Tag: Sarah Palin (page 10)

Context:

• Associated Press: Palin Once Blessed to Be Free From Withcraft
• Max Blumenthal: The Witch Fighter Annoints Palin
• KagroX at Daily Kos: Preacher Problem

John McCain may want to think twice before running new ads about Rev. Wright. His campaign said this week Wright could come up during the last 43 days of the election. Undoubtedly, the Obama campaign will ignore them and refuse to fight back with the Palin preacher videos, saying saying it's all about the economy, but the media won't and voters will see them. [More...]

Another sign John McCain's Hail Mary pass to use Sarah Palin to save his failing campaign isn't working: Time Magazine/CNN's swing state polls released today. The states polled: Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Montana and West Virginia

[T]he new poll suggests that the appeal of McCain's running mate Sarah Palin may not be as much of a game changer as some believed a month ago. Obama has a double-digit lead among women in Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, while he ties with McCain in Montana, and is ahead only 3 points in West Virginia.

More good news on the independent/moderate voters: [More...]

Gov. Sarah Palin met with her first foreign leader today. Only one press member was allowed to attend -- and only for 29 seconds. Tomorrow she will meet with rock star Bono.

Joe Biden? [More...]

The Public Policy Project poll of Colorado voters I wrote about last night is out. Obama leads McCain, 51% to 44%. Gov. Sarah Palin is tanking his ticket.

Sarah Palin's popularity with Colorado voters over the last couple weeks has plummeted, and as it has Barack Obama has opened up his biggest lead yet in a PPP survey of the state.

Immediately after the Republican convention 41% of Coloradoans said John McCain's choice of Palin to join him on the ticket made them more likely to vote for him while 38% said it made them less likely to do so. Now the number of people saying Palin's selection makes them less likely to vote for McCain has climbed to 47% with the number of people viewing it favorably dropping to 38%.

Full poll results here (pdf). And good news for Rep. Mark Udall in the Senate race: He's leading Bob Shaffer 48 to 40. [More...]

David Talbot in Salon today explores Gov. Sarah Palin's style of politics in Alaska.

According to some political observers in Alaska, this pattern -- exploiting "old-boy" mentors and then turning against them for her own advantage -- defines Sarah Palin's rise to power. Again and again, Palin has charmed powerful political patrons, and then rejected them when it suited her purposes. She has crafted a public image as a clean politics reformer, but in truth, she has only blown the whistle on political corruption when it was expedient for her to do so. Above all, Palin is a dynamo of ambition, shrewdly maneuvering her way through the notoriously compromised world of Alaska politics, making and breaking alliances along the way.

[More...]

As Gov. Sarah Palin meets with foreign leaders today and bans the press from attending (Added: and then changes her mind after protests, but only sort-of), here's former US Army Brigadier General (retired) Janis L. Karpinski's op-ed at TruthOut today on how Palin would turn back time:

I know enough about Palin's character to assess her as ill-equipped, clueless and unprepared to take control of our nation in the event of McCain's early demise or incapacitation, much less qualified to serve as the commander in chief of all military forces. Unfortunately for Palin, leadership is not derived by a process of osmosis.

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We wrote days ago that Gov. Sarah Palin had peaked when polls began to show a noticeable decline in her favorability ratings.

PPP will have a new Colorado poll out this morning. They offer one stat as a teaser. Palin's favorability rating in the has dropped 3 points and her unfavorable rating has increased 9 points.

I'm 100% with Markos of Daily Kos on this:

Again, for those who counseled leaving Palin alone because she was too popular and because it took attention off McCain, had we done so, she'd be entrenched as a woman of the people, propping up the Republican ticket. Instead, she's been relegated to the far less glamorous (and helpful) task of keeping the GOP base intact, nothing more. She may be popular with the base, but people outside wingnut circles aren't impressed.

With Palin neutralized (and there's a reason they're hiding her from view), it's much easier to knock down McCain on the economy, his desire to deregulate healthcare just like Wall Street, his lies, and so on.

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Via Alaskan radio host Shannyn Moore, here are the top ten reasons TrooperGate is a fair investigation:

1. It began with a 12-0 vote of eight Republicans and four Democrats.

2. The President of the Senate, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

3. The Speaker of the House, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

4. The investigation began in July, well before Governor Palin was placed on the national ticket.

More...

Steve Schmidt, a top McCain strategist, said the TV ad was a “real buy” that would air nationally and “will air across the depth and breadth of the battleground states.” Schmidt also belittled the media for not providing a “symmetry” to their probing of Obama’s background compared to the scrubbing that the team of McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has received.

Original Post: 9: 52 a.m.

McCain Ad Attacks Obama and Chicago Machine

Displaying his customary lack of self-awareness, John McCain has released an ad about Obama and the Chicago machine on the first day of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens trial.

I read the ad and substitute Gov. Sarah Palin for Barack Obama -- and Ted Stevens and his cronies, including a lobbying firm with close ties to Stevens, for those named from Chicago. [More...]

Gov. Sarah Palin drew huge crowds near Orlando, FL today. But consider:

She went to perhaps the easiest place in Florida to get a large Republican turnout, stuck mostly to the themes she's hit since the Republican convention and took no questions from reporters or the crowd.

...But Biden made four stops in his two days, and ventured into Republican strongholds like Fort Myers and Sarasota. He took questions from the audience at each stop and did interviews with local media.

She can rally the base, but the question as I like to frame it is, are there more of them or more of us? Turnout will be key.

Update: The LA Times reports Palin's political capital is eroding in Alaska.

The New York Times compares Barack Obama and John McCain's effect on the Supreme Court.

Mr. McCain has promised the right wing of the Republican Party that he would put only archconservatives on the Supreme Court. Even moderate conservatives like Anthony Kennedy, the court’s current swing justice, would not have a chance.

Mr. McCain, whose Web site proclaims his dedication to overturning Roe v. Wade, would appoint justices who could be expected to lead the charge to eliminate the right to abortion. The kinds of justices for whom Mr. McCain has expressed a strong preference would also be likely to undermine the right of habeas corpus, allowing the government to detain people indefinitely without access to lawyers or family members.

After more examples of the court we'd get under McCain, the Times evaluates Obama's effect: [More...]

The now infamous $25 million Road to Nowhere opened in Alaska this week.

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein said the 3.2-mile road now is ideal for road races and hunting, and possibly some commercial development. But with no bridge to serve it, that's probably about it.

If I were Sarah Palin, I'd drop both the Bridge and the Road to Nowhere from her list of accomplishments. They are just fodder for late night jokes and they speak poorly of her so-called executive acumen, not to mention her veracity.