McCain enjoys a post convention poll bounce

John McCain coming out of the Republican Convention has enjoyed a bounce in the polls, of about 3%, above the 3% margin of error.

Gallop Poll reports the following:

These results are based on Sept. 4-6 interviewing, and include two full days of polling after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention last Thursday night. McCain has outpolled Obama on both Friday and Saturday, and is receiving a convention bounce just as Obama did last week.
Tomorrow’s report will be the first in which all interviews were conducted after the conclusion of the convention. Gallup measures convention bounces by comparing candidate support in the last poll done entirely before a party’s presidential nominating convention begins with the first polling conducted entirely after its conclusion.
McCain’s 48% share of the vote ties for his largest since Gallup tracking began in early March. He registered the same level of support in early May. This is also McCain’s largest advantage over Obama since early May, when he led by as much as six percentage points. Obama has led McCain for most of the campaign, and for nearly all of the time since clinching the Democratic nomination in early June.

The Charts:

I guess that I am in agreement with AllahPundit on this one. I don’t expect this really to be a long lasting bounce. What I predict will happen is, that the poll will either return to it’s previous state, or will turn in favor of McCain in a bigger percentage for the short term and will even back out, as we get closer to the election. With the news of the failing banking institutions, I believe Obama is going to have something to really nail McCain on, by blaming Bush for the housing crisis, which caused the run on the Banks, he will be able to push that message home to the people. He will do that by telling people, that McCain is basically Bush and Co. 2.0.

There is one cold hard fact that McCain cannot escape, that that is the quote, “A nation of whiners”. Which was given Phil Gramm, who is/was John McCain’s economic adviser. Who was also responsible for the deregulation of the housing loan industry. John McCain cannot escape that fact, at all, and it will come back to haunt him here, as we come closer and closer to election day. Especially seeing that McCain is very heartily trying to paint himself as somewhat of a maverick. McCain supposedly has broken ties with Phil Gramm, however, he has been spotting with McCain since then.

The bottom line here is, that more data is needed, to assess the actual bounce, if any at all.

Others Blogging: Don Surber, Blue Crab Boulevard, Scared Monkeys, Hot Air, FiveThirtyEight.com, Founding Bloggers, MyDD, Ace of Spades HQ, Fox News, The Strata-Sphere, Wizbang, The Moderate Voice, Donklephant, PSoTD, Stop The ACLU, Truthdig,The Volokh Conspiracy

Technorati Tags: Conservative, Election ’08, Election 2008, Gallup Poll, John McCain, Neo-Conservatives, Opinion, Politics, Polls, Republican, Republicans, Sarah Palin

Double standards in Politics

It isn’t every day that I agree with stuff that is written in my hometown paper. However, this particular article is an notable exception.

Stephen Henderson in the Detroit Free Press writes:

What if Palin were a black woman governor from, say, Illinois, who had been added to the Democratic ticket? What if her 17-year-old daughter had been impregnated by an 18-year-old, basketball-playing black kid from Chicago with no college plans or discernable means of income?
Bet the house that we’d have seen a number of insulting and demeaning stereotypes invoked — by some of the same folks praising the Palins’ handling of the situation — over and over again.
How many times would we have heard about the evils of the “rap culture,” its focus on promiscuity, and its influence on young people?
How many times would we have heard the term “baby daddy” used as a pejorative — rather than as a hip term in the celebrity press — against the father? (In June, Fox News even referred to Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, as his “baby mama.”)
How many times would we have been lectured about the rampant problem of teenage sex among African Americans, and how teaching kids about birth control, rather than preaching abstinence-only, just doesn’t work?
In short, how many times would this situation have been used to reinforce criticisms that African Americans endure — about rampant social ills, the collapse of the traditional family unit, a culture that supposedly doesn’t value stability — all the time?
Maybe those criticisms have some merit; but then why aren’t they being leveled as strongly against the Palins?

I hate to admit this, but he’s absolutely right. Because if it were Barack Obama’s daughters who were pregnant at age 17, the conservative press would be having a field day with them. It just seems to me that there is a large double standard, when it comes to Conservative women as opposed to Liberal women in the press in the blogging world and in the media in general.

