mail providers like Yahoo keep backups, and the e-mails could be retrieved under court order if subpoenaed as part of an investigation.

Since the McCain campaign is expending maximum effort trying to shut down the bipartisan investigation into Troopergate, one can only conclude that where there's smoke, there was probably a smoking gun or two somewhere in Palin's Yahoo e-mails.

(For more on the back story behind the hacking and the public records lawsuit in Alaska, see an earlier HuffPo post - Sarah Palin E-Mails Deleted Under Cover of Hacking Incident.)

(UPDATE 10/8 - David Kernell, 20, of Memphis, TN, was indicted yesterday on a single count of "intentionally accessing without authorization" Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. Kernell, who was arraigned today and pleaded not guilty, is the son of Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Democratic state legislator.

But far from being a Democratic Party operative or even activist, Kernell appears to have allegedly hacked Palin's account for other reasons, describing the hacking as "just some prank to me" in a supposed first-hand account of the hacking incident. He is also a troubled individual who claims to have been hospitalized twice for depression.

In a post from June, 2003 on a blog he kept for a short time called "Apocoliptic visions," Kernell wrote:

"My name is David Kernell I am 15 a white cacasian male i live in memphis, TN. My favorite and only hobby is chess, more like an obsession. I am not afraid to say that i have acute depression and have been institutionalized twice, one at th age of 9 in Texas and one this past year. I have been strugleing with this for my entire life...")

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

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Erik Ose: Sarah Palin E-Mails Deleted Under Cover of Hacking Incident

2008-09-17T14:05:47Z

A strange hacking incident earlier today tied up another loose end for Gov. Sarah Palin.

Overnight, one of Palin's Yahoo e-mail accounts was compromised, allegedly by members of the leaderless collective of hackers known as "Anonymous." A hacker apparently cracked the password to the e-mail address "gov.palin@yahoo.com," posted it to a public forum, and then multiple users copied some of the e-mails and information the acccount contained.

This morning one user reset the password, notified a Palin aide of the security breach, and the Yahoo account was soon deleted. Simultaneously, a second personal Yahoo account used by Palin, "gov.sarah@yahoo.com," was also deleted.

Screenshot of one of Palin's Yahoo e-mails

Screenshots of some of Palin's e-mails and photos were posted online. Wired's Threat Level blog has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the hacked e-mails.

An e-mail from July between Palin and Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell gives insight into Palin's tendency to demonize her political opponents. In reference to local talk radio host Dan Fagan, who has refused to back Parnell's bid for Congress, Palin commented, "His fighting you reveals some evil stuff going on with him."

Last week, the Washington Post reported that Palin regularly used one of the two Yahoo e-mail accounts that was deleted today, "gov.sarah@yahoo.com," to conduct public business, and copied her husband, Todd, on some e-mails. A Republican activist in Anchorange, Andrée McLeod, has filed suit seeking to have 1,100 e-mails made public that Palin has withheld from an open records request, on suspicion that Palin aides engaged in political activity on state time.

McLeod calls Palin's use of Yahoo accounts for official state business "the most nonsensical, inane thing I've ever heard of." Todd Palin was often copied on e-mails relating to the Troopergate scandal, says McLeod, which nullifies her claim of executive privilege for witholding the e-mails. According to an appeal filed last week to release the rest of Palin's Yahoo e-mail trail:

"(Gov. Palin) has allowed Todd Palin -- who has not been elected by the people of Alaska, who is not a state employee -- to entangle himself apparently as he sees fit in the operations of the executive branch of the state government."

Palin's reliance on personal e-mail accounts for her official duties makes a mockery of her 2006 pledge while campagning for Governor of Alaska to run an "open and transparent" administration. "Where you've got a governor apparently using a Yahoo account for state business, that's kind of a complete inversion of what ought to be happening in terms of public records," said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

Special assistant Ivy Frye, whose name appears in screenshots of the hacked account's inbox, was one of the Palin appointees who tried hard to find loopholes in the law that would allow Gov. Palin to continue conducting state business on personal e-mail accounts without fear of disclosure. Frye, 27, worked as a receptionist before joining Palin's gubernatorial campaign, and her frequent interactions with the Palin children have earned her the title of "the babysitter" among Alaska legislators. As the Washington Post revealed:

"On March 17, minutes after peppering a state official about whether e-mails about state business contained on a personal BlackBerry could become public, senior Palin aide Ivy Frye addressed a message to both Palins and two other aides: 'In sum, it's just as I thought -- questions of confidentiality are still unanswered by law.'"

The Anchorage Daily News confirms Palin "has one of the devices (which allow users to read and send e-mails) for state business, another for personal matters, but those worlds intertwine."

Palin and her two BlackBerries, backstage at McCain VP announcement rally in Ohio on Aug. 29

Anonymous is the same group of hackers embroiled in an ongoing feud with the Church of Scientology. Last January, members were responsible for posting an internal Scientology training video featuring an interview with Tom Cruise on YouTube. It was widely viewed and ridiculed. Soon after, they coordinated denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites, prank calls, and sending black faxes to Scientology centers.

Taking its activism offline, Anonymous helped organize protest marches in cities around the world against Scientology on March 15, including Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Vancouver, Toronto, Berlin, and Dublin.

Two weeks later, the collective was blamed for allegedly posting flashing computer animations on the Epilepsy Foundation of America's website, which could induce seizures in epileptic viewers. Anonymous members denied responsibility for the attack, suggesting the Church of Scientology was actually behind it, attempting "to ruin the public opinion of Anonymous."

