RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Sarah Palin for VP

on and on it goes.....


God bless her.



Hmm.... banning books is just one step removed from book burnings. So Palin thinks there are books people shouldn't be exposed to based on her own beleifs and values?


Nazi Book Burnings 1933

Burning the 'Satanic' Harry Potter books in New Mexico.

As recent and historical memory suggests, banning books sometimes just isn't good enough for these types of people.

Today's NY Times has this blurb recounting how McCain really wanted Lieberman to be his V.P., but was blocked by his party:



The word working its way through political circles in Connecticut is that John McCain actually called Joe Lieberman to ask him to be the GOP v.p. candidate. The "ask" was made. However, a revolt ensued, led by Mitt Romney and others, threatening a floor fight. That resulted in a second call a couple hours later to Lieberman from McCain pulling the offer.

There is so much in that little anecdote if these sources are accurate. First, it shows what a tool Lieberman is. Last night, Lieberman spoke at a convention where he's actually vilified, yet he went anyway and flat out lied about Obama. More importantly, it shows what a wimp McCain is. He's supposed to fight al Qaeda, but won't stand up to the religious fanatics in his own party. Instead, McCain made an impulsive choice, Sarah Palin, who wasn't vetted. McCain couldn't have the v.p. he wanted. So, he was forced to pick someone he didn't even know. Says a lot about John McCain's willingness to gamble with America's future.

We need more details.

Palin's church also pulled the section of their website that contains past sermons. I saw an evangelical minister on MSNBC about an hour ago vilify Obama for the Rev. Wright for his sermons even as he in the same breath vilified "the left" for looking into the sermons of Palin's minister. Talk about hypocrisy of the highest order!

These fuckers are only too happy to vilify someone on account of their pastors words but hey, do that to them and it's below the belt and uncalled for!! They wrote the rules, time to take what you dish out. Palin's church also sponsors the whole ex-gay movement BTW.

I'm concerned about Palin's actions as a mayor showing interest in banning books.

on and on it goes.....


God bless her.



Hmm.... banning books is just one step removed from book burnings. So Palin thinks there are books people shouldn't be exposed to based on her own beleifs and values?


Nazi Book Burnings 1933

Burning the 'Satanic' Harry Potter books in New Mexico.

It's a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Now it turns out Kalin's underage daughter is pregnant. This has been circulating all week now in the liberal blogosphere but tomorrow the H-Bomb drops in the New York Times. It erases any notion of McCain being this independent "Maverick" who played this one on his own "gut".

Sarah Palin delivered. An embattled vice presidential candidate, a novice on the national stage, the head of a family suffering its "ups and downs," the first-term Alaska governor rocked the GOP convention with a star-turning performance.

Wielding a stiletto and a smile, Palin belittled Democrat Barack Obama and praised her new boss, John McCain, jolting the crowd of GOP partisans.

"Don't you think we made the right choice for the next vice president of the United States!" McCain said, hinting the controversy surrounding his pick. "And what a beautiful family."

Indeed, the family was on display for the TV cameras — five children, including a 17-year-old unmarried daughter who is pregnant. Their mother lacked the soaring oratory skills of Obama — a man she attacked as a tax-raising, terrorist-coddling, self-indulgent liberal. But the former TV sportscaster spoke in calm, TV-friendly tones reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. Like the former GOP president, Palin warmed the crowd with quips and jokes.

"What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull," she said, pausing for a beat and a smirk. "Lipstick."

She left the crowd smiling.

"For too many times, we've brought knives to gun fights," said Chuck Gast, a delegate from Maryland,

When asked if Palin brought a gun to the fight, Gast said: "Yes, I think she brings a big gun, like a moose gun."

It was the crowning moment of a roller-coaster week in which the first woman ever on a Republican presidential ticket has faced questions about how closely the McCain campaign scrutinized her. She also has heard a wide range of inquiries about family issues, her policy positions and her record of public service.

