I think the Democrats are making a mistake by picking on John McCain’s fiery runningmate, Sarah Palin. “Six in 10 of all voters surveyed say they approve of Sen. John McCain’s selection of the Alaska governor as his running mate. And some voters, 25 percent, say the pick makes them more likely to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket in November,” according to a new poll.
I think the Democrats need to ignore Palin and focus on McCain – he has voted with Bush over 90% of the time. That is a fairly damning record and it surely is not indicative of any serious commitment to change.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still voting for the Libertarian ticket. I just think that jumping on Palin is going to hurt the Democrats and it might put McCain in the White House. They seriously need to rethink this strategy…
And check out what Michael Reagan had to say about Palin:
Welcome Back, Dad
by Michael Reagan (President Reagan’s adopted son)
09/04/2008
I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.
I was wrong!
Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he’s a she.
And what a she!
In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene.
This was Ronald Reagan at his best — the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.
Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort — either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain’s presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser.
Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced — and oozing with confidence — she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.
Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them — and all her fellow Americans — on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.
In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are — a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.
Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.
Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.
Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.
As hard as you might try, you won’t find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign.
Sarah Palin didn’t go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation’s most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama.
Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.
Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.
[poll id=”36″]
And Barack Obama votes with the Democrats 100% of the time. What have they accomplished?
I’d rather take a 10% chance on change since the Democrats offer no change at all.
“Picking on?” Isn’t she in the race like any one else? Wasn’t that what she wanted?
Which Democrats are “picking on” her?
How long have we known about her? 8 days, right? So, the press isn’t supposed to ask questions? At least Obama has been in the public eye for 2 years now and has been through some sort of nominating process. What this looks like to me is the GOP is trying to keep her away from questions….
Ask yourself….Why did McCain nominate her? Was it because she would be a leader and practice good government or was it just to win?
Art,
I know you’re busy with your own campaign and you probably have a huge amount of distractions going on, but maybe you could take a couple of minutes and view this clip from RON REAGAN who comments on the speech, his dad (RR) and what his mother, Nancy thinks of Barack Obama:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/09/03/VI2008090302719.html
From Glennzilla:
Speaking of the merger of right-wing talking points and media narratives, the AP’s Tom Raum last night “reported” — falsely — that “many liberals are belittling the choice, suggesting that as a mother of five children — including an infant with Down syndrome — she has neither the time nor the experience to become vice president.” National Review’s Kathleen Parker echoes that claim almost verbtaim today: “Some also have questioned whether Palin, whose son Trig has Down syndrome, can be both a mother and a vice president? These questions aren’t coming from the Right — so often accused of wanting to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen — but from the Left.”
Which “liberals” — who “on the Left” — have done any such thing? Neither AP nor Parker bother to identify a single person who has. Here, however, is right-wing icon Dr. Laura Schlesinger:
I am extremely disappointed in the choice of Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican Party. . . . I’m stunned — couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors probably didn’t want a “mature” woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?
When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation. Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you’re on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where’s your attention going to be? Where should your attention be? Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America. . . .
Any full-time working wife and mother knows that the family takes the short end of the stick. Marriages and the welfare of children suffer when a stressed-out mother doesn’t have time to be a woman, a wife, and a hands-on Mommy.
You can email NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez (who repeated and promoted Parker’s false claim)
[ klopez@nationalreview.com ] and ask Lopez if they intend to correct Parker’s erroneous claim. The Right and many of their media allies are simply inventing attacks on Palin, dishonestly attributing them to “liberals,” and then gallantly defending her from them.
Who is parker?
Vern,
I have a feeling the White House will be providing CIA Super Nannies to the Palin family…
I should have emphasized maybe in bold the conclusion of the previous long passage: “The Right and many of their media allies are simply inventing attacks on Palin, dishonestly attributing them to “liberals,” and then gallantly defending her from them. Nobody on the so-called “left” is criticizing her for any family matters.
There is a lot to look at in her record in Alaska though. Now it comes out she fired the head librarian in Wasilla for refusing to ban books she didn’t like. (Part of an overall purge of anyone in the city government she thought might not be 100% loyal to her.) And she is now stonewalling the investigation into her troopergate; seven other people who were all set to testify have now chickened out, who knows what they’ve been threatened with.
And nobody should look into any of this just because she’s a young woman and people think she’s cute? Come on, this is “Sarah Barracuda,” 99% of us just met her last week, and she could be our next President if thing go horribly awry.
The people who approve of Palin don’t know her positions yet.
