Alaska Governor and former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, on the biggest night of her political career.
So, after Wednesday night's spectacle of an intensively-rehearsed Sarah Palin whipping up the Republican convention crowd, what will be for her? Que sera, Sarah.
I think in the end Palin is a sideshow, a base play too problematic and extreme to appeal to independents and moderates, a tyro whose politics actually undercuts the positioning John McCain needs to win the election.
McCain's acceptance speech last night, heavy with elegiac tones, had none of the pop of Palin's. What it did have was depth beyond Palin's glib wisecracks, and a more centrist positioning beyond Palin's right-wing base-stoking, and McCain's own Bush-backing record of recent years. What it did not have was the substance to back up the centrist reformism McCain needs to try to upset Obama.
I asked McCain's old friend Gary Hart, who was McCain's groomsman at the Vietnam War hero's wedding to Cindy, what he thought. "McCain," Hart said, noting the flat response of the convention crowd even to the watered-down centrism of last night, "is trying to return the neocon party to the traditional conservative party. He won't succeed."
In any event, the Vietnam War hero, the "original maverick" as his campaign would again position him after several years of fealty to the very unpopular agenda of President Bush, paled as it were from a performance standpoint next to Palin's kinetic performance.
John McCain's new ad presents Sarah Palin as "the Alaska Maverick," allegedly a fighter against Big Oil unlike Barack Obama, the candidate of "empty words."
Wednesday night was the biggest night of Palin's political career. All ice cream. Palin, whose biggest office until 2007 was the mayoralty of Wasilla, Alaska -- current population 6,715, according to the City of Wasilla -- had been mostly out of sight since her debut last Friday at a Dayton, Ohio rally with John McCain.
Palin was getting briefed in on national and international issues, about which she knows little. She's still not ready for interviews, so this will continue at least into next week as she will soon return to Alaska to see her son Track off to Iraq on, naturally, September 11th. This is the first time I can recall that a vice presidential nominee has done no interviews following his or her unveiling.
Notice that I said "her." Palin is not the first woman vice presidential nominee. New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro holds that distinction, dating back to 1984. I know this first-hand, as I cast my delegate vote at the Democratic national convention for her that year. It proved to be a mistake.
While Ferraro was a credible figure, very well-versed in national and international issues, she was a token. It was stunt casting by a presidential candidate, a decades-long Washington figure, Walter Mondale, hungry to show that he, too, was a change agent. It didn't work.
Back to Palin. The hard right base of the Republican Party loves her. Why would they not? She is for creationism, the religious fundamentalist notion that scientific evolution is false.
A McCain campaign video entitled "Introducing Sarah Palin."
She is a greenhouse effect denier. A convenient stance for someone who pushes for oil drilling everywhere. Incidentally, the Arctic ice cap is melting once again, creating the fabled "Northwest Passage" at the top of the world. Which is why Russia staked a claim to the North Pole last year, as many experts believe that 25% of the world's remaining oil and natural gas reserves are under what was once the intractable ice cap of the North Pole.
She's against abortion in all circumstances, including for victims of rape and incest. She is a staunch opponent of sex education. It would be easy to make the point that her underage daughter, now pregnant out of wedlock, the father being some tuff boy teenage hockey player whose now-scrubbed MySpace page said he never wants to have kids and will kick anybody's ass, thereby making him prime dad material, is a victim of this stance. But that whole area should be left to the National Enquirer -- which is delving into the broad sweep of Palin's private life -- and the rest of the lifestyle press and the ADD media.
Back to public affairs substance. Palin claims to have opposed the infamous "Bridge To Nowhere." Actually, she campaigned for it, turned against it once it had been discredited publicly, then took the money for it and applied it elsewhere.
A fighter against a corrupt Alaska Republican establishment. Actually, she was co-director of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens' political committee. Stevens, a notorious pork barrel pol, is a longtime McCain bete noire, indicted on several charges of political corruption.
Palin is also a big-time political consumer of congressional earmarks, long the subject of McCain anti-spending crusades.
Palin, who had only met John McCain once before he picked her, seems bright and glib. I was aware that she was on a long list for the vice presidency. I thought about her, and didn't think McCain would pick her.
Alaska is a state of well under 700,000 people. That is smaller than not only all 40 state senate districts in California, but all 435 congressional districts in America.
Prior to 2007, Palin's claim to fame was that she had been mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Which, as I've noted, Karl Rove erroneously stated on Fox News early last Friday morning was the second largest city in Alaska. Not even close. I reported then that there were 8000 people in Wasilla. Actually, it's 6,715, according to the city itself. When Palin was elected mayor, it was under 5000.
I got ahold of Palin's election records. What is interesting to know is that, when Palin was first elected mayor of Wasilla, she received 651 votes. That was a landslide election for her, with over 60% of the city vote.
As I look at Palin's record, which prior to 2007 is based on her long tenure as a city council member and mayor of Wasilla, something occurred to me. I held more important local government posts than Palin. When I was in high school.
