A Palin Prediction

Just weeks ago, Sarah Palin was at the top of her game – drawing bigger crowds than presidential candidate John McCain, generating huge sales in her Kawasaki eyeglasses. Then she started doing a handful of television interviews, each one more disastrous than the next. Suddenly, right-wing pundits began to see what was obvious to everyone else from the start - Sarah Palin is unqualified to be vice president.

Now in a fevered rush to cram her head with facts, she’s sequestered in a debate camp at McCain’s Sedona Arizona ranch. A leak from the McCain campaign reportedly revealed that the first of several mock debates were “terrible.” And her most recent follow-up interview with Katie Couric was no better, even with John McCain sitting right next to her. Liberal pundits are confidently predicting that Palin stands little chance of beating Joe Biden in their upcoming debate.

But that prediction could as wrong as McCain’s decision to choose Palin in the first place. Palin was not chosen because she an expert on anything, or because she was experienced. She was chosen because of her image – period. Palin’s introduction at the Republican convention was a home run because it played to her strength – all flash, no substance.

But she intimately understands the right-wing base of the party and what they want from her. Palin is an ideologue, much like George Bush, who does not need facts to support her positions. That’s why she couldn't tell Katie Couric what newspapers she reads, and doesn't know any Supreme Court cases except Roe v. Wade. She doesn't know because she doesn’t have to. All her questions – from her belief in creationism to her recent contention that Saddam Hussein was behind the 911 attacks – have been answered. She doesnt need any more facts, and neither do her supporters in the Republican party.

Her moral certainty will be on full display during her debate with Biden. While Biden attempts to attack McCain while avoiding Palin, she will attack Biden as well as Obama. She will get off well-rehearsed, snarky one liners that will produce memorable sound bites, she will skim the facts or make them up as she goes along, knowing that in that format she can’t really be challenged, because there won’t be enough time. Biden, who has been known to get off a good sound bite from time to time, will look weak if she is able to taunt him without a similar response, yet he will appear “elitist” if he goes after her.

It’s impossible to know if this vice presidential debate will be a game-changer for McCain, who has seen his poll numbers drop during the Wall Street economic crisis. His erratic response to the crisis has been a stark contrast to Obama’s calm and assured handling of the issue. But don’t count Sarah Palin out. Unfortunately for us all, there are a lot voters out there who are just as uninformed as she is, and they want to stay that way.

Is the media finally over John McCain?

In recent days, there have been signs that John McCain’s free ride with the media was ending. When the press discovered the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had not been vetted by McCain’s campaign, despite their claims, the game was on. Her pregnant daughter, the state trooper investigation, her connection to the Bridge to Nowhere – a normally deferential press core has begun to aggressively pursue the details.
McCain’s media free ride has served him well over the years, and especially well this campaign season. The phrase “Keating Five” has yet to be uttered by a single pundit, though word “maverick” is said hundreds of times daily. It goes back to the days when his “Straight Talk Express” was a place of good ‘ol boy and girl camaraderie, and the genuine admiration of his POW days by the national press reporters who covered him. McCain once even called the press corp “his base.”
All of that is on the line now. Sarah Palin’s presence has nearly eclipsed McCain. Her fact-free acceptance speech is undergoing scrutiny, as are the details of her personal life in a way that any high profile politician should expect under the circumstances, especially if she’s planning to be president if John McCain were to become incapacitated.
While such an experience must be hard for anyone, it’s been a shocker for the McCain campaign, which has reacted by blaming the media for sexism (true in some cases) and bias (no way.) They canceled a Larry King interview, and sent out surrogates to rile up their base and claim their victim status. “I don’t remember Rudolf Guiliani claiming the press was biased when we used to call him America’s mayor,’’ Tom Brokaw said during one convention interlude.
Reviews of McCain’s speech, watched by 38 million people, has been described as “flat,’’’ “shockingly bad,’’ ‘tired, recycled Republican rhetoric,’’ by pundits and newspapers. And the pressure to have Palin do interviews is building, though the McCain campaign continues to ignore those requests. So is the media love-affair with McCain finally over, and will the press begin to hold McCain accountable for his record and past statements? At this point, McCain’s POW stories from 40 years ago are still told far more often than fact that he voted against the 2008 G.I. Bill. It’s going to be tough, but the press may finally have to start doing its job.