Another example would be, what if it were Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, and she was 17 years old and turned up pregnant? You can be absolutely sure, that the Conservative media and Bloggers would be having a field day with her.

Steven goes on to write:

This is what I call the persistent, tacit bigotry of double standards. It’s not an overt racism, like job or housing discrimination. It simply plays out in stark differences in the way Americans see things and react to them.
It’s not unrelated to the bizarre celebration of the idea that the Palins are white trash — a term I caught several conservative commentators using endearingly during the Republican convention. It’s meant harmlessly, as a way of saying the Palins share important cultural touchstones and life challenges with an awful lot of other Americans.
But you’d never see or hear such flattering references to a black candidate being “ghetto.”
The substantive difference between white trash and being ghetto is probably negligible, but the perceived difference is huge, and I say that has got almost everything to do with race. Black culture is seen as besotten with damaging, dangerous and undesirable problems, so much so that any association with it can pose a threat to a black candidate. (Remember the flap over the Obamas’ fist bump after one of the big primary wins?)
But set the same problems in the context of a white family, and they can be excused away, or even celebrated as paragons of American culture. Sarah Palin’s daughter and her fiance are being hailed as moral heroes because of the way they’ve handled their situation; black kids would be condemned and held up as a teachable example for just being in that situation in the first place.
Ugly as it is, that’s an indelible part of American culture, and however this campaign ends, I doubt we’ll leave it behind anytime soon.

I’ll tell you, I’ve never much agreed with anything that’s published in the Detroit Free Press, seeing that this is a liberal area around here and all, but Stephen makes a very valid point. Why is it that we as Americans, especially we white Americans, when we see a young black woman pregnant at 17 years old, we want to call her a slut, but when we see a 17 year old white Conservative female get knocked up, we want to give her a free pass?

Furthermore, it just seems very funny to me, that when Hillary Clinton was in this race, there were a lot of people, Conservative and not so conservative, who were telling Hillary Clinton that she needed to get out of the race, that she was nothing more than a distraction, but now that Sarah palin is in the race, Oh, that’s just perfectly fine. It’s because the United States of America has a double standard, a double standard on liberal vs. conservative when it comes to women, a double standard when it comes to teen pregnancy in conservative white women as opposed to liberal black women.

I believe that Sarah Palin should be held to the same exact standards as any other person that’s running in politics. The very idea that Sarah Palin should be treated with kid gloves, because she is a woman is preposterous. Because feminists have fought long and hard for years and years, to get the same exact rights as men, and so if she wants to be in this race she should be treated with the same exact harshness as any other person male or female who decides to enter into the field of politics. Furthermore, Sarah Palin should be subjected to the same open criticism as John McCain and Barack Obama. If they happen to catch Sarah Palin in a lie, like the one she just recently told about selling a jet on e-bay, it should be exposed and she should be criticized just as harshly, as she would be, if she was a man. I am very sorry, but just because Sarah Palin has two breasts and a Vagina does not excuse her from criticism from the mainstream media.

But we all know that in this era of double standards, when it comes to women vs. men, that Sarah palin will be treated with kid gloves by the media and by people in her own party, who will go as far as to excuse some of her actions because she’s a girl.

Of course, I feel personally as a Fundamentalist Christian, that putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, is a classic example of the watering down of true Conservatism in America. Because quite frankly, 50 years ago, a woman on the Republican ticket either for President or Vice President would have been totally unheard of. It is been said that politics is a reflection of society is a whole, and likewise the Republican party is a reflection of Conservative society as a whole, and the reflection of the Evangelical Christian Conservative movement as a whole. I feel, as a former Evangelical turned Fundamentalist Christian, that putting Sarah Palin on this ticket is a reflection of the abject compromise that is overtaken that movement. Furthermore, the putting of a female on the Vice President ticket of the Republican Party, is a clear and open manifestation of Conservative society’s moving away from its strict adherence to Biblical truths. After all the Bible does say:

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (1 Timothy 2:11-14 KJV)
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. (1 Corinthians 11:8-12 KJV)

Now before anyonw bites my head off, and accuses me of being a sexist. Those words up there not my words, those words of the words of the Bible. The same Bible that Sarah Palin claims to believe in, it’s the same Bible that those Evangelical Christians claim to believe in as well. But yet, they totally ignore its words when they support a woman candidate for Vice President. It is truly a sad state of affairs.

