NBC says it's Sarah Palin for the GOP VP ticket.
UPDATE: CNBC, which had a reporter and film crew with Palin in Alaska last week, reports that Palin calls her husband "the First Dude." Also, CNBC calls him a "sloper," which in Alaska apparently refers to someone who works on the North Slope.
The brief clip CNBC is showing of Sarah Palin pulling in a fish in a net makes her look very competent at fishing. Is she a woman with the kind of genuine blue collar appeal that Hillary Clinton had to work hard to acquire? I don't know.
2d UPDATE: Vice Presidents often become Presidents, a transition which may be slightly more likely to occur with John McCain's health problems.
It is now quite likely that — one way or another — the US will have either an African American or a female President at some time in the next 9 years. And we might have one and then the other.
3d UPDATE: Maria Bartiromo, whose Monday interview of Palin will run today in the 3-4pm hour on CNBC, pronounces Palin's name as PAL-in, not PAY-lin, [but Wikipedia says the pronunciation is PAY-lin].
4th UPDATE: John McCain pronounces it PAY-lin.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Sarah Who?
- It's Sarah Palin.--
It's obviously a ploy for the women's vote, but I'm just not sure how much that is really in play.
She has more executive experience than the other three combined.
think 2 years as the governor of a state is less than 4 years as a back bench Senator who didn't chair a subcommittee meeting?
Besides, she can learn under McCain rather than have Biden teach Obama
She has more executive experience than the other three combined.
Exactly.
Her greatest accomplishment so far is running a state. Obama's greatest accomplishment so far is running a successful campaign.
Also, don't forget that this line of argument runs into...a ton of GOP speeches concerning Howard Dean's experience.
Palin fills in all the missing pieces. Just the chance for social conservatives to actual vote *for* someone may be enough to get a much larger turnout on election day.
The idea of Sarah Palin for President in 2016 makes me feel like Chris Matthews talking about Obama.
My favorite had been Bobby Jindal, who only met 1 of the 3 (being a guy, after all). Sarah Palin is also only a 1 out of 3, being neither middle-aged nor a guy.
Palin excites the Republican base and I suspect will excite Independent women. As for the experience factor, if that is now the Democratic talking point, perhaps Joe Biden and Barack Obama should swap places on THEIR ticket.
Being Alaskan, I also assume she has 37 words for "snow". That's good enough for me.
I will still be voting for Bob Barr, but as an interested observer this certainly changes the dynamic of the campaign. It also sets her up as a successor in a way that the choice of Biden does not, especially if McCain couldn't serve out his complete term.
I will love to watch a debate between Palin and the windbag Biden. She will eat him alive.
If the voters are supposed to assume that whoever gets elected will die in office, I guess it does end the argument.
I would also note that Fox News briefly interviewed Geraldine Ferraro, whom nobody is going to accuse of being a Republican shill. Ferraro is mad at her party, REAL mad, and it came through in the interview.
Pop was a school teacher who used to get up and hunt moose at 3AM before going off to teach. Husband is a blue collar Eskimo snowmobiler. "eat a mooseburger?"
I bet she knows how to hunt moose, string one up, dress it out, freeze it, grind it, make the patties, cook it 40 ways and eat a moose burger
Not only will this help McCain with female voters but his share up the male demographic 18-55 just went up by another ten points. ;)
[seriously though, the best possible pick IMHO.]
She hits just about every electoral bumper. The only problem is that she's not particularly charismatic as a talking head. We'll see, though.
Did anyone else see the LATimesblog entry that was hastily plagiarized this morning from another blog, talking about how she's "under a probe" and therefore not the nominee? Talk about desperation.
You mean because McCain’s running mate has more executive experience and actual accomplishments to her name than Obama and Biden put together?
Nope, not at all.
You mean because McCain’s running mate has more executive experience and actual accomplishments to her name than Obama and Biden put together?
Nope, not at all.
Well, she is in charge of fewer people than Obama, over a much smaller area, if that's what you mean.
A private jet landed at a small airport outside of Dayton earlier today. Fox managed to find out the jet had flown there from Anchorage, by way of Seattle for a fuel stop.
It also reported that ANOTHER plane had landed at the same airport a few hours ago having flown in from Scottsdale, Arizona. Both planes were met by vans that whisked off the passengers.