The truly troubling part of this episode is that both of Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail accounts were deleted this morning - not just the compromised one, but also the other personal Yahoo account that Palin acknowledged using for public business (gov.sarah@yahoo.com).

Has this hacking incident given Palin a convenient way to dodge the eventual release of whatever else she had hidden in her Yahoo e-mail accounts?

(UPDATE 9/18 - Wired has posted a supposed first person account of the hacking. There is debate over whether the individual who first hacked Palin's e-mail was a self-identified Anonymous member, or simply posted the account's password to an on-line message board frequented by Anonymous hackers.)

(UPDATE 10/8 - David Kernell, 20, of Memphis, TN, was indicted yesterday on a single count of "intentionally accessing without authorization" Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. Kernell, who was arraigned today and pleaded not guilty, is the son of Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Democratic state legislator.

But far from being a Democratic Party operative or even activist, Kernell appears to have allegedly hacked Palin's e-mail for other reasons, describing the incident as "just some prank to me" in a purported first hand account previously published by Wired. He is also a troubled individual who claims to have been hospitalized twice for depression.

In a post from June, 2003 on a blog he kept for a short time called "Apocoliptic visions," Kernell wrote:

"My name is David Kernell I am 15 a white cacasian male i live in memphis, TN. My favorite and only hobby is chess, more like an obsession. I am not afraid to say that i have acute depression and have been institutionalized twice, one at th age of 9 in Texas and one this past year. I have been strugleing with this for my entire life...")

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

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Lee Camp: Leaked: McCain's Earmark Memo to Palin

2008-09-17T07:43:46Z

Erik Ose: Mad Over Sarah Palin? Time To Get Busy for Obama.

2008-09-09T10:58:02Z

Until last week, recent events in the presidential race might have seemed too strange for fiction. A movie about a candidate battling age-related concerns, who would be the oldest president in history if elected, choosing the least experienced VP ever, and announcing the choice on his 72nd birthday? It would have been laughed off the screen. Thanks to John McCain's warped judgment, no one's laughing now.

Add in the fact that the McCain campaign rolled out Sarah Palin by focusing on her family and biography, managing to whitewash most of her extreme right-wing views, and you'd have more cause for disbelief. Yet the mass media was celebrity-struck. McCain played the Paris Hilton card against Barack Obama, accusing him of being too famous. Still, McCain wanted his own infotainment soap opera star to juice up his lackluster campaign, and in Palin he got one.

Palin has rallied the far right Republican base, drooling at the 1 in 3 actuarial chance that McCain will die in office if McCain/Palin win. Since she wants to ban abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, what would a President Palin's Supreme Court picks look like?

But she's also got Democrats and independent voters mad as hell that McCain would gamble with the future of our country so recklessly.

So what to do? How can progressives channel our outrage over the prospect of an unqualified, dangerously far-right wing ideologue, rabidly partisan pitbull with lipstick like Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Here's a simple solution. If there's an Obama campaign office near you, get down there and volunteer. Don't fool yourself into thinking one more volunteer won't make a difference. It will, and they need us. If your state is true blue or red and not in play this cycle at the presidential level, you can volunteer for a Democratic candidate for Congress. And it's not too late to donate or raise some money from friends for Obama. Log onto MyBarackObama.com to get started.

Four years ago, I worked for John Kerry in North Carolina. Based in Durham and Orange counties, the most liberal part of the state, I oversaw a voter registration effort that added more than a quarter of all the voters registered that year by the N.C. Democrats.

The most important factor was that we mobilized a huge number of local volunteers into a grassroots voter registration army. In 2004, Democrats were fired up to get rid of George W. Bush. Even folks normally detached from politics were energized by the unfolding disaster of Bush's first term in the White House, and the mess he'd gotten us into by invading Iraq.

By the voter registration deadline, more than 400 volunteers were working with us to register voters in both counties, with teams on the ground three shifts a day. From the Durham Democratic party office, we deployed volunteer voter registrars to high-traffic sites - grocery stores, bus stations, college campuses, libraries, concerts, festivals, and anywhere else we could think to register likely Democratic voters. As our volunteer ranks exploded, the number of voters we added to the rolls reached into the thousands.

The weekend before election day, U.S. Rep. David Price was on hand to watch the crowd of get-out-the-vote volunteers streaming into our headquarters, so big they filled the parking lot. "They trained 1,000 people in Durham," he was overheard saying later, in wonderment. It was the largest outpouring of support ever seen for a North Carolina election.

Yet even with all the volunteers we had, and all we accomplished in our office, we could have done a lot more. We did everything we could to get volunteers in the door, but there were still many nights in the campaign's final two months with work to be done, and not enough hands on deck to do it.

A big part of the reason Bush was able to add three million votes in 2004 to his popular vote totals from 2000 was because Karl Rove masterminded a sweeping Republican voter registration drive during those years. GOP activists all over the country signed up voters at conservative churches and events like state fairs, NASCAR races, and country music concerts.

During 2008, the Obama campaign has flipped the script. Our efforts in 2004 were funded by the N.C. Democratic Party. By contrast, Obama has directly invested in voter registration as part of his national strategy. Obama field organizers started registering voters during the primary season, and have picked up where they left off in every state being contested for the general election.

And it's working. News accounts have trickled out all year long about Democrats adding voters to the rolls since 2004, while Republican registrations have declined.

