let me get this straight Obama is not ready to be president

but Palin is ready to be 1 heart beat away from being President?

he is 72!!! she was governor for 18 months, but she HAS the experience really?

Can you spell P-A-N-D-E-R?

I'll be honest - I'm a huge fan of Governor Palin.  I think this is a great pick by McCain, and I think this is going to be an interesting fall.  I may not agree with Governor Palin on a lot of policy type areas, but I respect a politician who is principled and "real".

Damn, that's a buzkiller.

This is huge historic and really something. First Republican woman to get so far.

McCain must read my posts.  This was the only pick that I was afraid of.  Palin is an extremely attractive candidate to a lot of different constituencies.  She's a good mom with strong conservative cred.

That said, she's still pro-life, and Geraldine Ferraro proved to us that women don't always vote for the ticket with the most ovaries.  Further, a lot of base conservatives value experience over everything, and Palin has very little of that; for all they know, McCain will keel over the day after he takes office and leave the country in the hands of (+gasp+) a woman.

It's a gutsy pick, and as I said, it's the only one I was afraid of.

Dammit.

Diary up at kos

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8 /29/10444/6137/286/578405

What's McCain's new line of attack?

To Obama: You've got too much experience to be President!

So, any Hillary supporters with their take?  Are we dead in the water now?  That's my gut feeling right now...

and then of course this...

http://www.ktva.com/ci_10026165

Total panic pick.  Undermines McCain's negatives and undermines his best arguments.  Not to mention that she immediately overshadows McCain on the ticket personality-wise, which is one of the first rules against a VP.

McCain got knocked for a loop last night.

Minuses...

It's clearly a blunting of the 'historic' Obama campaign.

It's a naked pander to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters still not ready to get onboard the Obama campaign.

She's clearly a Washington outsider.

Despite the state police issue, she does have some anti-corruption cred.

Pluses...
The 'experience' card is no longer operative for McCain.

The naked pander only works if identity politics trump policy.

She's not well-known - and she will become well-known... that can go well or go badly.

She's not tested in a tough campaign - I can't imagine, in deep-red Alaska - she's had to deal with tough questions and grueling campaign.  She might be fine... She might be an epic, Quaylian disaster.

She's extraordinarily conservative - policy-wise, she's a winger, just without the Abramhoffian connections.

This means if and when Tubes has to withdraw -- Palin is no longer available to try to save that senate seat.

...all in all?

This probably helps in the short-term - but that's gonna fade - this is a pick that may look OK, or even good for a week... then I think it's gonna fade.

This is a news cycle pick -- little more.

As GHW Bush remarked to Ronald Reagan: "It's Quayle!"

Democrats may laugh at this pick as they did with Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle. But statistical research shows that Republican women are very strong candidates against Democratic men candidates. Most women who become a head of state in major industrial countries come from a conservative party. This pick presents problems for Democrats also in the future. Sarah Palin becomes the most likely first women president. If McCain wins and decides not to run in 2012, the Republicans will control the White House through 2020.

However, Sarah Palin may face bigger scrutiny on power of abuse charges that have been leveled against her. This potentially could make her the next Geraldine Ferraro.

Well, at long last, the McCain campaign has to abandon the "Is he ready to lead?" meme.  How could they keep that up without being ridiculed to high heaven?  If anything, it tells us that the McCain camp thought that our convention was a success in painting Obama as being primed and ready.  How else to explain this?

her bio is scary appealing. this is going to be a factor in the election in a way that Biden will not.

inexperience will have to be re-written for the GOP convention.   They can hardly run those speeches over and over again, so what do they talk about now?  

Well at least McCain nailed down the Alaskan 3 electoral votes!

We will now get to examine the issue of the degree to which HRC's candidacy was about everywoman or was about one whom many thought was superbly qualified. Is it 'any' woman or is it a woman with the same or better qualifications than the men she is running against. Palin is, to put it bluntly, not rolling in qualifications. Frankly, Palin is attempting to profit from the shattering of a ceiling she did nothing to shatter. But that happens in change.

Palin however will now get grilled in the press and the vetting she has never had. I hope those who would love a female VP  will take all that with the cool beverage of their choice, since Palin does not have the historical and structural strengths of Hillary and it will get very ugly.

The one good thing is that the ceiling just took another hit if the ugly fascist McCain found himself forced to do this.

Gotta say I agree with somebody on Kos. Given what we know about McCain, Cindy better watch him like a hawk.

I am going with some special popcorn for the

Biden/Palin debate...
maybe something along the lines of
http://www.crownjewelgourmet.com/

I totally expect Hillary to come out and call this for what it is.  

Chuck Todd "They really wanted to pick a woman, and there were no obvious choices."

There were no GOOD choices either.  What a pander.  This move will appeal to the media much more than than voters.

I agree - in a single cycle, on paper - this is probably the strongest possible McCain pick.

But let's remember that the election isn't tomorrow - or next week.

What do we know about Palin?

Not a whole lot... neither does the media... She's from a deep red state with about half a million residents.  Do you think she's had anything even approaching national media scrutiny?  Has she ever gotten tough questions?  Had she ever had to debate questions that the more divided nation asks?

Perhaps those scandals aren't a big deal - who knows... but this could be a Quaylian disaster - we just don't know.

We also know that McCain's best line of attack against Obama:  experience, ready to lead -- Gone.  Neutralized.  

What does team McCain have left?

Forget identity politics -- this has now become an election to be waged strictly on ideological and policy grounds...

Do you want the classic GOP/conservative brand -- or the Democratic/progressive brand this cycle?

what this does is take the Experience thing OFF the table and forces the media to go hey what about experience you are 72 TODAY! can you choose someone iwth only 18 months experience?

god I am actually excited for this campaign it will be close.

I think that this is a capitulation pick.   Maybe they hope they can retain a Senate and House seat in the process.  But seriously, this takes away one of their best Obama points - "inexperience" - with an old geezer like McCain on the ticket, Palin is truly a heartbeat away and has little statewide let alone federal government experience.   They know that they are toast, and are trying to make the best of it.   Oh yes, perhaps they thought they could hunt some pumas along the way with this pick, but sadly for McLame and the Thugs the puma is a very endangered species now.

First off... THIS IS NOT LIKE QUAYLE!!!!!!!!!

Quayle was said to be inexperienced, but he was a congressman for about 10 years.

Palin was mayor of a tinyass town, ran for governor when there was a huge scandal, and made it in. It speaks volumes about how complex Alaskan politics are.

I think people are going to love her.

Larry Kudlow of CNBC's "Kudlow & Co." asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain ticket mate.
Palin replied: "[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that V.P .slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question."

Politico found it, this is what Palin thought of the Veep job just a month ago.

I hate to admit this but I think this is a great choice.  If you know that Biden is ruthless as a debater, why not pick somebody that he can't be "mean" to? Not to mention that she may get some female votes although I doubt that.

she's under investigation?

this is good news for us. they essentially shot themselves in the foot on two fronts. the experience front and the trustworhy/moral front.

bad pick.

you're going down McCain.

A lot of new posters, with no histories to speak of, all saying very nice things about Palin this morning.

Is this the attack of the McSame bloggers? Not that any of them are being rude. Quite the contrary, which is the smart way of doing things.

Heh.

This is great news!

How do you attack her?  Easy: you don't.  Concentrate all your fire on McCain.  Congratulate her on being the second female candidate for Vice President of a major party OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.

Tell the press you think it's a great choice, and what an honor it's going to be to run against the second woman candidate ever.  What a historic race this is going to be.

Preface every single thing you say about her with how historic her candidacy is - the same way you "honor McCain's service".  Do it until everyone is just sick of it and the fact that it's a pander is just acknowledged by everybody.

Whadya think?  Am I onto anything?

McCain's pick is suspect.  Is she really Presidential?     But McCain did a good job of managing the news cycle around Obama's speech.

McCain at least kept his name in the news yesterday, on a day when Obama was the focus, and managed to make the press pay attnetion to Pawlenty and Romney, etc., and by 11:10 this morning had managed to make his pick the story, and supplant Obama's image on the front pages of the major news websites with his own.

So while McCain is still a defective candidate, and Palin appears to be a defective pick, the Republicans are showing they still know how to play the game.

I can't believe people are actually worried about this.  Obvious pandering from McCain.  My mother, who like me was a Hillary supporter in the primaries, called me to LAUGH about this pick, saying Cindy better watch out, and how it's pretty sad that the Republican equivalent of Hillary is really nothing more than a small town mayor.  My co-worker, who has been for Obama since day one, was laughing at the Vogue pictures.

Biden is going to eat her alive in the debate.

The ADN has nothing about the pick on their web site at this hour!

NADA!

I know they're 6 hours behind us on the West Coast, but their governor just got picked for VP!!

Unbelievable!

Sometimes thinking outside the box is just a sign of being unable to think properly within a very reasonable box.

Sometimes it's just panderng.

Sometimes it indicates that one is nuts.

Wow.  Didn't think he'd make this mistake.  It utterly kills his "Obama has no experience" thing.  Furthermore, for every woman it picks up in voting (and it will) it loses equally as many men.

MSNBC has proven why I dont like to watch them. they asked Burton something like, you're training Biden for the VP debates. how do you train him against a woman?

What happened to Chuck Todd? I used to think he was good. But holy shit?
He basically said that her ethics problem is not one because she only used her office to go after a guy who was beating his wife. And everyone's ok with an abuse of power then, right?

And apparently its ok to say that Joe Biden is going to have a hard time going after Palin in a debate because she is a woman?

That John McCain -- so thoughtful!  It's not even my birthday, and he gives me SUCH a nice present.

Good lord, is the man nuts?  I mean, don't get me wrong.  I'm happy about the choice.  She's got practically NO experience, AND she's under investigation for abuse of power.  In other words, she's Cheney.  Just younger and prettier.