Technorati Tags: Christanity, Conservative, Election ’08, Election 2008, John McCain, Libertarian, Libertarian Party, Neo-Conservatives, Opinion, Politics, Religion, Republican, Republicans, Sarah Palin, constitution party

To be fair, I don't buy this one either….

Well, if I’m going to lash one side for being idiotic, I may as well do the other side as well.

This story here is so nutty, that even I don’t even buy it.

The story comes from the Liberal Blog called the LA Progressive, I will resist the temptation to pull a Michelle Malkin here and say, “Well, considering the name, it’s a lie.”

Quote:

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Sorry folks, but I, the free-thinking Libertarian Conservative, don’t even buy this one. Do you really expect me to believe that a Woman of her political clout and stature in Alaska would go into a public restaurant and bellow out something as horribly despicable as this?

I would have to say that one would need a “Out of Order” sign posted at the entrance to one’s brain to believe something as outlandish as this.

Yeah, she might have stretched the truth a little on the Jet, She might have done some other rather idiotic stuff, while Mayor of Alaska. But this one, sorry, I don’t buy it, at all.

Others Blogging:
michellemalkin.com, Comments from Left Field, Little Green Footballs, Mock, Paper, Scissors, The Other McCain, Hot Air, Macsmind, Wake up America, American Spectator and TBogg

Technorati Tags: Conservative, Democrat, Democrats, Election ’08, Election 2008, John McCain, Liberal, Liberals, Libertarian, McCain, Opinion, Politics, Republican, Republicans, Sarah Palin

So much for that jet on Ebay…..

Turns out that Sarah Palin was not exactly honest about that either.

This comes via CNN:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin bolstered her fiscal-conservative credentials early in her term by putting her predecessor’s state jet up for auction online.
“That luxury jet was over the top,” she told Republican National Convention delegates when she accepted the party’s vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. “I put it on eBay.”
Since Palin was chosen as Arizona Sen. John McCain’s running mate last week, the story has become a cornerstone of the Republican effort to paint Palin as a reformer who took on her own party establishment.
“How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn’t it fabulous?” McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. “You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit.”
But it turns out the twin-engine Westwind II was a tough sell on the Web — and the state eventually pulled it offline and sold it through an ordinary brick-and-mortar brokerage, for a loss, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Now I could set here in very easily rip on Sarah Palin for this. However, I am simply gonna say this. If Sarah Palin wants to be the Vice President of United States of America, she’s going to have to be much more more forthcoming in her gubernatorial experience in Alaska. Telling the people the United States of America that you sold a plane on e-bay and then to find out that you did not, is not a good way to endear yourself to the Independents here in America.

Misstating facts is one thing, but outright lying is another. And it’s obvious that Sarah Palin tried to float a little white lie past the media, and failed horribly.

I just wonder if Michelle Malkin and the rest of the herd of Conservative Bloggers will accuse me of being sexist for reporting this little fact? Of course, I don’t expect Michelle Malkin to even report this, seeing she’s taking funding from the Heritage Foundation and from the Neo-Conservative Jewish lobby.

A pretty amazing Sarah Palin story, considering the source….

I was rummaging around in my news feeds this morning, and I happen to see this story pop up.

Here is the quote:

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.
The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin’s legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.
“It’s too bad that the city of Wasilla didn’t do their homework and secure the land before they began construction,” said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. “She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly.”

And where did this come from? The New York Times? The Washington Post? No. It came from none other than the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal!

To be fair, I reported this on this a while back here on my blog. For the record, this story was not originally published on the DailyKos, but rather was originally published in a in Alaska newspaper. So as far as that theory of this all being a great liberal slam against Sarah Palin, that’s a bunch of hooey. It’s a simple fact, you cannot whitewash history nor can you rewrite history, as much as the republicans would like to do that.