September is possibly the month in an election cycle when volunteer help is the most productive. Voter registration deadlines in most states (the ones without same-day registration) don't occur until early October. If you show up to volunteer now, you can bank votes for Obama. You can roll up your sleeves and transform your distaste for Sarah Palin and John McCain into on-the-ground activity that will help win this election.

Plus, you'll have a good time. I met my wife on the campaign trail in 2004. Campaign offices are social places. You'll meet dedicated, good-hearted people who share your views and have fun fighting for a common goal. Make time to do it. Turn the local Obama office into your hang-out spot for the next couple months.

Four years ago, after John Kerry failed to respond forcefully to a month of swiftboating attacks, we saw a marked decrease in volunteer enthusiasm in our office. The energy picked back up, but it was valuable time lost. At a moment when McCain is coming off his convention bounce in the polls, Republicans would love it if we lost hope again, sat back on our hands and did nothing.

The stakes are high. Go volunteer today.

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

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Mario Almonte: Palin Electrifies but Will She Signify? - Why Her Selection as VP May Cost Republicans the White House

2008-09-06T14:10:40Z

No one denies that John McCain's choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP running mate was an act of desperation - but by an extraordinary stroke of luck, she was precisely what his campaign needed to energize a reluctant base of religious and conservative groups.

Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention and consequent anointing as the Next Biggest Star in the political sphere proved that winning the presidential race really is a beauty contest: It helps to have a brain, but you get most of your points for looking good.

When all was said and done, Palin looked more cheerful and more genial than Obama on that stage. She also gave a rousing pep talk that genuinely electrified the congregation and decisively converted the skeptics of her Party. By contrast, Obama had had all the life and fire sucked out of him by Democratic strategists who wanted him to play it safe and move his message to the middle. As a result, his presidential acceptance speech was rather constraint and bland. It succeeded only in preaching to the converted. He was so focused on hitting all the right points that he lost sight of what a political speech is suppose to do - and what he does so well - which is to inspire.

Sounding Off
Most people had never even heard of Sarah Palin prior to McCain's introduction. After her speech, all that changed. Yet, in the din of media and Party acclaim and adulation, the truth is that Palin's speech and, in the weeks to come, her position as John McCain's running mate could prove more of a liability than an asset. While her speech firmed up McCain's conservative and religious base, it also sent many undecided voters flying into the arms of Obama.

Reportedly, her speech helped to generate over $10 million in contributions for the Republicans. But she also helped the Democrat, sparking a similar amount in contributions for Obama. The glib, comfortable way in which she distorted and lied outright about her own record versus that of Obama's did not sit well with everyone. Social conservatives saw her as their savior, but others saw her as the Church Lady on steroids.

High on God
Coming out of the starting gate, Palin has also set the bar for herself exceptionally high: as a defender of family values; as a God-fearing individual whose actions are guided by her deep, religious convictions and moral strength; and as an ethical public servant who is politically independent. These are moral baggage of massive weight that few human beings could ever realistically shoulder. If history has taught us one thing, it is that people who are most vocal about their moral superiority and their right to impose it upon others - they are the ones whose private lives are most flawed. And under unrelenting public scrutiny, their contradictions eventually surface.

Signs are already there that the euphoria of Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention could prove the equivalent of a one-night stand. The morning after, people were already beginning to question some of her claims. For example, expounding family values, she paraded her unwed, pregnant teenage daughter and the baby's startled young father before millions of Americans. Was teenage sex and pregnancy part of the wholesome family picture? Palin's "bridge to nowhere" reference also angered many Alaskans and political leaders of both parties, who saw her claim as false and a betrayal of their community.

An Offer They Can't Refuse
In her opening speech, Sarah Palin also threw down the gauntlet to the media and the opposition party, daring them to cross the line and challenge her version of the truth - and that's an offer they can't refuse. Her hometown is probably already swarming with Paparazzi and Democratic "operatives" who are determined to pry into her personal life and find a few skeletons - preferably those that come with pictures. Undoubtedly, reporters are also furiously trolling MySpace and other sites on the Internet for entries by her teenage children. Young people tend to post dubious pictures of themselves online in questionable situations.

The irony is that McCain was probably better off staying his old boring self and not "shaking up" his campaign. There were already indications that he was beginning to slowly gain on Obama in the weeks before Palin. Undecided voters acknowledged that McCain was a terrific bore - yet, for various reasons, they could not bring themselves to vote for Obama; reluctantly, they were drifting toward McCain.

McCain's selection of a woman also took away the shock value of Obama as the first African American who could become President. It neutralized the weighty sense of historical precedence some voters felt. History was going to be made either way, so why obsess over the choice? Finally, the same social conservatives who are skeptical of putting an African American at the helm also tend to worry about putting an "emotional woman" a heartbeat from the presidential office. Gender was a major issue in Hillary Clinton's campaign. Now it's an issue for McCain.

When all is said and done, it comes down to Sarah Palin herself: she can dish it out, but can she take it? She has yet to experience the trial by fire that is the burning hot spotlight of the national media. Like rats after the cheese, they scurry over every nook and cranny of one's personal life until they find the crumbs of scandals. The truth is out there. And the new generation of tabloid journalism - no, not the Washington Post or The New York Times - will dig it up and expose it to the world.

