All About McCain

[scaeagles]

Whatever, WB.

Apparently she was gaining notice 13 months ago.....quite a write up about her (I know, I know, doubters will shout Weekly Standard, blah, blah, but the facts are the facts).

[wendybeth]

"Whatever?"

I thought you cared about my opinions there, Scaeagles.

[scaeagles]

I sort of stop when I am called a "putz" (granted I suggested the word first) or disingenuous.

[wendybeth]

Oh, was that when you called yourself a putz, or when I agreed?

(Typically, I don't use that term, but when you posted it I kind of had to agree. I had just said I didn't want to continue, and then you posted and I bit. So, following my first instincts, I'll bow out like I intended).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Anyone who is against safe sex ed and ends up with a pregnant 17 year old in the house has some serious 'splainin to do. Anyone who goes back to work 3 days after they have their child can't claim to be on the "traditional family values" side of things. Even the craziest of feminatzis supports a 6 week minimum maternity leave.

Did someone post this already? Too true.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

no one person has enough experience to be President. Not possible. Too many things to be expert on. One must surround ones self with smartt, trusted, and knowledgable people in various areas of expertise.

Leo, I did not mean to offend. The Republicans have built their public image (as I see it) around traditional values- Christian religion, women who don't work (mostly), anti-abortion, among other things. So by touting her husband and kids in her acceptance speech, she puts herself forward as following the party line. It's true that not all conservatives are the same, but they are operating with this public image.

I can't see the women that I know who are pro-Hilary voting for Palin.

I do agree that none of the candidates are qualified to be president- nothing but actually doing it gives that kind of experience. I just get a better feel that Obama will surround himself with better counselors than will McCain.

[Not Afraid]

If Palin represents what the majority of women of this country believe, then women haven't come as far out of the dark ages as i thought we had.

I wouldn't vote for Palin - or anyone else touting her brand of extreme, dark ages, social conservatism - ever. Was Dan Quayle even this socially conservative?

[Not Afraid]

Boy, as quickly as news about Palin is breaking, you have to wonder if she'll make it to November. It's come out that she has tight connections to an Alaskan political party that strongly advocates secession and is strongly anti-American:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9...477/878/581881

[Sub la Goon]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Boy, as quickly as news about Palin is breaking, you have to wonder if she'll make it to November.

I will be surprised if she lasts the week.

[Not Afraid]

The New York Times

Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process

ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990 of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

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.

Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

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 name as his running mate 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.

“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.”

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.

People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions.

“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.

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.

State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.

Mr. French, a former prosecutor, said that he was knowledgeable about background checks and that, he, too, was surprised that the campaign had not reached out to state legislative leaders.

A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret.

“If you really want it to be a surprise, the circle of people that you’re going to allow to know about it is going to be small, and that’s just the nature of it,” said Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to President Bush and an adviser in both of his presidential campaigns.

Former McCain strategists disagreed on whether it would have been useful for Ms. Palin’s name to have been more publicly floated before her selection so that issues like the trooper investigation and her daughter’s pregnancy might have already been aired and not seemed so new at the time of her announcement.

“Had the story been written about the state trooper three months ago, nobody would care about it anymore,” said Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “It’s a risk. No matter how great the candidate, it’s a significant risk to put someone on the ticket” who hasn’t been publicly scrutinized.

“They obviously felt it was worth the risk to rev up the base and potentially reach out to Clinton supporters,” Mr. Schnur said.

But Howard Opinsky, another McCain veteran, said calling attention to Ms. Palin’s possible candidacy during the search process would have undermined the impact of her eventual selection.

“Had her name been played out in the press for months and months, she wouldn’t have been seen as so bold,” Mr. Opinsky said. “You either get freshness and you have to live with what you get in your vetting or you lose the freshness.”