"Our family," she said, "has the same ups and downs as any other."

Facing down her critics with smiling resolve, Palin took crowd-delighting swipes at Obama and what she called the Washington elite. "Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country," she said.

A new celebrity herself, Palin cast Obama as a little more than a fancy speaker with a compelling biography.

"The American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of 'personal discovery.' This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer," Palin said, a clear reference to Obama's time as a community organizer in Chicago.

The Obama campaign had less than a warm greeting, saying Palin's speech was "written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years." The speech was written by Matthew Scully, who met Palin for the first time last week.

Selected by McCain only last Friday, Palin addressed the convention amid questions about her qualifications and relative lack of experience.

The first-term governor had top billing at the convention on a night delegates also lined up for a noisy roll call of the states to deliver their presidential nomination to McCain.

Watching her speech were her husband Todd and their children, including daughter Bristol Palin, whom the Palins disclosed earlier in the week was five months pregnant. Bristol's 18-year-old boyfriend and apparent fiance, Levi Johnston, was seated with them.

McCain shook up the presidential race by picking Palin, a little-known governor less than two years in office. Since then, a bright spotlight has been trained on the life and record of the Republican governor who has bucked the state's political establishment.

Days after Palin made her debut on the national stage with McCain, the campaign announced her unmarried daughter's pregnancy. Other disclosures followed, including that a private attorney is authorized to spend $95,000 of state money to defend her against accusations of abuse of power and that Palin sought pork-barrel projects for her city and state, contrary to her reformist image.

"Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys," she said.

Noting that the couple's oldest son, Track, 19, was shipping out to Iraq in eight days with the Army infantry, Palin praised McCain as "a true profile in courage, and people like that are hard to come by."

"He's a man who wore the uniform of this country for 22 years, and refused to break faith with those troops in Iraq who have now brought victory within sight. And as the mother of one of those troops, that is exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief," she said.

Largely unknown outside her home state, Palin told the convention: "I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better," she said, speaking of her home town of Wasilla, Alaska, with a population of about 6,500.

"When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too," she said.

Before becoming governor, Palin served as mayor of Wasilla, she recounted, adding: "And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

Palin delivered her speech in a firm, cheerful voice. It was her first chance to introduce and define herself to the American public and to explain to fellow Republicans how her experiences as Alaska governor would help galvanize the GOP ticket.

She strongly endorsed more oil exploration and drilling. "Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems — as if we all didn't know that already. But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all," she said.

Palin has been an aggressive advocate for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while McCain opposes drilling there. That difference was not touched on in the speech.

I applaud Palin's firm commitment to abstinence-only sex education.

Since it obviously worked so well....

Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

But 49% give Obama the edge on experience, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken before Palin's historic speech Wednesday night to the Republican National Convention.

While Republicans and Democrats predictably favor their party's candidate by overwhelming margins, the experience gap among voters unaffiliated with either party is even narrower than the national totals. Forty-two percent (42%) say Obama has better experience to be president, but 37% say Palin does.

The potential problem for Democrats is that Obama, the junior U.S. senator from Illinois and a former state legislator, is the party's standard-bearer, while Palin, an ex-mayor and now governor of Alaska, is number two on her party's ticket.

Palin's highly successful debut on the national stage Wednesday night at the GOP convention is sure to impact these numbers, too. Her speech repeatedly highlighted her experience versus Obama's, something she is expected to focus on from now until Election Day.

Just a week ago 67% of voters told Rasmussen Reports they didn't know enough about Palin, only the second woman ever to be on a national political ticket, to comment on her. Heading into last night's speech, however, 52% had a favorable opinion of Alaska's Governor.

In the new survey, while 24% are more likely to vote for Palin due to recent news coverage, 19% say the opposite and 54% say the stories have no impact on their votes.

Nationally, the Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed Obama with a modest but expected bounce following the close of his convention last week, but that is already being offset by the bounce McCain is beginning to get from his party's gathering.

Since McCain announced Palin as his running mate on Friday, she has been subjected to an unprecedented wave of negative media stories, many focused on her personal life and especially the pregnancy of her unmarried 17-year-old daughter. The focus of the coverage, especially in the blogosphere, has even prompted Obama to distance himself from it.

Republicans have responded angrily, and the media was the target of numerous negative comments over the first two nights of the GOP convention. Several aides to Hillary Clinton, who Obama defeated for the Democratic presidential nomination, also have criticized the media coverage for its sexist tone.

In the new survey, although 85% say they are following news stories about Palin at least somewhat closely, just five percent (5%) think reporters are trying to help her with their coverage, while 35% believe reporters are providing unbiased coverage.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans say reporters are trying to hurt the GOP vice presidential nominee, and 28% of Democrats agree. Only six percent (6%) of Republicans and even fewer Democrats (4%)think the reporting is intended to help her. Most Democrats (57%) think the reporters are being unbiased, but just nine percent (9%) of Republicans concur.

Among unaffiliated voters, 49% say reporters are trying to hurt Palin, while 32% say their coverage is unbiased. Only five percent (5%) say reporters are trying to help her.

Voters are more ambivalent about whether the media coverage of Palin and her family reflects a double standard that treats women worse than men. Forty-six percent (46%) say it does, but 35% disagree. Most Republicans and unaffiliated voters say the stories show the media's double standard against women, but a majority of Democrats disagree.

The findings, nevertheless, are troublesome for the embattled news industry and parallel what voters said in surveys earlier this summer. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters now believe most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 49% believe reporters are trying to help Obama this year. Only 14% think they are trying to help McCain. In another survey, 55% said media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations.

Although women voters by a 48% to 35% margin believe the coverage of Palin reveals a double standard in the media, they continue to support Obama more than men. Palin in her comments already has made clear that one of her key missions is to lure women voters disaffected by Clinton's defeat in the Democratic primaries to the McCain column. This national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on September 3, 2008. The margin of sampling error for each survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

Drill, baby, drill. Sarah Palin was relentless in her speech Wednesday night. She drilled Barack Obama, elites, San Francisco, the press, and civil libertarians. She even went after Michelle Obama. And she did it all with a smile and a little mischief. Republicans have been flummoxed because Obama seems untouchable, but Palin may have found an effective way to criticize him—while becoming an elusive target in her own right. Want to call her shrill? Go ahead. There are a lot of women like her who vote and who might be listening.

For many months, Republicans have been warning us against candidates with thin résumés introducing themselves on the national stage. Ignore Barack Obama's lofty language, they've said. He's just offering words. And definitely don't pay attention to the screaming crowds. They're only proof that he's an empty-suit celebrity.


Never mind. On Wednesday night, the Republican Party tried to catapult Sarah Palin past her rocky rollout and into legitimacy in a single speech wrapped in thunderous applause.


Republicans are reacting to Palin the way Democrats do to Obama. The only difference is that, in the GOP, enthusiasm is measured in Reagan units. Party veterans called her a "female Reagan" and a "natural like Reagan." Their sustained applause at her introduction matched, and may have surpassed, that which greeted Bill Clinton at the Democratic Convention.

What got Republicans out of their seats is not just a desire to annoy the media they think are stacked against her. Palin gave them some of that old-time religion. I don't mean code words about abortion—she didn't touch the subject. She offered only glancing references to God. What got the women shaking their "Hockey Mom" signs and the Texas delegation waving their straw hats was the attack on their common enemies in elite circles and the press.

"I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment," she said. "And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion—I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

It was clear Palin was having fun, and it's hard to have fun if you're scared or a lightweight. She had command, the same quality people attributed to Obama in 2004. Yes, she had speechwriters and she knows how to read a teleprompter. But there are plenty of politicians who've had great speeches and years of practice and still need lots of help. (One of them, actually, is Palin's running mate.)

The biggest target of Palin's succession of happy little kicks in the groin, of course, was Barack Obama. She painted him as a vapid, self-obsessed fog machine of words. He was on a "journey of personal discovery," whereas McCain was running for office to serve. She made fun of his presidential seal, his two memoirs, and, most pointedly, his remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser. "In small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."

The message was clear: Who is this guy? When she said that people in small towns are "always proud of America," it was clear she was referring to Michelle Obama's claim that for the first time she was proud of her country. (Laura Bush let Michelle Obama off the hook, but Palin won't. That's the difference between first ladies and Iron Ladies, I suppose.)

John McCain will win by making Barack Obama look un-American. That's sensitive stuff. Hillary Clinton destroyed herself trying to use it. But Palin may know how to use it. Palin's attacks are potentially dangerous because they are aimed at the crucial voting bloc of women and middle-class voters who can see their lives in her life. Obama talked about coming from a middle-class life. Palin still lives one. She could improvise a joke about being a hockey mom—what's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick—because she is one.

The secondary purpose of Palin's speech may be the most important in the long run. She wasn't just launching a new brand (her own). She was relaunching a whole new product: the McCain-Palin ticket. Experience is no longer the central argument. Reform is. McCain and Palin are presenting themselves as leaders who can deliver because they speak and act regardless of the political risk. "Here's how I look at the choice Americans face in this election," said Palin. "In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

It was a great act—but it was an act, a one-shot show. Palin will have to keep it up for the next nine weeks, when there won't be time to practice or the opportunity to sand down that line to keep it from sounding small and mean. This is a test Obama has already passed. And her sarcasm will wear thin quickly. Reagan could do it because he was a sunny optimist offering a vision of the future. Palin didn't do much of that, other than by offering platitudes (hey, she had a lot of ground to cover).

It's McCain's job to talk about the future Thursday night, say Republicans. He can feel happy that, for the moment, his judgment about his pick seems to have been vindicated. Now he better hope he can do half the job his new sidekick did.

I find it disgusting the way the liberal media has turned on working mothers to further their cause. They are all for a woman's equal rights until a woman has the guts to challenge the status quo.

MEM, are you a republican backer?

sorry if this has been covered ad naseum before, i never really visit this forum, but i've been following this thread and just wanted to ask.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Until Wednesday night, many political professionals were whispering that there was a good chance that in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate John McCain had lost the election.

And some of them thought that with his last-minute, seemingly impulsive selection of a little-known and little-experienced governor he had lost his mind.

It’s as true on Thursday afternoon as it was on Wednesday that Palin is a risky pick. The public — and no doubt the McCain campaign as well — still doesn’t know what it doesn’t know about Palin, whose personal and public record in Alaska is still being raked by reporters and opposition researchers.

But in the space of one 36-minute speech by Palin, McCain proved that his choice was not a lapse into temporary (or even permanent) insanity. The speech’s political significance goes far beyond the fact that Palin showed herself capable of delivering a spirited reading of words that other people wrote.

Just as Barack Obama’s 2004 convention speech transformed his career, Palin’s speech has the potential to transform the dynamic of this race — in some ways that are obvious and some not:

• McCain is liberated

It is hard to overstate how underwhelmed most Republicans are by McCain and the current cast of GOP leaders. This was especially true of social conservatives, many of them religious evangelicals, who are most thrilled by Palin.

Now that Palin has cleared the bar — truth be told, a fairly modest one — of delivering an effective speech, McCain has much more flexibility to follow his own instincts.

He can play up reformist rhetoric and play down socially conservative ideology — the exact combination that in 2004 had some liberal commentators hoping McCain would abandon the GOP and go on the Democratic ticket.