Who goes first: Clinton’s supporters clash with Obama has roots in history

Believe it or not, the anger among supporters of Hillary Clinton, who felt their presidential candidate was robbed of her rightful place on the Democratic ticket by the upstart Obama, is a show we’ve seen before.
It took place long before the days of YouTube and the 24 hour news cycle, long before anyone ever imagined a black man or a white woman would ever be on a presidential ticket of a major American political party.
It was in the days when neither blacks nor women had the right to vote, but had begun the long battle for universal suffrage. Both blacks and women would eventually get there, but not at the same time. And the fight led to a breach between two stalwarts of the 19th century civil rights movement, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.
Douglass, anti-slavery abolitionist, was a supporter of women’s right to vote, and he attended the famous Seneca Falls Women‘s Rights Convention. The passage of the 14th amendment to the Constitution in 1865 had given blacks their status U.S. citizens, and in combination with the abolition of slavery, they had begun the struggle for the right to vote.
By 1869, the long-time friends in the struggle Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were on opposite sides of the debate because the 15th Amendment granted suffrage rights to blacks as males. Anthony questioned why women should support this amendment when black men were not continuing to show support for women’s voting rights. "When women because they are women are dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts, .....then they will have the urgency to obtain the ballot," Douglass said. Despite Douglass’ obvious logic, that one didn’t go over big with Anthony.
In the end, it would not be until the 20th century that either women or African-Americans received full voting rights. Now, in the 21st century, Clinton putting cracks in a “glass ceiling”, and with Sen. Barack Obama poised to do what most of us could never have dreamed or imagined, the fight over who should be first is a strange echo of a distant past.

McCain hopes his VP pick will make women fall for him

Just hours after Sen. Barack Obama's historic nomination and magnificent acceptance speech, it was McCain's turn to seize the spotlight with his 'maverick" VP choice.

And the winner is ……Gov. Sarah Palin, of Alaska, a 44 year old, gun-toting "hockey mom.''
Palin who is two years into her first term as a governor, has had no presence on the national scene until now. She has no foreign policy credentials or insider Washington knowledge - all the things the McCain campaign and the press have hounded Obama about.

But none of that is important now – what is important is that she is a woman, which means that all those disaffected Hillary Clinton voters will now jump ship and switch to supporting a woman who disagrees with Democrats (and pro-choice independents) on almost every issue. She is a cynical choice by a presidential nominee who has obstructed women's rights for much of his time in the Senate, who was confounded when recently asked if insurance companies should be made to pay for contraception for women the same way they pay for Viagra for over-the hill men.

As expected, the equally cynical pundits are praising McCain for his "stunning" and "brilliant' choice. "Out of box!,'' cried one; "History-making!" cried others. McCain's thinking is apparently that women supported Hillary Clinton simply because she was a female. Therefore, if he picks a woman, the Republican party will appear to be making progress on women's issues and women will drop the cause of Democratic unity and flock to his campaign.

But Hillary Clinton was not just a token female candidate – she has been a presence on the national scene. Clinton's historic run for the presidency was made possible because she was the first former First Lady to be elected to public office in her own right. She was the inevitable Democratic nominee, until Obama came along. She had been in the trenches and fought the big boys.

And what of other prominent Republican women in the House or Senate and were possibly passed over? The story of how Palin came to be VP has yet to be told, but it will be interesting to find out if any Republican women with national credentials were considered. My guess is probably not.

Will Hillary Clinton's disaffected supporters make the switch? It depends on their answer to the question Clinton asked during the convention; "Were you in it only for me?''
During the lead-up to his vice presidential pick, Sen. Barack Obama called his vice presidential selection "the first and most important decision I will make as president.'' If that's so, then McCain just flunked his first test.--