Of course, I expect the Republican Bloggers to attempt to whitewash this or try to spin it into something that it’s not or to outright lie about it which is what a lot of them do.

It should be interesting to watch the reaction from the conservative Blogosphere, on this story.

About my previous Sarah Palin entry

An afternoon folks, I’m slow in getting started this afternoon.

I just wanted to post a small entry about my previous blog entry about Sarah Palin.

I did receive some emails over it. Let me be absolutely clear, I am not a Democrat. However, I do believe it is my responsibility as an Independent Conservative Blogger, that I report all information pertinent to Sarah Palin.

I do also realize that some of the information that is being reported is false. However, I believe that the majority of the information that is been reported about her, the ratio of true to false is probably about 8 to 1. I believe in an election season such as this, it is important that we put away partisan blinders and focus on the facts.

The problem with most conservative Bloggers is this, Republican Bloggers would rather focus on her positives and to attempt to ignore the negatives. However, I feel that all information about her should be presented to the American people and let the American people decide who they want to be their President and Vice President. If some of you believe that my presenting of all the facts is overly partisan, then I apologize in advance, for that is not the case here, at all. I simply want to get the truth out about her, I just do not believe into accepting a Vice President sight unseen.

This is what separates me from the Republican Blogger base, because I am not a Republican, but rather a Paleo-Conservative, independent, who doesn’t buy into the neo-conservative political talking points. In other words Rupert Murdoch, nor any other conservative special interest group controls what I write.

And that sets us up for next entry.

Think Palin is the real deal, think again

AN FYI….: (This is via a paper in Alaska.)

—–

From David Hulen in Anchorage —

The e-mail below has been bouncing around the Internet since Sunday. It was written by Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla – stay-at-home mom, letter-to-the-editor writer and longtime watcher of Valley politics. She’s a registered Democrat. She was one of the delegates to the Conference of Alaskans in Fairbanks back in 2004. Her bio from the conference is here.

She e-mailed this letter over the weekend to family and friends Outside, and (despite her request not to post it) it went viral on the Internet very quickly, showing up on blogs and Web sites all over. Since then, Kilkenny has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails. She said she stayed up until 3 a.m. last night answering e-mails, and found nearly 400 new ones waiting when she logged on this morning.

It’s posted here with her permission.

***

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. 🙂

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her ar
ound town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
*”Hockey mom”: true for a few years.

*”PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.

*”NRA supporter”: absolutely true

*social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

*pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

*”Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

*”Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

*political maverick: not at all

*gutsy: absolutely!

*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

*”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.

*pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000”, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

—-

Don’t bet the farm on Palin, you might just lose.

Technorati Tags: Conservative, Election ’08, Election 2008, John McCain, McCain, Opinion, Politics, Republican, Republicans, Sarah Palin

Editorial: What were the Republicans thinking?

I sit here tonight shocked, saddened and a bit angry. I am angry because the Republican Party did something that I feel was utterly abominable. The Republican National Committee actually had the audacity to use 2998 deaths, 6291 injuries for the sole purpose to make a morbid political point. Anyone else of a sane mentality would find this mortifying. However, we are dealing with Republicans. It just seems to me that conservatives, not all mind you, have used these attacks as a rallying cry to patriotism. My friend, that is the same thing that Adolf Hitler did during his tenure in Germany.

I was watching the coverage of the Republican National Committee’s convention on MSNBC, when the supposed tribute to the 9/11 attacks was played. It was not in so much that the attacks were shown, it was how they were presented, it was the announcer saying the words “and we will never allow it to happen again.” That, my friends, really bothered me. Because you see, what basically the Republican Party was trying to infer was that if the American people elected a Democratic party president that it is possible that the September 11 attacks could happen again.

The problem with that whole mentality is this, it was a Republican who was in the White House on September 10^th 2001 and not a Democrat.

A Republican president knew that there was intelligence suggesting that Al-Qaeda planned attacks in the United States of America and did nothing about it, not a Democrat.

Furthermore, it was a Republican president, which he used the September 11 attacks; as a reason to go to war with a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the September 11 attacks and not a Democrat. Further he based that on information that turned out to be outright false.