Erik Ose: The View From Wasilla - God Help Us if Sarah Palin is Elected

2008-09-05T12:32:22Z

I got a fascinating e-mail from a Wasilla, Alaska resident who was witness to Sarah Palin's tenure as mayor. Except for a New York Times article this week that explored how Palin ran as an anti-abortion candidate of the Christian right, I haven't yet seen much detailed reporting of exactly what she did as a local government official in Wasilla. How did Palin handle the "actual responsibilities" of a small-town mayor that she bragged about to the nation on Wednesday night, when she was officially nominated as John McCain's VP?

For starters, Palin "turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots" while lowering taxes for businesses and increasing the sales tax burden on residents. Far from being a fiscal conservative, she "oversaw the greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history." Palin borrowed taxpayers' money to fund an unprofitable sports complex "in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system," and "built streets to early 20th century standards."

This account lays it all out, from an observer who says she "attended more City Council meetings during (Palin's) administration than about 99% of the residents of the city." She was one of roughly 100 Wasilla citizens who stood up for the city librarian when Palin tried to fire her in 1996, early in her first term as mayor.

But what really struck me was the picture this author paints of Palin's ruthless, unbridled ambition, and willingness to try and fire or destroy anyone who stands in her way. Even though national reporters are hunkering down in Alaska, the details of Palin's life and political career emerging from her hometown will probably be distorted and whitewashed. Her own neighbors are afraid to speak out about what they've witnessed during her quick rise to power, scared to cross her, fearful of retribution.

If this side of Sarah Palin was more widely known, it would frighten and disgust most of the U.S. voting public. Haven't we had enough of incompetent, crony-driven leadership from George W. Bush over the past eight years? Do we really want someone in national office who believes rabidly partisan, personal political loyalty tests should continue to be the sole qualification for government employment? Someone who keeps enemies lists, and surrounds herself with appointees who are "loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda"?

Here's more excerpts:

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law.

I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular in Wasilla; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, she takes credit.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002).

She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, so borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library?

No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop.

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner (Walter Monegan) has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.

Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary.

I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there are a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIMS VS. FACTS

* "Hockey mom": true for a few years

* "PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

* "NRA supporter": absolutely true

* "Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

* "Political maverick": not at all

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. (I have) participated in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000.

The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used "about 5,000" because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Scary stuff.

(UPDATE 9/8: As noted in the comments below, this e-mail was no hoax. Its author is Anne Kilkenny, a homemaker and education advocate from Wasilla, Alaska. She wrote it on August 31 and sent it out to friends and family, but asked that it not be posted online with her name attached. It went viral anyway. Later in the week, with her permission, it was published online by various media outlets including the Anchorage Daily News, Crosscut Seattle, and The Nation. Yesterday Anne herself posted the full text of her e-mail on HuffPo.)

Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.

Digg It.

Trish Wend: Sarah Palin's Presidential To Do List

2008-09-05T09:32:50Z

Dan Froomkin: Unqualified for Duty

2008-09-03T12:49:53Z

One of the problems with modern political journalism is that when something manifestly absurd takes place, as long as there are people willing to argue both sides, our top reporters feel obliged to treat it as deserving of serious debate.

Case in point: John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Palin would be spectacularly unqualified for the job of vice president even if McCain were immortal. But the prospect of her suddenly being thrust into the leadership of the free world has got to leave everyone but the most loyal, talking-point-equipped partisans deeply chilled.

This is not a question of her politics. And it has absolutely nothing to do with her gender. It's not even strictly speaking a question of experience. Conceivably, somebody with even less experience than Palin could meet what everyone should be able to agree is a basic requirement for the office: That she or he has given serious thought to the national and international issues of our time.

Is there any evidence that Palin is anything other than an utter neophyte when it comes to issues such as Iraq, the economy, health care, and domestic and foreign policy generally?

Palin's lack of the most basic prerequisite for the job should be the dominant message of the news coverage. Instead, her selection was hailed as a "bold move," with her lack of qualifications relegated to the status of a Democratic complaint. Instead, the media establishment has let itself get drawn into a number of alternate story lines, some of them certainly quite fascinating, but none of them as essential.

What possible reason is there to nominate someone so lacking in gravitas for the vice presidency? In this case, of course, it couldn't be more obvious that Palin's selection has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with governance. Palin's gender and her hard-right credentials were clearly seen by McCain's top advisers as just what the campaign needed.

Whether that was a clever or suicidal political calculation remains to be seen. It's certainly looking more and more like it was a reckless one. But it doesn't just strain credulity -- it pulverizes it -- to suggest that she is the best and most qualified person McCain could find for the job.

It's a tremendous failure of political reporting that such patent spin from McCain supporters is being treated like a supportable position. By contrast, it seems to me that anyone suggesting that Palin was selected for anything other than political reasons should be considered presumptively a liar from this point on.

This is not a radical view. Here, for instance, is Richard Cohen on the Washington Post op-ed page yesterday:

Probably the most depressing thing about Palin is not her selection but the defense of it. It has produced a parade of GOP spokesmen intent on spiking the needle on a polygraph. Looking right into the camera, they offer statement after statement that they hope the voters will swallow but that history will forget. The sum effect on the diligent news consumer is a feeling of consummate contempt for the intelligence of the American people -- a contempt that will be justified should Palin be the factor that makes McCain a winner in November.

Even though the cable networks can find matched pairs of pundits to take opposite sides on just about anything, I can't help but think that the vast majority of political journalists recognize that there is something seriously out of whack with the Palin selection.

So it's time for our elite political reporters to look into their own heads and decide: Do you value what's in there? Or are you willing to report whatever people tell you?