And looking at Palin's record in tiny Wasilla, I accomplished more as a local government official. When I was in high school.
Now, frankly, it's definitely not much, though it's had a positive effect on the lives of more people than Palin has had as a local government official. But then, I'm not disappointed by being passed over by John McCain for the vice presidency, though I've spent more time around him than Palin has. Not a high bar to cross, since she'd only met him once before he designated her as his vice president.
You know, all this stuff about Palin's private life, which extends out ultimately to the public sphere with her firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner for his refusal to fire Palin's former brother-in-law. I don't care about that. Put it all off limits. McCain's pal David Letterman likens Palin and her family to Jerry Springer guests. Clearly, Letterman is an elitist. McCain, who courted celebrities and now makes fun of them, has been on Letterman more than all but a few movie stars.
Since the bulk of Palin's executive experience is non-serious, here is a more serious question. How would Palin do against Vladimir Putin? It's not an idle question, as about 20% of the vice presidents have become president, and John McCain, who had several bouts of cancer, endured terrible tortures at the hands of his Communist captors and as a result is not athletic, would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency.
I haven't met Sarah Palin. I have met Vladimir Putin. A bit more of a priority. I'm not in the least surprised that this elite former KGB officer has outwitted George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Well, you see where this is going.
Speaking of Bush and Cheney, neither was present at his own party's national convention.
President Bush, who briefly addressed the convention Tuesday night via satellite, out of prime time, is the first sitting president of the United States not to attend his own party convention in 40 years. Who is the last to hold this distinction? Lyndon Johnson, during the height of the Vietnam War.
Vice President Cheney set off on a big foreign tour for the week of the Republican national convention. His job approval rating is unbelievably low, down in the teens. He's off to Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland. To assure them that they have America's full backing against resurgent Russia.
Empty words for Georgia, whose misbegotten leader Mikheil Saakashvili so misinterpreted the support of Bush and Cheney and McCain that he launched a disastrously backfiring offensive against South Ossetia. For his troubles, he got a swiftly shattered military and Russian dominance over much of what he thought was his country.
As expected, the European Union summit on the Georgian crisis resulted in nothing. A few harshly-worded press releases. Putin, naturally, could care less. He and the rest of the Kremlin crew are certainly losing no sleep about another American politician who talks tough and doesn't know what's going on.
As for Sarah Palin, que sera, sera. As Doris Day sang, somewhat incongruously, in the Hitchcock thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much, whatever will be, will be. And what will be is that she is a base play, a tabloid distraction, a bright and glib politician of opportunity whose political posture will prove highly problematic.
It should be no surprise that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is seen as far more qualified than Palin. Despite all the hoopla, she looks like a play for the Republican base, as I pointed out immediately after she was selected last week, as well as an attempt to shake things up with stunt casting. The new ABC News poll shows that Joe Biden is viewed as far more qualified than Palin, and that, while likeable, Palin is not reaching across party lines or motivating independents.
Incidentally, to the extent that attention is focused on Palin's private life, that's a good thing for her, because it engenders sympathy. Actually, it's a good thing up to a point. The National Enquirer is now on her case, promising to be as diligent with her as it was with John Edwards, and that's never a good sign.
66% of American voters view Biden as qualified, with only 21% saying he is unqualified. Palin is viewed as qualified by 42%, a few points above the baseline Republican vote in a national election, and unqualified by 50%.
Even the effort to spin her small town mayoralty into thematic gold is highly problematic. Tiny Wasilla, nearly an hour out of Anchorage, turns out not to be the idyllic Rockwellesque small town her new conservative fans obviously love to imagine. Actually, Palin's home town is the methamphetamine capital of Alaska.
In the end, this election probably won't be about Sarah Palin at all. (If it is, it's not good news for John McCain.) The election, media hype aside, will quickly settle back into what it's been all along. A change election in a troubled country between a change agent who may be too risky and inexperienced for a plurality of voters and a change agent who may represent more of the unpopular same. And who may have just demonstrated the riskiness of his own judgment.
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(1) Highest suicide rate in United States History of Military Personnel under “Betray US’
(2) Training Former Soviet Georgian Troops, with the aid of (2) Battalions of combined (IDF Israeli Defense Force & Blackwater mercenarie
(3) Using ($400M) four hundred million in (CIA/JSOC) Central Intelligen
And Gen. David “Betray Us” taking over as the new head of (Centcom) Central Command, in October, and all (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex Troops from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, is going to make the world safer how?
The Core! The Core! The Core! West Point, The Thin Gray Line, Duty! Honor! Country!
The Hallmark of the our Very Best, Brightest, and Bravest! But this has all been brought into question by one and only one of its own, Gen. David “Betray US” Petraeus. What is the quality that sets some men above others, the call of Duty, the call of Honor, or the call of Country. Honor would have to be the top calling, without Honor the stain of disgrace colors the rest.
