The State Of The Race

Sullivan:

My view is that the GOP is now like Wile E Coyote about half a mile off the cliff suspended in mid-air. Yes, the speech was a great moment: a former sportscaster knows how to deliver a speech written for her. But we have two months to get to know her, if she's still on the ticket in November.

The conventions are now over. If McCain can't get a consistent lead in the polls next week, it is hard to see him pulling this thing out. Of course, anything could happen and McCain and Palin could rock their debates.

But historically, a ticket does its best in the week after its convention. Right now McCain still doesn't lead in any polls. He'd better hope that changes by Wednesday. And no, a 1-3 point lead won't do it. He needs at least a five point lead, preferably a ten point lead, to overcome the structural and issue advantages that Obama-Biden bring.

Oh, and the longer Palin is kept sequestered from the press, the worse she is going to look. She's had one week, and some Republicans are saying she won't take any questions for two more weeks, if at all. That's a lifetime in politics. We'll see what happens, but the longer they stretch this out the bigger a story it becomes and the more focus falls on her if and when she stumbles.

Joe Biden Rips The RNC A New One

Today in Pennsylvania:



Is Palin sure she wants to do this?

Daily Show Takes On RNC Night Three

As usual, it's up to the Daily Show to break through the clutter and provide the real truth of what happened:

Troopergate

Here is an ABC news report on Troopergate, to give you some background. It looks really bad for Sarah Palin:



It's easy to get caught up in the moment, when Palin is doing her TelePrompter act while the right wingers cheer and froth at the mouth. But at the end of the day, this is still an unqualified scandal-plagued politician with extremist views. Republicans are great at denying reality, but all of this is going to catch up to them.

The Anchorage Daily News is calling her out for obstruction, the investigation has been put on fast-track, and one of the state senators in charge says it will probably be damaging to Palin.

For Palin not to be a disaster, the McCain campaign had better hope that three major things happen. 1.) Palin is cleared of any and all charges in Troopergate, 2.) Palin is such a sponge-like MENSA genius that she is able to master foreign and domestic policy before her first press availability or the first VP debate and 3.) That the public never learns that she wants to ban abortions even in cases of rape or incest, that she tried to ban books from a public library, that she was in church while an antisemitic preacher spoke and that she has strong ties to an anti-American secessionist movement.

You can see why, in the cold hard light of day, this doesn't look good.

McCain's Speech

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....huh, what? Did I miss something?

I just remember this wheezy-voiced old coot on TV, standing in front of a middle school here in L.A. Was that really McCain's big speech? The one they've spent six months working on?

God help us if we have to sit through four years of this guy.

Obama Discusses Last Night

I would add that he's correct, going after Sarah Palin is beneath Obama at this point. Let Joe Biden go after her, if he wants to. Let the investigative journalists and liberal bloggers go after her. She's got a whole lot of skeletons in her closet that Americans are just barely beginning to learn about.

Sarah Palin got the easy part out of the way. She read from a TelePrompter, just like she used to do as a TV sports reporter. No big deal, especially when you have a crowd of sycophants cheering you at every word, every sneer, every line written for you by Karl Rove's crew.

Now comes the hard part. Palin needs to actually answer questions from voters and reporters. She has to, within the week, become an expert on Federal Government 101. This is a woman who two weeks ago didn't know what the VP does. I'm sure she's a quick study, but learning everything possible about foreign and economic policy and the levers of power in Washington D.C. is a bit of a challenge for anyone to accomplish in a year, much less a week.

And after last night's speech, she has no room to whine about people being tough on her. The clock's ticking.

Palin

If she wants a war, she just got one.

Fun With RNC Attack Lines

Republicans love twisting around truths in order to craft their attack lines. If you don't care about honesty, it's an easy way to go after your opponent.

Mitt Romney:

"We need change all right - change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out the big government liberals and elect John McCain."

Last I checked John McCain is not running to replace "big government liberals". He is running to replace George W. Bush.

And how exactly is Washington "liberal" if Republicans have controlled three branches of government for most of the past eight years.

Romney again:

"It’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!"

Umm, last I checked it was Republicans led by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who have set up warrantless wiretapping on Americans.

Rudy Guiliani:

"And she already has more executive experience than the entire Democratic ticket. She's led a city and a state."

She has more experience than Joe Biden? Wasilla, AK (pop. 6500) is a city?

Mike Huckabee:

"Sarah Palin received more votes for mayor than Joe Biden received for president!"

First of all, Joe Biden received over 50,000 votes for president this year alone. That's about 8000% of the votes that Palin received for mayor (610).