This post originally appeared on the Watchdog Blog at NiemanWatchdog.org.

Byron Williams: It's Not About Palin; It's About McCain

2008-09-03T11:58:20Z

If John McCain's veep choice was designed to dominate the news cycle, then I say: "Mission Accomplished."

To his supporters picking Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin looks bold; to his detractors, it's cynical.
Since McCain tabbed Palin to be a heartbeat away from commander-in-chief the chattering class has all but forgot Barack Obama's dramatic acceptance speech in Denver.

It is quite amusing to watch the Democratic faithful beam with the sincerity of Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat at what they view as a sophomoric choice on McCain's behalf.

History would be quick to point out Democrats held similar positions in 1968 when Richard Nixon selected the unheralded Spiro Agnew and in 1988 when George H.W. Bush chose the untested Dan Quayle, both of whom went on to victory.

As I recall, in their one vice presidential debate, Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, cleaned Quayle's clock, but that didn't help Michael Dukakis.

Palin's record, or lack thereof, offers more than enough discussion.

Her Hillary-like cackle while appearing on a Alaska radio show when one of the hosts referred to a member of the Alaska Legislature and cancer survivor as a "B-word" warrants evaluation about her judgment and panache.

When has a presidential race come down to the vice presidential choice? It doesn't, not even the 1972 race when George McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton for 18 days, until revelations that Eagleton checked himself into a hospital three times for physical and nervous exhaustion, twice receiving electric shock treatments, which led to his being replaced by Sargent Shriver.

It wasn't Eagleton, but the way McGovern handled the matter that helped doom his election against Richard Nixon.

That's not to say vice presidential candidates are inconsequential, Dick Cheney's eight years debunks that theory. As public figures, running on the national ticket grants the individual less right to privacy than the average citizen.

But do we need to know that Palin's teenage daughter is pregnant?

There is nothing newsworthy over the revelation that a 17-year-old is five months pregnant in our society. That is a challenging and sensitive matter that the Palin family must grapple.

It is easy to decry the obvious hypocrisy of Palin's demand for abstinence and the failure of that policy to work in her own home.

I commend Barack Obama's no tolerance statement. "I strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18," he said.

Frankly, I don't, and suspect a scant few prognosticators do, know exactly what McCain's selection of Palin will mean politically. Moreover, regardless of who is the vice presidential choice, McCain and Obama must confront obstacles to pass the 270 electoral vote (ev) plateau required to be the next president.

According to The Cook Political Report, there are 150 (ev) that are solid Democrat, while Republicans have 130. Democrats lead Republicans 33 to 27 in the "likely" category, and 57 to 17 in the "leaning" category. This gives Obama a 240 to 174 electoral vote advantage with 124 (ev) in the "toss-up" range.

The good news for Obama of the nine states considered toss-ups, eight were won by Bush in 2004. McCain will be forced to hold on to 117 (ev), while Obama must hold on to 17 previously won by Kerry and Gore.

McCain's hope lies in the six toss-up states or 81 (ev) that have not been carried by a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1996, including Florida and Ohio. The presidential race will be won by the candidate, who can overcome their pending obstacles.

Obama's moderate post convention bump notwithstanding, this is shaping up to an election bearing strong resemblance to 1980. Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were locked in a tight race until the numbers broke Reagan's way in the waning weeks before Election Day.

I doubt Palin or, for that matter, Democratic vice presidential nomine Joe Biden will determine which direction the country goes. Fortunately, people still vote for who is at top of the ticket.

As information is released about Palin it says more about John McCain. How detailed was the McCain vetting process?

If it turns out the person at the top of the ticket ultimately went with his gut rather examining the details it just feels that most Americans have already seen that horror movie for the past eight years.

Lee Camp: McCain's Voice Mail to Palin Leaked to Press (Listen)

2008-09-03T09:19:58Z

Bob Franken: Who Knew Number Two?

2008-09-02T15:06:18Z

We still don't know if the Palin's journey from Alaska to the vice president's mansion would be more like Ms. Smith's family coming to Washington or the Clampetts. In other words, we really have no idea what John McCain's running mate is about.

The problem is there are strong indications he doesn't either. His aides are spinning like whirling dervishes right now, desperately putting out the word that Gov. Palin was thoroughly vetted.

What do we make, then, of her daughter's pregnancy? If we take the McCain campaign's word that they were aware of it , wouldn't it have been more honest simply to make it known when she was named to the number 2 spot on the ticket?

Were the candidate and his operatives so naive they didn't think that would NOT be of interest? Or was it a case of waiting to announce it when the nation was distracted by a potentially disastrous hurricane, using the subterfuge that internet rumors had forced their hand?

That would certainly be cynical, now wouldn't it? But would it be more cynical than ignoring so many certifiably qualified women with a roll-of-the-dice choice of one about whom so little is known, other than her possible appeal to female voters, one who might otherwise vote Democratic?

That would not only be cynical gender-pandering , but it would also demonstrate a belief that a significant number of women were so gullible and simple-minded their "You Go Girl" passions would consume any other judgments as they made a Helen Reddy switch to the GOP.

Even as someone who has written about life in the Male Chauvinist Pidgom, I can see where that approach might just be a teensy-weensy bit sexist.

Call me crazy, but it also might raise, again, questions about whether McCain sometimes has a tendency to "Act first-Think Later". He speaks a lot about the value of his experience compared to Barack Obama's , but a fair question in this election might also be about temperament. Which of the candidates is the more impetuous, which more deliberative.

In the vice presidential choice, a fundamental consideration is which one is best equipped to produce changes. And of course, best equipped to take over.

In the case of all four, we need to choose between their policies...social, economic, and international, along with their ability to really make the huge reforms this country will need to thrive, or even survive.

Frankly, the fact Sarah Palin's unmarried daughter is pregnant should mean almost nothing, except maybe to the strong conservatives who are flocking to Governor Palin. Perhaps they need to ponder some more how effective unyielding morality is as public policy.

In fairness, we can only reserve judgment on Palin as vice presidential material. Maybe those who have questions about her suitability will be surprised. But is John McCain one of them?

Sean Carman: A Viewer's Guide to the Sarah Palin Nomination

2008-09-02T12:18:20Z

Sarah Palin is a modern day Alaska gold mine. The media is unleashing so much information about the hockey mom/right-wing radical Christian evangelical/dead ringer for Tina Fey, it's hard to make sense of all the emerging storylines. Should I judge her over her teenage daughter's pregnancy? Yes, she lied repeatedly about Troopergate, but did she break any laws? What in tarnation is the Alaska Independence Party? And the question all Americans who only want to spent 20 minutes on the campaign before getting on with their lives are asking: "How do I make sense of all of this?"

Because I care about the future of our country, and have spent the last 36 hours glued to the internet and am starting to feel dizzy from lack of food, I have prepared the following viewer's guide to the nomination of Sarah Palin. Now you don't have to follow the media frenzy! Just print out this handy guide and follow it in deciding how to vote. It contains everything you need to know.

1. Remember eight years ago, when George Bush first ran for President? Remember how he seemed like a really, really great guy? Someone you'd want to invite over for some barbecue and a beer? Someone who could never do anything bad because he seemed like such a decent human being? Hold that thought.

2. Note that Palin's nomination has been greeted by radical right-wing fundamentalists almost as enthusiastically as the second coming of Christ. Focus on the Family kingmaker James Dobson immediately endorsed McCain, and McCain turned in his best fund-raising month ever, bringing in $47 million.

3. Ask yourself why this is.

4. Now remember back to the last time the radical right was this excited about a national candidate? When was that? Oh, yes, I remember: It was when the Republican party nominated George Bush.

5. Note, more ominously, that the radical right is so excited over Sarah Palin coming within one feeble heartbeat of the presidency they are happily overlooking her teenage daughter's pregnancy. Now, I have nothing against Bristol Palin, who only appears to be the unwitting victim of abstinence-only sex education and a lack of easy access to birth control. I wish her the best. But think about this: In any other circumstance, America's right wing fundamentalists would be blaspheming poor Bristol to Hell for her sins and praying for her redemption. They would be vilifying iTunes and the NBC fall line-up for causing the promiscuity that led to her pregnancy. Instead they act like the hippy parents who've discovered a Ziploc of marijuana in their daughter's purse. So ask yourself: What would make such intolerant people suddenly become so forgiving? A larger purpose, perhaps?

6. Keep in mind that the radical right knows things. They have an entire underground network we only see when it pops up every few years, to keep Terry Schiavo on life support or ban My Friend Flicka from a school library. While the rest of us lead balanced lives, dividing our time between work, our loved ones, and an assortment of eccentric hobbies, these people are zealously devoting themselves to the single purpose of amending the Constitution to conform to the Bible. Well, that and overturning Roe v. Wade. The point is, they know things about Sarah Palin that we, as a nation, cannot be expected to learn and understand in only two months' time. Especially with football season just gearing up.

7. Here's all you really need to know about Troopergate: Sarah Palin hates Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten. I mean she really, really hates him. During her sister's divorce from trooper Wooten, the Palin family went after him so ferociously the judge in the case said it appeared they were going after his livelihood. When she became governor she raised the accusations against trooper Wooten from the divorce a second time with Alaska State Public Safety Director Walt Monegan and pressured Monegan to fire him. When Monegan refused, she fired Monegan. When asked about pressuring Monegan, she lied. Now that the state legislature has begun an investigation she's stonewalling it, after earlier promising she would cooperate. Ask yourself: If Sarah Palin hates trooper Wooten so much she would do all of this as Governor of Alaska, what would she would do as Vice President?

8. Say "trooper Wooten" to yourself over and over. Hilarious!

9. What does all of this mean? The friendly, apparently all-American demeanor? The rabid support of radical right-wing fundamentalists? The dogged, inexplicable hatred of trooper Wooten? It means if you liked the last eight years in America, you're in luck! They are about to repeat themselves.

10. Finally, it means that if you happen to be Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten, you should probably consider moving to New Zealand.

Billy Kimball: How to Handle this Woman: A Playbook for the Democrats

2008-09-02T11:36:54Z

John McCain's announcement last Friday morning that Sarah Palin, the obscure political neophyte who currently holds the largely ceremonial post of Governor of Alaska would be his running mate, stunned the political world. It also annoyed the political world, which is known for reacting to anything flying under its radar rather like the Strategic Air Command might.

With so little advance notice to prepare a "take" on Gov. Palin, the chattering classes lapsed into one of their analytical defaults. Anything unforeseen is, necessarily, a "Hail Mary." Now I will admit that John McCain is the sort of impulsive eccentric who is perfectly capable of throwing a Hail Mary when the game is tied and there's plenty of time on the clock, rather than call a dull series of running (Tim Pawlenty) and passing (Mitt Romney) plays. And, to the Fourth Estate, it must have seemed as though Lord Nelson had decided to fire on one of his own ships at Trafalgar to confuse the French.