The airport manager reported that one of the passengers looked kind of like Palin, but could not say for sure.
Say what you want about Fox News (I know the Democratic talking points, please don't repeat them), but this was good reporting on their part to put together the pieces of the puzzle ahead of everyone else.
How many people IS Barack Obama "in charge of"? According to the 2000 census, Alaska has a population of approximately 670,000 people. Please supply the numbers of people Obama is "in charge of?" so we can compare.
That's twice the size of the city I live in. But don't forget her executive experience as that mayor of a town of 5000 people.
Palin has argued that creationism should be taught in Alaska public schools. So yeah, she's one of those. She is, in part, a sop to the Huckabee/Dobson wing of the base -- and maybe that will work, although I doubt that will be enough to win the election.
Beyond that, I guess McCain (i) really does hate Romney, and (ii) was never really serious about a moderate like Lieberman or Ridge. Maybe the idea was to try to peel off Hillary voters, but I doubt that will work. See her positions on choice in abortion and, well, pretty much anything else. The reason the hard-right commenters here like her politics are the reason that she will fail to win any significant number of female Hillary supporters who were on the fence about Obama.
So yes, this contradicts the experience-based argument McCain was actually making.
Fixed for you
Are you seriously arguing that Gov. Palin is "in Charge" of all the citizens of Alaska? The better number to find is the number of state employees that she oversees.
It was McCain, not Obama, who was relying on the experience argument.
Uh, you are aware that Alaska in area 2x the size of Texas and makes up around 1/6 of the entire United States, correct?
alaska area facts
Now population is an entirely different matter.
Another poster made the claim that Obama is "in charge of" more people than Palin. I asked for a number. There has been a deafening response, other than to argue: 1) Well, we should only count people that directly work for state government never mind those pesky budget things governors do and 2)dismiss her stint as Mayor of a smaller community because the town has only 5000 people.
Lets talk about their darling boy with a grand total of "147 days in the U.S. Senate?" having enough experience huh?
Give it up.
In fact, I think this whole idea of 'experience' is the downfall of american government anyway. It plays into the whole idea of life long politicians which is NOT WHAT our founding fathers had in mind. The government has stopped being run by citizens and has turned into an elite class. Term limits are desperately needed.
Lets watch the press squirm and see just how long their noses grow.
But that was McCain's favorite word.
That's not true at all. There's nothing inconsistent about running as an outsider, and for change, and choosing an established person to carry water for you and to be prepared "in case."
That's the thing about the VP. They are not one-half of the team. They are an insurance policy. That's why Palin's choice is so fundamentally different from Biden's choice.
Please tell us why Obama picked Biden?
Her personal bio is good but her political bio is slim.
Way, way too early to make any sort of judgment. Either good or bad.
I follow politics pretty closely and have never heard her speak, for instance. Gotta see how she does in action.
I do see that 2008 is the "Year of the States With Three Electoral Votes".
Monegan claims that Palin fired him because he refused to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, who is a State Trooper. Palin denies this and welcomed the investigation. Now maybe there is smoke, maybe Monegan was pressured, but my experience is that when people welcome investigations with open arms they are pretty confident that there is no "there" there.
Not only the "Year of the States With Three Electoral Votes" but "Three Electoral Votes That Were Never in Play."
You could not get a worse choice than Dan Quayle. Who won that year?
We're talking about a state that receives so much in oil revenue that they can just cut everyone in the state a check every year. Of course, this becomes easier when your entire state contains fewer people than Columbus or Detroit, but it's different from dealing with real budget problems.
There's proof that one of her staffers called and pressed for the brother-in-law to be fired. There's even a tape of the call on the state website. It was placed by Frank Bailey, the director of boards and commissions.
An exerpt:
"The Palins can't figure out why nothing's going on," Bailey said in the recorded phone call. "So Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads saying 'Why is this guy representing the department, he's a horrible recruiting tool.' You know? So from their perspective everybody's protecting him. . . Audi probably disagrees with me, Walt [Monegan] does and I understand it's really touchy, but I just want you to understand that cops that use excessive force or go out of the lines, they just have no tolerance, because they've seen the facts personally."
Bailey claims to have been acting on his own, and just name-dropping.