Like, no sex education. Apparently, at least in that case she practiced what she speaks. I guess she didn’t tell her daughter about the availability of contraceptives…
I agree, Gov. Palin’s public record should be scruntized, however that task should be left to the credible journalist. And that’s why I take offense to Vern’s careless comment ….” Now it comes out she fired the head librarian in Wasilla for refusing to ban books she didn’t like.”
Vern – – cite the facts that support your claim that this is “factual.”
Hurling this accusation into the blogsphere without the facts is, at the least, careless. You are accusing Gov. Palin of censorship which cuts at the core of the First Amendment, thereby planting the seed that she does not support the United States Constitution.
OK buddy, I’m on it… them are fighting words. I have to jump in my car now but I’ll be back with documentation before dark. (I mean I gotta leave my computer for a painful hour.)
Out of the traffic and stifling heat, and into the cool of a Starbucks with blaring music… and I have found your documentation.
I first got the story from one of my favorite pro-civil-liberties bloggers, Glenn “Glennzilla” Greenwald, here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/03/halperin/index.html
And no he didn’t just throw it out either. His sources were:
1997 articles in the Anchorage Daily News, available on Nexis, and
this article in the latest Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1837918,00.html
It’s left to the imagination which books Palin wanted banned; the reason was apparently that “some voters thought they had objectionable language in them.”
I also see on closer inspection that she reversed her decision because of public outcry: the very popular librarian who’d been there seven years was eventually reinstated.
Still I agree with you, that this “cuts at the core of the First Amendment, thereby planting the seed that she does not support the United States Constitution.” It’s probably more serious than I thought at first, and maybe should have its own post here.
Believe me, I’m holding back on all the Palin stories “coming across the transom.” And the sudden wealth of them is not due to any liberal or sexist conspiracy but due to the fact that we’ve got a total unkown person suddenly thrust into being a heartbeat away from the Presidency. What we’ve known about Biden we’ve known for twenty years; Obama a few years; McCain it’s harder to say since he’s always changing positions, but we’ve at least got to observe him for 26 years. It would be irresponsible not to subject Gov. Palin to the intensest scrutiny throughout September and October.
And now from Joe Klein, who after at least a decade as one of the most credulous media whores has recently become one of the most outspoken McCain skeptics and critcs (note my little story referred to in bold):
Steve Schmidt [McCain campaign manager and Rove protege – V.] has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair – sexist (you gotta love it) – personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media – about the substance of Palin’s record as mayor and governor. Sure, there are a few outliers – and the tabloid press – who have fixed on baby stories. That was inevitable…. the flip side of the personal stories that the McCain team thought would work to their advantage – Palin’s moose-hunting and wolf-shooting, and her admirable decision to have a Down Syndrome baby. And yes, when we all fix on the same story, whether it’s a hurricane or a little-known politician, a zoo ensues. But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic.
There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
Read whole thing here:
http://www.truthout.org/article/angry-amateurs
There’s a very interesting letter out in the blogosphere by an Ann Kilkenny of Wasilla, Alaska. She knows Sarah Palin and gives (what seems to be ) a very fair an accurate assessment of the Governor.
Whattttt!!!!!,
I saw that note from Kilkenny, too. In fact, here’s what was sent to me. Does anyone know if this is a hoax or not?
“A note to all- by Anne Kilkenny
(read the rest here:
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/09/06/an-email-from-wasilla-alaska/ )
This comment shortened by 30 feet by Vern
Yes Longboobs, it’s real. Dan C just put it up at the Liberal OC and first checked it out with snopes. And Jubal is already jabbering thinking of any way to dismiss it. I don’t really know why, it seems like a pretty well-balanced description of a very ambitious politician…
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/09/06/an-email-from-wasilla-alaska/
Thanks, G. Got a little carried away with my tongue…
Vern –
Where was the outcry when Sen Biden decided not to stay home with his two young tots after the death of his wife and daughter? In fact, Chris Dodd and other prominent Democratic leaders encouraged Biden to pursue his political ambition while his family was in the midst of personal crisis.
Why isn’t a father held accountable to the same standards you and others impose on a mother? The lashing Sen. Palin has endured these past days is causing me to rethink this election.
You want to argue the election on ideology and most elections are not grounded in ideology. Several pals of mine, scattered throughout the 50 states, are slowing stewing over press’s mistreatment of Sen. Palin. Many don’t agree with Palin’s political “ideologically” but we identify with her as a woman.
None of us where born Dems or Reps; we were born women. And we know it’s been 24 years since a woman graced a presidential ticket.
It’s a long way to E-Day, and Sarah-Indipity has changed the complexion of this election.