But, let's just consider the possibility that McCain acted neither crazily or stupidily in choosing a rootin', tootin', shootin' lady politician from an Electorally worthless province of Canada to be his understudy. First of all, the Palin announcement bounced the Democratic Convention and Barack Obama's speech out of the news-cycle even before its 24-hour sell-by date. What was Obama saying about McCain and George Bush the other night? Who cares? Did you hear that Sarah Palin has a giant lacquered King Crab on her office coffee table?

Palin is also exactly the sort of debate opponent who could cause an incapacitating flare-up of Joe Biden's chronic verbal diarrhea. If she's smart -- or smart enough -- she can probably just sit back and watch him flounder. Biden, who never starts a sentence with an exit strategy in place, could easily seem like one of those bullies his mother had such a problem with.

For all we know, she could be like Eddie Gaedel, the 3-foot 7-inch pinch hitter for the St. Louis Browns. Eddie never hit any home runs, but his strike zone was so small that it was impossible not to walk him.

Then, just as the media flabbergastation was dying down in the midst of a three-anchor (plus Anderson Cooper) commitment to Hurricane Gustav and Labor Day lassitude, it flared anew with the revelation that Palin's 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was pregnant. Now, surely the moment had arrived when John McCain would pop out and announce that he was just kidding and how about a nice round of applause for a great American, Tom Ridge, everybody.

But, yet again, the compulsive gloaters ("This is a great day to be alive," a blogger wrote. Someone else posted, "Dear God: I'm sorry I said I didn't believe in You, and thanks very much.") wrote Sarah Palin off prematurely.

While a teenage daughter with a bun in the oven might have embarrassed some old-line country club Republicans, Gov. Palin's core constituency are not likely to be terribly bothered by it. The rough-and-ready right wing of the Party has known a few unwed pregnant 17-year-old daughters in its time. And the fundamentalist Christians among them are awfully big (and genuinely sincere) in their belief that we are all sinners. They are a little more selective about forgiveness but unless the father turns out to be Rosie O'Donnell, Bristol and Sarah Palin can probably count on some of that, as well.

Still, I'm sure this is a "distraction" both McCain and Palin would have rather done without. So, why, is Sarah Palin still a smart running mate for John McCain?

What Palin has accomplished for McCain is that she helped to define his opponent -- and not in a flattering way. The media, both mainstream and blogocentric, fell into a trap by reacting with astonishment and then disdain to the notion that a title character from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" had been selected for the second-highest office in the land. When the immediate response to her was WTF? followed by a cavalcade of catty columns and posts, the elitist, Eastern establishment tenor of the anti-Palin forces became clear quickly. Obama's defenders were acting just like the Ivory Towered snobs that the other side says they are. When the media took the same general line, they proved themselves to be secret elitist Obama supporters through simple transitive arithmetic. A= B=C.

No, rather than rely on the startling facts we know so far and any that will come out in the days ahead to sink the McCain-Palin ticket, the Democrats have to acknowledge that their point-of-view may not be universal. Defects can be in the eye of the beholder. While Sarah Palin may seem to some like a sort of Republican Party Girl -- Kathleen Harris without the killer instinct -- to others she's an immensely appealing Jane Six-Pack. If they want to win, Senator Obama's surrogates must not wait for the scales to fall from the public's eyes so that they see Sarah Palin as she is and find her preposterous. Democrats must tarnish her on her own terms. Continuing to point out that she doesn't have a lot in common with Maureen Dowd and Tina Fey isn't going to get them anywhere.

Here, then, are a few suggested talking points based, for the most part, on lies and half-truths because, so far, the truth is having insufficient traction. (And, to be fair, I'm glad to offer my help to the Republicans in undermining Joe Biden, though I have a feeling that Biden doesn't need my help to do that.)

Instead of harping on her NRA membership and enthusiasm for killing defenseless wild animals, Democrats should hint darkly that Palin uses a fancy foreign-made Beretta T-3 rifle rather than a fine, decent American gun like a Remington VS SF II.

And can't Keith Olbermann find anyone from Alaska who will say that she's really not that great a shot and only joined the NRA in order to get discount car insurance?

Instead of tsk-tsking about Bristol Palin's pregnancy, Obamaites should start wondering aloud what sort of names "Bristol," "Piper," "Track," "Willow," and "Trig" are in the first place. They sound an awful lot like the next five Pitt-Jolie kids. What's wrong with Matthew, Mark, Prudence, Sally, and John?

Okay, her husband's a snowmobile racer. But from what I've been told the race that he's won four times, the Tesoro Iron Dog, is regarded by people who know as a "bullshit" snowmobile race that is strictly for beginners.

Yes, Saran Palin came in second in the Miss Alaska pageant in 1984 but she never really took pageants seriously.

And, by the way, she's not actually a native Alaskan. She was born "back East" in Sandpoint, Idaho.

The girl's high school basketball team on which the played (and where she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda") siphoned much-needed funds from boys' teams.

And, finally, as a former sports reporter with a degree in journalism, she's a part of the mainstream media, the most hated and distrusted group in this country.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin

Jacob Heilbrunn: McCain's Indiscretion

2008-09-02T11:34:57Z

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin isn't a mistake. It's a disaster. Like a moonstruck teenager, McCain was smitten overnight with Palin. But as the revelations keep pouring out about Palin, McCain is surely starting to realize that he has hitched himself to a volatile partner who threatens to upend his entire campaign.