However, the Neo-Conservative faction of the Republican Party felt the absolute need to take the horrific scars of September 11, 2001 and use it as a political ploy. As much as I know this is going to sound like I am being condescending towards the Republican Party, as far as I am concerned the Republican Party pissed on the graves of those who died on September 11. I say that proudly and without one damned ounce of regret. The Republican Party, as a collective whole, had damned well better be thanking his or her lucky stars that I did not have anyone die on September 11, 2001, because if I did I would be out for blood, so to speak.

This my friends is why I will not be voting Republican come November 4, 2008. No, not because I do not agree with their conservative values, but because I do not wish to be associated with a party, that uses a tragic event such as September 11, 2001 as nothing more than a political prop. I do not wish to be associated to part with a party that treats a death as collateral damage. I do not wish to be associated with a political party that treats our United States Military as a billable part, to a machine called War.

If it sounds like I am angry in this editorial, it is because I am, I am angry as hell that the Republican Party has become the old Democratic Party.

Keith Olbermann, of whom I have the most enduring respect, made a small statement shortly after the tribute was aired. I will share with you the contents of that small statement, let me just go on record as saying that I absolutely agree with his sentiment exactly and if he does not issue a special comment on his show tomorrow, I will be very highly displeased with him.

Keith’s comments are here:

In closing, let me simply say this I may not be a Democrat, nor may I agree with their idea of big government, socialism, nor their promoting of the gay agenda. However, let me be clear, I do not support a party that believes in the fatal conception of perpetual war. Nor do I support a party that believes that the memories of those who died on September 11, 2001 can be used as a campaign wedge issue.

Thank you for reading.

Gloria Steinem says, “you must be kidding”

So much for all that female hope change, nonsense with the Republicans!

It seems that Gloria Steinem is not buying it.

It was an assumption on the part of John McCain, that adding Sarah Palin to the ticket would bring a flock of women voters to his herd. Well, apparently Gloria Steinem didn’t get the memo, Heck, she did not even come to the office meeting!

Gloria Steinem writes:

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

Ouch! So much for all that female unity amongst in the political spectrum! Truthfully, I don’t know how John McCain thought that he could fool the feminists into voting for Sarah Palin, if that in fact was what he wanted to do. It could very well be in fact that John McCain was simply wanting to throw some red meat to his base to garner support for his candidacy. The move was a maverick one, however I don’t believe that any self respecting feminist will vote for Sarah Palin. It just would not make any sense, because feminism and conservatism are, quite frankly, polar opposites.

Of coarse conservatives will interpret this as some sort of attack against Sarah Palin herself, when in fact Gloria Steinem stated that that was nothing personal against her it was just a simple difference in ideologies. It should be very interesting to watch this one play out in the media.

Others: PunditMom, TalkLeft, Salon, Corrente, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Hot Air, Opinion L.A., BlogHer, American Street, TownHall Blog, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Anchor Rising, JammieWearingFool, Argghhh! and culturekitchen

More on Tele-prompter gate

According to a story on politico.com, Sarah Palin did not “Wing it” as it has been reported.

Quoting politico.com:

Perhaps there were moments where it scrolled slightly past her exact point in the speech. But I was sitting in the press section next to the stage, within easy eyeshot of the teleprompter. I frequently looked up at the machine, and there was no serious malfunction. A top convention planner confirms this morning that there were no major problems.
Erickson writes that the same malfunction happened during Rudy Giuliani’s speech earlier in the night. Again, I watched the teleprompter during this speech, and it worked without problem. Giuliani, as is his wont, simply decided to go off-script and add some new lines, such as one attacking Obama for his “bitter” comments.
These extemporaneous comments, many of which drew huge applause, made the former New York mayor’s speech run much longer than planned. So much so that a convention planner confirms that they had to scrap a planned video ahead of Palin’s speech.

Obviously, from what you can see above there is a Pro-Obama bias at politico.com. However, it is interesting to see that she didn’t screw up as bad as some people wanted to believe. I just don’t understand it, why can’t people just accept the fact that a female made a very good speech and made a good impression on the republican base?

It’s obvious that Jonathon Martin has a bug up his rear end towards the republican party as a whole.