Debbie Wasserman-Schulz just got off a good line: I know Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton.

WOW. That was unexpected. My father just called me about the Palin pick and said, I quote, "He's lost his damn mind!!"

This is a father who (despite my best efforts) still listens to Hannity & Colmes, still watches O'Reilly, still goes to Drudge Report.

I'm shocked, but actually optimistic about politics in general if this is the way most people see it.

Do you really want the first woman VP to be a former beauty queen that got the job solely because she was a woman? Or do you want someone that earned it?

I'm honestly shocked and not because I am partisan. I never in a million years thought she would leave a six-month old Down's Syndrome at home so she can go on the road and campaign. And yes, I would say the same thing if it was a man.

Of course any woman that get's a job got it because of her sex . . . not because she earned it . . . piece of work.

alaska's government is rife with corruption and her husband works for an oil company. I am very dissappointed in the so called progressive bloggers here singing all this praise for this pick.  in fact i can't believe that these are people who belong here. and as for those familiar names jumping at the chance to vote for any woman, regardless of her character, policies, or experience you should be ashamed of yourself.

PanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPand erPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPa nderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPander PanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPand erPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPa nderPanderPanderPanderPanderPander

That's how you label it.

PanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPand erPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPa nderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPander PanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPand erPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPanderPa nderPanderPanderPanderPanderPander

John McCain and the GOP did exactly as I anticipated they would.  In choosing Ms. Palin, they have accomplished several goals:

1) By the sheer interest in this seemingly more maverick Republican, and rising figure in Alaskan politics, they are underscoring the fact that they are better prepared to take a woman to the nation's highest office than has been the DNC.  

Not only did Ms. Pelosi, Caroline Kennedy and company spend the better part of a year worhshipping at the altar of Senator Obama, while allowing his less seasoned minions to trash both Hillary and Bill Clinton, at the expense of some eighteen million voters, but they at the same time they trashed the seriousness of a woman in the nation's highest office.

2) Also by the sheer interest in Ms. Palin, whatever the effectiveness of the Obama speech quickly dwindles into memory.  The Obama Convention bounce will be limited indeed.

3) Ms. Palin's lack of experience underscores Obama's lack of experience.  The GOP Veep candidate is inexperienced but the GOP Presidential candidate is not.  Whereas with this year's Democratic choices, it is the other way around.  At least Ms. Palin is willing to do her apprenticeship as a Vice-president, whereas Mr. Obama felt that a few years in the Senate more than qualified him to rule this nation and influence the world.

4) Yes, Bill and Hillary are loyal Democrats, and both punctuated brilliantly "No way" to a McCain administration.  Sadly, however, many among the eighteen million who dreamed of their return to the White House have vivid memories of both Bill and Hillary's mistreatment by the Obama minions, the DNC and of course the national press.  It took those three powerful groups in consort to deny Hillary the nomination.  

This was true even when, after winning decisively in Ohio, she, and not Barack Obama, was winning the lion's share of key battleground state primaries.  Super-delegates "shut down the process," when neither candidate would have had enough delegates to be chosen.  Shutting down the process is what the GOP Supreme Court did in 2000.  Many a Hillary supporter justifiably cannot ever forget their candidate's savage treatment at the hands of the DNC, the national press, and team Obama.

5) If one is a long disenfranchised and long trashed Hillary supporter, what, really, are the options?  One knows that George Walker Bush has been the most disastrous President in modern memory.  One also knows that the former "maverick" John McCain had long ago become his errand boy, particularly regarding the monstrous Iraq military incursion.  And one also knows that the GOP in power once again will further undermine the brilliant gains of the Clinton years.

But, on the other hand, as a member of the Clinton rank and file--the very heart of the Democratic Party, one also has to be suspect about the goals of team Obama.  They spent many a month labeling the "first black President" as a racist, and they expended long days and nights trashing the glory of the Clinton years, and they spent just as much time arguing for the legacy of the Reagan years and how antiquated the Clinton forces are supposed to be.

Thus, would a President Obama be the thoroughly anti-Clinton spokesperson of the primaries, or the suddenly praising Clinton candidate of his acceptance speech?  For many of those Clinton supporters--eighteen million strong--those thoughts continue.

As I have often repeated among the blogs, Bill and Hillary will likely remain for many decades to come the greatest President and First Lady since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevrlt.  

I moreover believe that America is now in irreparable decline, and the Clinton years will be regarded as the last Golden Age.

Reading these threads it looks like McCain just put a nail in his coffin by picking this VP.
Really? do you guys think so?

He picked a successfull woman without any major issues, it makes McCain-Palin look younger and, yes, sexier than Obama-Biden.

I think this pick just shows how unready john Mccain is to lead this country - he chooses someone who's going to hinder his campaign, and has a corruption scandal brewing - if he uses this kind of judgement in choosing a veep what's it going to be like when he has to make judgements for the nation?

I think this was a good thing for the Obama camp, and am glad that Obama actually made a choice that will increase his stamina in the upcoming race for the whitehouse...