And anyway, Barack Obama received more than twice as many votes for Senator than there are citizens in Alaska and Arizona combined.

Sarah Palin:

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

By "responsibilities" she must mean banning books at the library and firing the local sheriff when he tries to fight drunk driving.

There is one thing missing in all of these speeches, besides the truth. Actual policies or prescriptions for the nest four years.

Right On

This is exactly right, and needs to be repeated:

In anticipation of a new McCain campaign ad coming out later this morning that will assert that Ms. Palin has far more experience in running governments than Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Gibbs said in a morning conference call here: “Well, obviously I think the assertion is borderline ridiculous. Look, if executive experience is really important on the Republican side, maybe she should run for president and John McCain should run for vice president.”

Bitter Kool-Aid

It's really hilarious to see supposedly intelligent Republicans like Joe Lieberman and Newt Gingrich tell us that yes, Sarah Palin is ready to be commander-in-chief during a time of war and recession.

So far, they aren't very convincing about it. Here is Joe Lieberman after his boring speech last night:



Yes, let's elect 72-year-old John McCain and "hope" that nothing bad happens to him.

With the condition that the country is in, do we really want to take a gamble on having Sarah Palin as president? It is a truly shocking thought, and you'd think more Republicans would say so.

Palin Wants To Stop Troopergate Probe

Typical abuse of power and attempted cover-up:

In the latest sign that Sarah Palin's promised cooperation with the Trooper-Gate investigation is failing to materialize, her lawyer is now demanding that the entire case be taken out of the hands of the independent prosecutor hired by Alaska lawmakers, and given over to a state personnel board -- whose three members were appointed by the governor herself.

In an unusual "ethics disclosure" filed last night, along with related documents, to the state Attorney General, Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, asked the personnel board to look into the firing of Walt Monegan, the former public safety commissioner at the center of the case. Van Flein also asked the legislature to drop its own investigation, contending that only the personnel board has jurisdiction over ethics. And he suggested that if the legislature didn't agree to hand the matter over to the personnel board, Palin would not be made available for a deposition.

So unless the investigation is handed over to a board of Palin's cronies, she refuses to talk. Boy, it really sounds like there is nothing to this story, huh?

Sarah Palin Wanted To Ban Books

This is perhaps the scariest thing about her. She's one of those overbearing, fascist PTA-types who thinks banning books is okay in 21st century America:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

So in Sarah Palin's world, we teach creationism in science class, we ban books that we don't agree with, women have no control over their bodies, married people aren't allowed access to contraception, polar bears are sacrificed for a few more drops of oil, political opponents are fired for disloyalty, taxes are cut for the rich and raised on the poor, and the priorities of Alaska come before the concerns of the United States.

And John McCain thinks she is ready to be president in five months?

Palin's Anti-Jewish, Anti-American Associates

According to Politico, Gov. Sarah Palin attended a church service two weeks ago where some Hagee-style antisemitic crap was on display:

...just two weeks ago, when Palin’s church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with deep hostility by many Jewish organizations: David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus.

Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, introduced Brickner on Aug. 17, according to a transcript of the sermon on the church’s website.

“He’s a leader of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that is out on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism,” Kroon said.

Brickner then explained that Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jewish.

“The Jewish community, in particular, has a difficult time understanding this reality,” he said.
Brickner’s mission has drawn wide criticism from the organized Jewish community, and the Anti-Defamation League accused them in a report of “targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception.”

Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity.

"Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's very real. When [Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment — you can't miss it."

Palin was in church that day, Kroon said, though he cautioned against attributing Brickner’s views to her.

I don't think Democrats should make a huge deal out of this...unless Republicans decide to start reviving Rev. Wright.

Oh, and how about the Alaska Independence Party, which Sarah Palin has associated with and her husband Todd was a member of?

The founder of the Alaska Independence Party -- a group that has been courted over the years by Sarah Palin, and one her husband was a member of for roughly seven years -- once professed his "hatred for the American government" and cursed the American flag as a "damn flag."

The AIP founder, Joe Vogler, made the comments in 1991, in an interview that's now housed at the Oral History Program in the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.

"And I won't be buried under their damn flag," Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. "I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."

At another point, Volger advocated renouncing allegiance to the United States. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said:

"And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska."

If Palin had been publicly vetted, there is simply no way she would have been chosen. So now the McCain campaign has to put lipstick on the pig, because yanking her nomination would possibly be an even bigger disaster.