Gen. David “Betray Us” Petraeus has disgraced himself, West Point, and the Country! The line has been crossed the thin gray line that separates warfare from crimes against humanity, and it has been crossed. Warfare is not defined by ratios of civilian casualties beyond that which is necessary to accomplish a mission, where the wiping out of entire family lines as wedding, funerals, and family gathers are targets for genocide is a policy, when the torture of captured prisoners is a military policy, when a military commander drives his men under his charge and command to a point were suicide is their only way out of the emotional pain to their very souls.
West Point Rotten to the Core!
Calling Petraeus that is non-seriou
http://raw
Nothing new really but its always good to get your enemies to fight each other.
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Senate Republican
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Elizabeth Dole is a Senate Parasite:
http://vot
What the writer has told you is that they are from the North Side of Chicago, and is a Cubs Fan, the Cubs who play at Wrigley Field. The writer lives somewhere north of North Ave. The Sox are on the South Side and play out of Comensky Park. Chi-Town loves their team's the Bears, Cubs, Sox, Bull's, and the Blackhawks
This week the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex with the full knowledge of the Office of the Imperial Presidency and executed by Gen. David “Betray US” Petraeus, engaged in mission creep, the expansion of Middle East War, by escalating to the military policy of not only hot pursuit, but incursion missions, into the sovereignt
But, the (NYC) New York City State Propaganda mill continues to offer Fluff and Ignore coverage. Let’s cover the two wings of the same system, the capital “C” Capitalism Right and capital “S” Socialist Left of the Military Industrial Complex farce election process. If we don’t report it they won’t see it, if we don’t talk about it they won’t hear it, if we don’t cover it they won’t know anything about it.
What about the ($400M) Incursion Fund of the (JSOC)?
As Obama pointed out last year. But Bush and McCain amusingly denied.
Let’s take a closer look at the situation. Did or did not (US/MIC) The United States Military Industrial Complex make a new deal with India for Nuclear Technology
“Well, if you want to deal with Al Qaeda Prime, you have special ops missions in Pakistan”. And, you see this as not a violation of Internatio
There was awhile back a female Blues Singer who asked the question in one of her songs, "Is this all there is? From the writers biography it lists William Bradley a San Francisco, Upstate, Political and Media writer. But, really is this all there is? William Bradley does what most writters don't do and that is to defend what he does write and does post, but again is this all there is?
The (MIC) Military Industrial Complex under the Imperial Presidency
(1) Third Generation California
(2) School Board Member, most likely you have daughters, the fourth generation of California
(3) Berkeley Graduate, Liberal and Democratic
(4) Navy Veteran, One term in the Navy on a (6) six year contract, an “O” one level, wardroom Zero, may have been stationed in D.C. working for the Navy Times? Lt. or Lt (Jr.)?
(5) Worked in founding a newspaper in Sacramento
(6) Have work north of San Diego County, in L.A. with the (TMZ) Thirty Mile Zone Move Moguls?
So, a smart guy, Berkeley Graduate, and the best city in the North for making money, and a very Cosmopolit
The (18th) Century United States of America Constituti
The Profession
The City State of New York represents the Propaganda and Economic section of the (MIC), they decide what legislatio
The State of Israel is the point of the spear in the center of the old world, with much of its dual citizens of The United States, they are the (51st) State, and are strategica
Or, you could just play partisan games.
Mr. Bradley good article and reassuring on this windy, rainy day. Thank you!
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Income Avg. tax bill Avg. tax bill
Over $2.9M -$269,364 +$701,885
$603K and up -$45,361 +$115,974
$227K-$603
$161K-$227
$112K-$161
$66K-$112K - $1,009 - $1,290
$38K-$66K - $319 - $1,042
$19K-$38K - $113 - $892
Under $19K - $19 - $567
Source:The Tax Policy Center
$19K-$38K -$113 - $892
Under $19K -$19 - $567
Source:The Tax Policy Center
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She will set back women's causes the way Bush set back America's symbolism of fairness and the rule of law.
McCain and Palin have nothing to profess. The auto industry is bankrupt, the airline industry is bankrupt, fannie mae, freddie mac bankrupt, no immigratio
This government has been lying to us the past 8 years about everything
McCain is an old man and looks ready for the grave. With that big fat jaw of hers, Palin looks more like a male Hockey player than a hockey Mom. Her views on abortion, birth control, and education are right there with fanatical Taliban teachings, then add to this mess she is wanting to force "Creationi
This is shear madness!!!
Wake up America. If the Bush years brought us 8 years of unimaginab
AntiWar.co
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It looks like John Bush has been pushed into a corner.
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participat
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 organizati
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
You have smothered the comments here, which I was not looking at in this format.
Next time, briefly paraphrase and post a link.
*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
*"NRA supporter"
*social conservati
*pro-creat
*"Pro-life
*"Experien
*political maverick: not at all
*gutsy: absolutely
*open & transparen
*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnect
*fiscal conservati
*pro-infra
*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses
*pro-small government