Already media coverage is focused almost exclusively on the Palin drama rather than on McCain. Palin has the upper hand in the relationship with McCain. Her convention speech on Wednesday will likely upstage McCain's. The GOP hasn't experienced this big a mess since 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower mulled over dumping a young Richard M. Nixon. But were McCain to dump her overboard, the religious right would, in effect, accuse him of jilting her -- of political infidelity. In short, McCain is hostage to Palin, and she will begin to savor it. "To tie a prominent statesman to her train and to lead him about like a tame bear," wrote Henry Adams in Democracy, his nineteenth century Washington novel, "is for a young and vivacious woman a more certain amusement than to tie herself to him and to be dragged about like an Indian squaw."

McCain should have seen this coming, but as the New York Times reports today, his campaign apparently failed to examine Palin's record adequately. The choice of vice president was the first test of McCain's judgment. Barack Obama passed it with flying colors. McCain flunked it. If he can't pick a vice-president, how on earth is he going to run an entire government?

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin

Sean Carman: Sarah Palin: Average Hockey Mom or Spawn of Satan?

2008-08-31T22:36:46Z

Well, John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, sending all of us political columnists to Google in search of something to say about the "average hockey mom" who can drop a bear at 150 yards with a bolt action if her scope is well-sighted and also happens to be the living embodiment of the hot librarian fantasy shared by all the men and half the women in America. What the selection means for yours truly is that the canned columns I had worked up on Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman and Condaleeza Rice are out the window. Thanks a lot, John McCain.

Like the other 30% of America paying attention to the presidential race, I have been feverishly learning as much as possible about the former PTA president who says that she doesn't know what the Vice President does, really, and hasn't thought very much about Iraq, but hopes that, now that her son is going to be deployed there, we at least have some sort of plan.

Earth to Sarah Palin: Your job as Vice President is not to hope we have some sort of plan for Iraq. It is to help develop one. Hopefully they'll explain that to her at some point.

I thought it was a nice touch that, as Palin stood at the podium in Ohio yesterday, waiting to begin her first speech to a national audience, and she looked uncertain for a second about when to start, McCain leaned forward with his Cheshire Cat smile and helpfully said, "No hurry."

Yes, that's the sort of advice an experienced politician needs -- when to stop graciously receiving applause and begin speaking. It's good they've chosen someone with experience, who knows how to take charge of a situation.

It was undoubtedly the sort of on-the-job training McCain advisor Charlie Black was referring to when he said Palin will be, "learning foreign policy at the foot of a master for the next four years." But why at his feet? Do they not plan to give Palin a chair? If I were her, I would demand my own chair. Sitting on the carpet at the feet of John McCain for four years while he preaches about how we have no exit strategy for Iraq sounds degrading, and also really dull.

Although the image does make me think that Palin could become McCain's Shahrazad, telling a captivated McCain endless stories of fascinating adventures in Alaska so he can never quite bring himself to remove her from the ticket once this whole "throw a curve to Obama" strategy becomes the Republican embarrassment of the Century.

"And yet that story was not nearly as interesting as The Story of the Time Sarah Palin Made Love to a Polar Bear While Her Husband Was Winning the Great Northern Snow Machine Race . . ."

Oh wait, I forgot. She hates Polar Bears and wants to see them go extinct. Well, you get the idea.

Because I believe this is an historic election, and that Palin's selection could determine its outcome, I'll share with you the best Palin video I've found on the internet, a KTVA news story about the state trooper controversy. Check it out at the end of this piece.

Apart from its sordid tale of Palin's abuse of power as Governor in carrying out a personal vendetta against her sister's ex-husband, compare the Palin in the white sun visor who, about half-way through, denies speaking with Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan (whom she fired for his refusal to can state tropper Mike Wooten) to the Palin shown elsewhere in the piece. Clearly, she's had some work done. They thinned her nose, took something off her cheeks, and gave her a complete personal appearance makeover. Unless the Alaska local news was just interviewing some random woman in a sun visor about whether she'd spoken to Monegan about Wooten, always a possibility. I grew up in Wyoming, which is not unlike Alaska, and where the local news was always interviewing the wrong people and getting the stories all wrong, which was a great source of entertainment, but that's another story.

My point was, Palin appears to have turned herself into a Barbie doll to advance her political career. Which, of course, will make feminists everywhere line up to vote for her. Especially Hilary supporters.

The other gem in the KTVA news piece is the anxiety-ridden, beady-eyed Palin speaking at some sort of art gallery function about why, before supposedly firing Monagen for failing to address rural alcohol issues (her cover story) she had, two weeks before, praised his work on the issue and nominated him to be Director of the Alaska State Beverage Control Commission. Oops. Palin's frantic explanation comes about two-third of the way through piece and it is priceless. It's so rare these days that you find footage on the internet of a national politician looking like a cornered rat.

My political instincts -- which are never right, by the way -- tell me McCain's selection of Palin is going to explode in his face, like the best kind of slow-motion political train wreck. This could be the most entertaining political development of the last 20 years. And it could get better. Maybe Palin, before she was a beauty queen, danced at the Great Alaska Bush Company. Maybe that's how she met her husband, the North Slope oil rig operator Todd Palin. An eager nation can only hope.

But the other part of me fears for our country if this woman gets anywhere near the White House. I also think that if America elects this pair, it's game over and I'm moving to Canada. Or Spain. Or anywhere that will take me.