Palin? Really?

Expect plenty of disagreement. Just keep it civil.
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Rspaight
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Postby Rspaight » Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:26 pm

If the debate goes even remotely like this, all Biden will have to do is show up and make sure his pants don't fall down on stage.

Couric: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Palin: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby lukpac » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:06 pm

"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby David R. Modny » Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:12 pm

It'll be interesting to see how much the modified debate format that the 'Pubs demanded will benefit her. The one concession that we received was that it will be a standing debate vs. a sitting one (sounds like we got the short end of the bargaining stick there...lol). Though, I'm glad we at least got that one. That'll turn the heat up a *bit* on her.

Obviously, anything where she has to go more than 30 seconds or engage in any kind of back and forth dialogue is going to be trouble for her. Conversely, within a shortened format, if she manages to just get the talking points out -- half coherently -- she may get points with *some* for simply "holding her ground."

I think avoiding repetition (and rambling) is going to be her biggest battle. That's where she'll have to prove her ability to think on her toes. That, and having some rudimentary knowledge of world affairs and the ability to express it. It'll be interesting to see just how much slack -- if any -- she's cut by the viewers. My guess is that she's going to try and use humor, sarcasm and "passion" as a way of masking any factual content. Folksy, "heartfelt" stories.

Which also begs the further question: Where the heck was she hiding after last night's debate? Why was she sequestered?

(That's a rhetorical question)

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Postby Rspaight » Sun Sep 28, 2008 1:16 am

There's always going to be those who will say the salt-of-the-earth, unpretentious Palin "held her own" against the elitist Biden, who kept badgering her to talk about irrelevant arcana instead of dispensing good ol' common sense about what the country needs.

The question is how applicable that narrative will be to the actual event. The smart strategy IMO is for Biden to hang back, answer the questions, and give Palin plenty of rope. A Bentsen-style "you're no Jack Kennedy" approach won't work here. If he's aggressive is pointing out Palin's shortcomings, then he'll give her an opening for the sort of "don't condescend to me" moment that Ferraro used effectively against Bush Sr. in the '84 VP debate. The trick will be to get her to exhibit those shortcomings while being a mere bystander.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Rspaight » Sun Sep 28, 2008 1:25 am

Meanwhile, here's the October Surprise. I weep for our country.

McCain camp prays for Palin wedding
The marriage of the vice-presidential candidate’s pregnant teenage daughter could lift a flagging campaign
Sarah Baxter in Washington

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

There is already some urgency to the wedding as Bristol, who is six months pregnant, may not want to walk down the aisle too close to her date of delivery. She turns 18 on October 18, a respectable age for a bride — and the same age as Barack Obama’s pregnant mother when she married his Kenyan father. The Democrat has already declared Bristol’s private life off-limits as far as his campaign is concerned.

The selection of Palin, 44, the moose-hunting governor of Alaska, as his running mate was one of McCain’s biggest gambles. It paid off handsomely at first, but she could benefit from a fresh injection of homespun authenticity, the hallmark of her style, provided by her daughter’s wedding after appearing out of depth away from her home state.

David Letterman, the late-night television chat show host, joked that Palin’s meetings with world leaders at the United Nations in New York looked like “take your daughter to work day”.

In a series of heavily criticised interviews with Katie Couric of CBS News, she fumbled her points about Alaska’s proximity to Russia and sounded like an over-crammed, under-informed student. Palin was stumped when Couric asked her to provide examples of McCain’s proposals for reforming the banking industry. “I’ll try to find some and I’ll bring them to you,” she said eventually. Republicans are quailing in advance of one of her biggest tests of the election, her televised debate with Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, on Thursday in St Louis, Missouri.

The conservative commentator Kathleen Parker, an early admirer, shocked McCain supporters late last week by calling on Palin to withdraw. “My cringe reflex is exhausted,” she wrote in National Review Online, a conservative journal. “Palin’s recent interviews . . . all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out of Her League.”

Parker advised Palin to “save McCain, her party and the country she loves” by announcing that she wanted to spend more time with Trig, her five-month-old Down’s syndrome baby: “No one would criticise a mother who puts her family first.”

The Republicans’ Palin “bounce” ended last week as concern for the plunging economy mounted. Obama ended the week four points ahead of McCain on 48% to 44% in the RealClearPolitics poll of polls. A Rasmussen survey showed that McCain’s lead among white women voters slipped to two points, as opposed to 14 points for George W Bush in 2004.