I don't see Palin helping McCain's ticket in any way. The evangelicals were going to be fired up anyway. But Palin definitely has the potential to sink him if more of these stories hit the mainstream media.

The GOP Vetting Process

Pretty funny.

The Female George W. Bush

I've become convinced that Sarah Palin is the female George W. Bush. Obviously there are a ton of differences between the two, different life stories and all that. But they seem very much like political twins.

Both are far-right Christianist candidates who believe that God is calling the shots on the Iraq war and other issues.

Both are do-nothing governors who were elected without any real previous political experience and only won their first statewide election on the strength of the Republican brand.

Both are beloved by evangelicals.

Both are dim-witted and uncurious about matters that aren't directly in front of them, but have a way of lowering expectations so much that they come out ahead even when they lose.

Both are subpar parents with out-of-control teen daughters.

Both use their political power to fire and/or destroy political enemies.

They both have a crass and mean sense of humor, particularly in regards to their political opponents.

They are fiscally irresponsible and trust corporations over government.

So while I think Sarah Palin is a disastrous pick for John McCain, I would also advise myself and other liberal bloggers not to misunderestimate her. Her speech tomorrow will be well-received. The bar is so low that as long as she correctly pronounces "Afghanistan" and "reform" she won't look like a radical doofus. If she hits the books hard for the next week and month, she'll do good enough to hold her own in press conferences and the debate with Joe Biden.

She hasn't been in politics very long, but she speaks clearly and knows how to dodge tricky questions with her aw-shucks Alaskan charm. We may not get the "gotcha you're stupid" moment we are hoping for.

We'll see. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. She just has to screw up on one or two major policy questions to seal the impression people have with her. And after eight years of Bush, maybe the media won't be so willing to give an inexperienced right wing radical a pass simply because they have charisma and confidence. But if she avoids any major potholes in her inevitable Q&A sessions, or if the press decides to jump back on the McCain bandwagon, she could wind up being a non-factor or even a small positive rather than the disaster we hope she will be.

At least, that's what McCain's folks are hoping for at this point.

Who's Radical Now?

Obama looks like a freakin' milquetoast conventional candidate next to the white trash insanity of the Palin family.

Good job, Republicans. You've made Obama look experienced, mainstream, and ready to lead all in one fell swoop.

Secession

You know, "secession" might sound like a fancy word to some of us, but it is actually a pretty big deal. We fought something called the Civil War in order to prevent southern states from seceding and forming their own country.

Abraham Lincoln famously spoke out against the division of our union thus:

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

We lost 620,000 Americans in the Civil War, the highest death toll by far of any of the wars in American history. It was a full century before the racial segregation policies resulting from the war were overturned, and emotional wounds from the war still linger in the debates over confederate flags, states' rights, affirmative action, and the Southern strategy.

Yet this week, John McCain decided to select a secessionist as his vice president. A woman, Gov. Palin, who has associated with a fringe radical group in Alaska that believes they should be able to secede from the United States and form their own country.

They are loons, of course. Undoubtedly they would still want U.S. protection against invasion and takeover from the Russians, so their independence would come at our expense. But seriously -- is this the kind of person we want running the country, someone who thinks her state should leave the Union that millions have died for?

The McCain campaign is trying to stamp out these stories before they hit the mainstream press. But it is not going away.

JedReport has done a mashup of Palin's introduction speech THIS YEAR to the Alaska Independence Party's annual convention, combined with a 2007 AIP meeting in which they cheered having one of their own as governor.



The RNC has responded by saying that Palin has always been registered Republican. I'm sure that's true, but the AIP expressly advocates that its members infiltrate the dominant parties and make changes from within.

Second, Gov. Palin's husband Todd Palin was a registered member of AIP from 1995 to 2002, the year that Sarah Palin first ran for statewide office.

This is truly insane. Sarah Palin has spoken to the AIP convention multiple times, the AIP vice chairman claims that she was a member of their party despite officially registering for the GOP, and her husband was a card-carrying member of this fringe secessionist organization.

As a Democrat, I would be highly troubled if Barack Obama had recklessly chosen an inexperienced, far-left Texan secessionist for his ticket. In fact I'd be calling for him to drop that person from the ticket immediately. So why the silence (so far) from the Republican party?

I guess they are afraid of the radical Christian right, and are hoping that things turn out well as Palin's intro to the country continues. But let's talk turkey here, people. There is absolutely no way that the American people will be comfortable putting a couple of secessionists one heartbeat away from control of this country.

Maybe the press won't report it, or maybe the American people won't believe something so obviously outrageous. But if it goes mainstream, McCain really will have to fold his hand and ask for a new draw.

Comedians In Ecstasy Right Now

Yes, this is a real image from the real McCain campaign. What an odd couple. If McCain ends up dropping her from the ticket, we're all gonna look back on this and say WTF? How could anyone have considered this a serious ticket for the presidency, it's like something out of the Onion or a cheesy Hollywood movie.

This McCain/Palin duo is comedy gold. Can't wait for SNL to get in on this. The Daily Show and Colbert got into the act last week, but trust me it will get even better. There is too much material to work with.



This is why the Obama campaign shouldn't have to work too hard to attack Palin. The attacks write themselves. She is not just inexperienced, she is laughably inexperienced. I'm still waiting to find out whether she will take on the typical VP "attack dog" role and go after Obama. That would be fun to see. So far I've only seen her attack Ted Stevens and other Republicans who aren't as nutty as she is. Most Americans don't know or care who Ted Stevens is, so these attacks do little to help McCain's campaign.

Compare this to the alternate reality where McCain had picked Romney or Pawlenty. The rollout would have been smooth, and the attacks on Obama would have been constant from the get-go. Instead it's a total disaster, and the attacks on Obama's "experience" in relation to Sarah Palin's are just making the Republicans seem like idiots.

From my side, this couldn't have gone better.

Will McCain Admit His Mistake?

Make no doubt about it, John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his VP is one of the worst political decisions we've seen in a long time. We've seen worse policy decisions (the Iraq War, Bush's tax cuts, deregulation, etc.) but there are few purely political moves as bone-headed as this one.

Yes, I know. Sarah Palin has some upside. She energizes the right wing Christianists, has given a big boost to McCain's fundraising, and has helped him shake up the race (although not in the way he intended).

But let's get serious folks. Last week when I noted that the McCain campaign was panicked and in chaos, I didn't know how right I was. But the last minute pick of Palin has confirmed that assessment, to the point where even the BBQ-eating press is in shock.

Yesterday, milquetoast CNN reporter Campbell Brown took apart McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds over Palin's so-called commander-in-chief experience:



But it got worse. Larry King -- Larry King! -- pondered whether and when McCain might have to remove her from the ticket. The McCain campaign is in full-on defense and spin mode, trying to distract you from the fact that Gov. Palin is dangerously inexperienced and that McCain picked her on a whim without any sort of vetting.

I was on vacation in Mexico all weekend, so I missed much of the Gustav/Palin news. But as I've caught up last night and today, I -- like most Americans -- am increasingly shocked at how terrible this pick was. If this is how McCain plans to run his presidency, he's a worse politician than I ever imagined.

So now, with Barack Obama taking 5-9 point leads in most of the polls, the RNC convention in disarray, and Palin-gate seriously screwing up McCain's message this week, where do we go from here?

Will McCain admit his mistake and pull Palin from the ticket? Don't tell me it won't happen, I'm sure many big wigs in the Republican party are discussing it right now (just not in earshot of the Christian right). It would be an incredible embarrassment for McCain, a belly-flop on his first presidential decision, and would probably upset the newly-energized evangelical base. But what's his other option? Keeping her on the ticket and watching his chances dwindle from decent to nil?

If I had to predict right now, I'd say that McCain drops Palin and picks Pawlenty to replace her. The Christian right would be initially upset, but Pawlenty is evangelical and so they'd get in line by election time. McCain could wipe his hands of Palin's dozen ongoing scandals and salacious news stories, and we could all forget that this white trash Palin family ever existed.

With Palin on the ticket, McCain is doomed. Even if she became a foreign policy expert in the next week, her radical views, her advocacy of Alaskan independence, and her ongoing troopergate scandal make her a drag on the ticket. Hillary supporters are pissed off at the tokenism on display, Jewish voters are repelled by her support for Buchanan and total ignorance of Israel, foreign policy realists are slack-jawed at her total ignorance of foreign policy, and the average Joe thinks that Palin simply isn't ready to be president while we are dealing with recession and fighting two wars



John McCain's only chance to win this election is to make it about Barack Obama, and to try and sell us the line that Obama isn't ready for the job. But now the election is about Sarah Palin, and McCain's terrible judgment in picking her. I don't care what kind of spin the McCain campaign dishes, this is not how they wanted this week to go.

There is still time for McCain to salvage his campaign, although it has been badly damaged and won't fully recover. But the clock is ticking, and it is unclear yet how stubborn and idiotic McCain will be over this VP selection.