Before Wednesday night, McCain was in big trouble when it comes to mobilizing conservative faithful. Now, Palin can help the party organize and turn out the same base of Christian evangelicals, Second Amendment supporters and abortion-rights opponents that proved instrumental to the back-to-back George W. Bush victories.

Before Wednesday night, McCain had little room for error with the right. They measured every word and made him pay for straying too far on the issues they care most about. Now, McCain can stretch and twist like a yoga instructor.

The key to watch in Thursday night’s acceptance speech is how McCain uses this new freedom —particularly his newfound ability to put even more distance between himself and a deeply unpopular president. It was no accident that the immediate response to Palin’s speech from the Obama campaign was to try to link her and McCain back to Bush.

• A competing storyline

Palin hasn’t seen the last of stories looking for contradictions or flaws in her record, or suggesting that her accomplishments or intellect are as substantial as a souffle.

But by presenting an engaging side of herself and her family, she ensured that those stories, written mainly by political and investigative reporters, will be countered by other stories written mainly by lifestyle reporters.

People magazine reporters and bookers for "The View" and "Oprah" will be watching Palin with a lot more interest than they will be watching Joe Biden. In Palin's own way, her story and rapid rise are as arresting to the mass audience as Obama’s.

And many voters in these big audiences likely will swoon for a telegenic hockey mom who eats moose she kills herself. You can’t make this stuff up. Her story is made for TV, glossy mags and the big screen.

A mother of five with a pregnant daughter. A ruggedly handsome husband who drills oil and races snowmobiles. She hunts. She fishes. She runs.

She is now a curiosity in a good way. That means big crowds at events and attention from people who otherwise might have ignored a more traditional ticket of two, old, rich, white Republican men who promise to kill terrorists and cut taxes.

None of this proves she understands the complexities of world threats or can endure the stress of office. But she at least gets more time to make her case. Before Wednesday night, she was only one or two news cycles away from irretrievably losing control of her public image.

• The hatchet man wears a skirt

Palin’s speech was a jackhammer of partisan shots and sarcastic digs. That is the traditional role of vice presidential nominees. But she performed that role with a smile and folksy humor, coming off like a younger, Republican version of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards.

McCain needs Palin to tear into Obama and Biden in speeches, debates and media appearances. She showed she can do it, at least when given time to prep.

It remains to be seen how effective she can be in more improvisational settings. Biden has weathered national campaigns and controversies; she has not. Biden has traveled the world, mixed it up with tough foreign leaders and mastered the complexities of global threats; she has not. Biden has studied virtually every national issue and debated them; she has not.

But she has shown a willingness and talent for tough talk. And it will be harder than usual for Democrats to attack back. Republicans will charge sexism at every turn. They will call women to her side to amplify their case. They will shame the media. Many of these complaints will be unfair — but some of it will probably be effective.

• Republicans can play identity group politics too

This brand of politics — voters who support a candidate not because of what that person has done in public life but because of the symbolism of the candidate's personal story — is a big part of why Obama is the Democratic nominee. With Palin, the GOP showed that it, too, can play this game.

Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, told us this week that his wife, who is even more conservative than he is, doesn’t think much of McCain. But she loves Palin, perhaps enough to get her to now back the GOP ticket. He said he was astonished how Palin has woken “the sleeping giant: Republican women.”

It is the talk of the hallways, in the convention and nationwide. Women, especially Republican women, were thrilled by the Palin speech. Already, the campaign is reporting a huge surge in fundraising. The bigger question is whether this will translate into a huge surge at the polls. Republicans get clobbered in national elections when it comes to the women’s vote. One way to narrow the gender gap is to juice turnout among your own people. Palin could do that. Another way is to juice turnout among female swing voters.

That’s still a tall order for Palin, but not the laughable one it was before Wednesday night.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080904/pl_politico/13162

No but I do like McCain. I'll probably wind up voting Obama but wouldn't feel to bad if McCain wins. Not sure about Palin, still don't really know much about her. It looks like she's a very good speaker though.