However, Palin has a remarkable ability to galvanise the evangelical voters and social conservatives who form the Republican base. The party boasted last week that it will probably surpass its fundraising goal of $100m for September and October. Much of it is because of the grassroots enthusiasm for Palin, boosted by her decision to have Trig and to support her pregnant daughter.

McCain is expected to have a front-row seat at Bristol’s wedding and to benefit from the outpouring of goodwill that it could bring. “What’s the downside?” a source inside the McCain campaign said. “It would be wonderful. I don’t know that there has ever been a pre-election wedding before.”

When McCain picked Palin as his running mate, Bristol’s pregnancy was regarded as a potential liability with voters. The idea was to keep her condition quiet initially. However, rumours quickly surfaced that Trig was Bristol’s son. News that Bristol was pregnant, making it a near-biological impossibility for her to be Trig’s mother, had to be rushed out.

Johnston was greeted with a handshake and friendly slap on the back by McCain in St Paul, Minnesota, and treated as a member of the family during the Republican national convention when he appeared on stage after Palin’s speech.

The ice-hockey player wrote on his MySpace page he was a “f****** redneck” and stated, “I don’t want kids.” But a McCain insider predicted he would marry Bristol whenever his future mother-in-law wanted. “It’s a shotgun wedding. She kills things,” the source joked.

The McCain campaign is divided over how to handle Palin’s appearances, which have been so limited and over-rehearsed that last week Campbell Brown, a CNN anchor, accused it of sexism. “Stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower who will wilt at any moment,” she said. “If she were a man, would we be putting up with this? . . . Would she be coddled this way, cloistered this way? I don’t think so.”

Inside McCain’s camp, aides are arguing over the benefits of “letting Sarah be Sarah”. Some officials believe her appeal to voters is such that it would be worth risking a few gaffes in exchange for letting her personality shine through.

The question will assume particular importance when she faces Biden, 65, in debate. The chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee has already come up with a multitude of gaffes, from asking a wheelchair-bound man to stand up at one of his rallies to admitting that Hillary Clinton “might have been a better pick” for vice-president, without any seeming ill-effect.

McCain officials believe that Palin’s underdog status gives her a chance to shine. “Joe Biden is going to have to destroy her for it to be perceived as a victory for him,” said an aide.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby David R. Modny » Sun Sep 28, 2008 1:38 am

Camp McCain sez:

"The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”


My Barq's just shot out of my nose.

People might be reality show nutty at times. But, c'mon now...


I can see it now:
"Wedding of the Decade!"

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Postby lukpac » Sun Sep 28, 2008 9:33 am

Last edited by lukpac on Sun Sep 28, 2008 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Rspaight » Sun Sep 28, 2008 10:30 am

Including that bailout answer almost verbatim was a nice touch.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Bennett Cerf » Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:43 am

Rspaight wrote:Meanwhile, here's the October Surprise. I weep for our country.

McCain camp prays for Palin wedding


I told my wife about this story, and she speculated that McCain would get ordained and perform the ceremony himself.

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Postby David R. Modny » Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:22 pm

Or...Justices Scalia and Roberts in unison .

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Postby Beatlesfan03 » Sun Sep 28, 2008 6:25 pm

“What’s the downside?” a source inside the McCain campaign said. “It would be wonderful. I don’t know that there has ever been a pre-election wedding before.”


What's the upside of it? I didn't realize the Republicans switched the ticket to Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston.

Warm and fuzzy public interest story? Maybe. The injection that McCain needs to bring his numbers up? I sincerely doubt that.
Craig

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Postby Bennett Cerf » Sun Sep 28, 2008 10:35 pm

McCain could use this to demonstrate a real contrast between himself and President Bush: When Jenna Bush got married a few months back, it was in a dignified private ceremony.

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Postby Beatlesfan03 » Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:22 pm

Whereas the Palin affair would be a media circus with Ryan Seacrest hosting.
Craig

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Postby Rspaight » Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:56 am

This event will be a failure unless they skin a moose as part of the vows.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Rspaight » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:34 am

I'm getting a bit sick of the current "I feel sorry for Palin" meme. The hell with that.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney