Oh My God...McCain could win if he picks Palin!!!

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a little bit of a leap

this may be true

or

may not be true


we have one talking head

that said

'There are reports, that there are GOP Attorneys up there."

Well, add the New York Times to the list of the one talking head.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/us/politics/02vetting.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin
 
More gems from that article...

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described.

Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

In the final stages, two Republicans familiar with the process said, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, emerged as a key advocate for Ms. Palin.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said repeatedly on Monday that Ms. Palin was “thoroughly vetted,” a process that would have included a review of all financial and legal records as well as a criminal background check. A McCain aide said that the campaign was well aware of the ethics investigation and that it had looked into it.

“It was obviously something that anybody Googling Sarah Palin knew was in the news and there was a very thorough vetting done on that and also on the daughter,” the aide said.

People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions. Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.

Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.

In Alaska, several state leaders and local officials said they knew of no efforts by the McCain campaign to find out more information about Ms. Palin before the announcement of her selection, Although campaigns are typically discreet when they make inquiries into potential running mates, officials in Alaska said Monday they thought it was peculiar that no one in the state had the slightest hint that Ms. Palin might be under consideration.

“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,”
said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.

“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”

The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.

Heckuva job, John.
 
And since last week....

Obama's lead among women has also grown to 14 points (50 percent to 36 percent), and the Democrat maintained the lead he had before the convention among voters who supported Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

But, but, I thought we vaginas all voted for each other!!!

CBS.
 
But, but, I thought we vaginas all voted for each other!!!

Um.. who has been saying this? :scratch:

And if you want to talk about poll numbers, Gallup has Obama up by 6 (which is down from earlier), Rasmussen has him up by 3, CNN has him up by only one, and Zogby has McCain up by 2, all of this post-convention.
 
More gems from that article...



Heckuva job, John.


You have to question the judgment of any candidate that does not go thru the vetting process to nominate his/her VP. Doesn't matter if the "right" think she's qualified or not. If Palin wasn't vetted, why should she even be considered for the second in command of the United States of America.

IMO of course
 
I'm watching Larry King (ick, I know), and Palin is the topic. I almost feel sorry for the two Republican guests, the way they're following the party line and playacting that everything is okay, that Palin is still all they could have hoped for in a VP pick. Poor Republicans. [/sarcasm] Spin, spin, spin...

Regarding the reports that more GOPs have gone to AK to vet Palin in the past day or two, someone reported the same thing on the blog comments I was reading last night, that several of them had arrived and checked into area hotels. I can't remember for sure if it was the same person that told the story of Bristol's pregnancy, but I think it could have been. It's fascinating reading this stuff, then having it confirmed by mainstream media within a day or two.
 
I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will soon speak up, he wouldn't want us to think he's a hypocrite!

RUSH: Jamie-Lynn. Whatever. If you want to be concerned about her, go watch the Jerry Springer Show.

CALLER: Would you tend to think that a family in this position, though, wouldn't you think that there would be a more watchful eye as a parent to be watching over these kids so this doesn't happen to them?

RUSH: I would certainly hope so, but it's long past time for this to happen. The parents here are the culprits!

When you get on a high horse, Rush, it's a long way down, you jackass.
 
a little more light on the subject

The fact is, regardless of what you will hear over the next few days, Bristol's pregnancy is not a legitimate political issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life, which is not opposed to birth control. So you probably can't tag her for consigning young people to unwanted pregnancies.

You can argue that it was hamhanded of the McCain campaign—they had to have known, right?—to somehow let this drop just a few days after the announcement. Pregnancy does show, and it does have a ticking clock. The story was going to come out eventually.

As for the idea — sure to be floated—that the avowedly anti-abortion Palin may have pressured her poor daughter to ruin her life by carrying an unwanted baby to term, I wouldn't bet on it. The Palin family seems to share the same pro-life values going back at least as far back as anyone here can remember, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if Bristol wore those values, however imperfectly, as her own. At least, that's what the town thinks. And Wasilla, above all, is pretty sensible.


In Wasilla, Pregnancy Was No Secret - TIME

Women and PUMAs will have a choice this election,

they can vote for a ticket that includes a:

Feminist. ( Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life )

or a ticket that many believe sexism kept the most qualified and best candidate off the entire ticket.

I read this a few pages back, and have to address it.

So, she's a member of a feminist group? Not just a member, but a longtime member? And this group is pro-birth control? And yet Palin is anti-sex education, pro-abstinence training in schools?

Um, am I sensing a huge contradiction, here?

What a load of crap.


ETA - I just checked the "feminist" group. It's all pro-life propaganda. Figures.
 
That article you posted is fascinating, anitram.

It only re-affirms the belief of many that McCain has and will continue to sell out every principle he ever had in his bid to become president. It is pretty clear he had decided on Lieberman(who, btw, should just become a republican and get it over with already) a while ago, and caved to the evangelical right wing at the last second, picking Palin. He ended up sacrificing picking the person that HE thought was the best guy for the job in order to pick someone he KNOWS is far less qualified, to pander to the right wing.
 
More gems from that article...



Heckuva job, John.

Wow. In the much talked about questionable judgment category, this one trumps them all.

Although some could consider it a maverick move to pick someone you haven't even thoroughly checked out yet. Though going against your preferred choice to pick someone who will placate your base? Not so maverick.
 
From huffingtonpost.com:

Coming out on the offensive after a day of controversy, presumptive GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said today that the media was to blame for making her daughter Bristol pregnant.

"My husband and I are well aware that Bristol is pregnant, and we know who made her that way -- the media," she told reporters in Pittsburgh.

It has become common in presidential campaigns for candidates to lash out against the news media, but Gov. Palin's attack was the first known example of a politician blaming the media for her daughter's pregnancy.

Gov. Palin went on to say that since the media had made her pregnant, it was now up to the media to "do the right thing and marry her."

Moments after the governor's statement, the National Enquirer said that it would marry Bristol Palin in exchange for exclusive rights to the wedding photos and the first pictures of the baby.

:banghead:

All the real issues surrounding this VP pick and this is what the media wants to focus on. This has NO place in presidential politics.

Oh, it gets more tragic. Look at this little excerpt about the myspace page of Bristol Palin's baby's father:

On his MySpace page, Johnston boasts, "I'm a f - - -in' redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.

Story continues below
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"But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess."

"Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass," he added.

He also claims to be "in a relationship," but states, "I don't want kids."

Takes pride in being a redneck and states that he DOESN'T WANT kids.
 
And this group is pro-birth control? And yet Palin is anti-sex education, pro-abstinence training in schools?
They pointedly avoid taking any position on contraception; their FAQs state that "(p)reconception issues including abstinence and contraception are outside of our mission. Some FFL members and supporters support the use of non-abortifacient contraception while others oppose contraception for a variety of reasons".

As far as I can tell, all current references to Palin as pro-contraception derive from the same 2006 Anchorage Daily News article comparing the then-gubernatorial candidates' stances on various issues, which said:
Palin said last month that no woman should have to choose between her career, education and her child. She is pro-contraception and said she's a member of a pro-woman but anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.
I'd trust the article more if it offered a direct quote, however, I've heard nothing about her contradicting it, so I assume its characterizations are fully accurate.

As for current references to her supporting abstinence-only, those all seem to derive from a 2006 Eagle Forum questionnaire sent to all the gubernatorial candidates (only two of them responded; Wikipedia has an entry on Eagle Forum if you're unfamiliar), in which she offered a somewhat ambiguously worded answer to a rather poorly worded question:
Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

(Palin): Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
Alaska is one of numerous states which have no laws specifying what sex ed must consist of or even whether schools need offer it, which means it's up to individual school districts in Alaska to design their curriculums (or not). Looking at the SIECUS data for Alaska, the amount of Title V money (federal abstinence-only funding) used last year by their schools was puny--$88,501 distributed to six schools. While that doesn't tell you one way or the other what's happening at other schools, it seems unlikely that a state receiving so little school-based Title V money would be a hotbed (haha) of abstinence-only education. I know that Palin's campaign mantra on education (in general, not just sex ed) when running for governor was "Parents know best, not the state," so perhaps in practice and with regards to sex ed, this tends to take the form of 'Just Leave It Be'. I don't really know.

It's too bad we don't have anyone around here (that I can think of, anyway) from Alaska--I was just thinking the other day that I've never even met anyone from Alaska, nor known anyone who's lived there. Sometimes an insider's perspective, partisanship notwithstanding, can be invaluable in making sense of some political phenomenon or person in the context of the political subculture that produced them. Especially when it's as remote a place as Alaska.
 
I just feel sorry for the kid (Bristol). This whole thing has to suck big time for her.
 
Thanks for the clarification, Yolland.

In case you're interested, the blog I've been reading for the past few days is written by an Alaskan. I haven't had much of a chance to nose around the site other than that one comment thread, but according to some of the posters, it's offers good insight into the world of Alaskan politics.

About Mudflats ? Mudflats
 
More gems from that article...
Heckuva job, John.

That article you posted is fascinating, anitram.

It only re-affirms the belief of many that McCain has and will continue to sell out every principle he ever had in his bid to become president. It is pretty clear he had decided on Lieberman (who, btw, should just become a republican and get it over with already) a while ago, and caved to the evangelical right wing at the last second, picking Palin. He ended up sacrificing picking the person that HE thought was the best guy for the job in order to pick someone he KNOWS is far less qualified, to pander to the right wing.

:yes:

It really is funny. McCain has built his whole image on being this guy who sticks to his guns & has a "maverick," higher principle----and yet he has been personally tearing that image down piece by piece over the last 4 years.

He's got to be royally pissed right now. I wonder if he'll drop her and end up going with Lieberman or Ridge. Of course, if he does drop her, it will be an obvious sign that he's caving for political reasons, and it may even look cruel. Of course, she could say she's dropping out to take care of her family, but that wouldn't be taken seriously after the excitement she's shown so far for the job.

Now that I think about it, I think he's really stuck with her.
 
Takes pride in being a redneck and states that he DOESN'T WANT kids.

Nothing he said really surprises me - he's a 17 year-old-guy, I'm sure he's not the only one with these views.

That said, I can't figure out how any thinking person could conclude that the best thing to do is to have this boy committed to marriage. He's sure mature enough for it!

And John McCain's judgment is pathetic with respect to Palin.
 
I find it funny how anytime a story like this breaks one of the first thing reporters do is look up their myspace page(remember the marine who threw the puppy).

Lesson 1: Kids always think about what you write on your MySpace/Facebook pages.
 
Clearly you don't listen to his show...

I do. And you are right, he does allow dissenting thought from time to time but he makes sure it's only from those that can't form a complete thought. He chooses those he can easily refute, or those that make the left look bad. Believe me it's very calculated.
 
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