Alaska has budget problems (though somewhat unique). Your dismissive attitude demonstrates your hackery--but given your nom-de-plume, that is to be expected.
No-- he comes across bland
Or not. He grew up there, but various Romney's have lost elections there
Or switched to that tack when he entered the primaries; he sems to have changed his positions from expediency, whcih would have come out in the campaign.
Puhleeeze. You probably know as few "blue collars" as Romney. Your use of that term shows your disdain. And do you think socieal conservatives care only about a candidate's latest rhetoric?
Isn't there something to be said for a candidate naming a vice-presidential candidate, and having a vice president, with whom he can work?
Romney appears so Stepford. At worst, completely insincere and expedient, and at best someone who simply doesn't understand or care about the vast majority of the electorate. He exudes patrician, uncaring richness. "Blue collars," as you call them, don't necessarily want to vote for someone who reminds them of the guy who fired them.
Alaska has budget problems (though somewhat unique). Your dismissive attitude demonstrates your hackery--but given your nom-de-plume, that is to be expected.
Good to see we're not above a bit of personal epithet and rudeness, eh?
I think you have a different definition of "hackery" than I do. "Unique" budget problem(s) that amount to deciding whether to raid the Prudhoe Bay tax fund to make up for a $1/2mill deficit on a state budget that is less than half of San Francisco's (750K residents vs. AK's 650K) do not refute OB08's point.
Frankly I'd say that the "number of people they've been in charge of" is a red herring and not really worth pursuing. Would you? What exactly is the point of comparing, because to me it just seems like something that Obama can be criticized for, but not anything particularly significant. In other words, is that the best you've got?
Here's a question out of the blue, though: Between Obama and McCain, which do you think is more likely to die before the end of their second term? Not that it's likely, but possible and is a thought experiment that has a lot more to do with the VP picks than the "number of people" line.
Hmmm? Out of touch with average income folks? In mid-April, 2008, when an avalanche damaged the hydro power lines that supply affordable power to the majority of Juneau’s population, she demonstrated how she reacts to an emergency situation.
In my opinion, a situation like this avalanche should have immediately warranted serious consideration of declaring it a disaster. It was cold and daylight was still short.
Fixed income residents needed relief because the job market was depressed, and the pay scales low. They were informed their energy costs would rise by nearly 500% for nearly three months. Here is how Governor Sarah Palin reacted when the city of Juneau, the State Capitol, faced that crisis in April of this year.
By the way, my son and his wife lived in Juneau at the time, and called to confirm that they had just been told that in order to support the emergency generators, their power bills would rise almost 500% for three months, and they were trying to figure out how they would pay the exorbitant bills given fixed income.
This actually made them question the wisdom of having moved to Juneau. Here is a question for you: Would you easily be able to sustain such an increase, perhaps to as much as $1,000 per month or more?’
Yielding to pressure, Governor Sarah Palin eventually did propose a form of relief, but this is a direct quote from the Juneau Empire, the local Juneau newspaper, about the reaction of Governor Sarah Palin at the height of resident’s concerns:
JUNEAU EMPIRE—-
“Here in Juneau, there's still some unfinished business with Palin and her reluctance - her refusal, actually - to make a declaration of disaster following the avalanches that toppled power-transmission towers at the Snettisham hydroelectric plant last month.
The governor has once declined to declare this financial crisis a "disaster," and she appears equally unwilling to do so as Juneau's legislative delegation has asked her to do based on two other state bailouts in the past decade.
And if the energy crunch weren't enough, Palin suggested on Thursday that a special legislative session set to begin in two weeks might best be held outside of Juneau lest the capital somehow be burdened by having legislators in town.
If anything, now's the perfect time for us to have the Legislature in town for two reasons: Our business community can use every bit of stimulation it can muster, and having lawmakers in town gives another chance to demonstrate to one and all how well we're coping with these dire circumstances not of our making.
While we're at it, we'd also like to appeal to the governor to take time from the special session to tour the Snettisham site and spend some one-on-one time with officials from Alaska Electric Light &Power Co. and city officials who can, perhaps, help her better understand this isn't any small or temporary hardship.
In the meantime, we'll await the outcome of our legislators' request for the governor to revisit her "no disaster" call.”
"Rugged individualism" is not precluded by relying on the government to handle affairs which necessarily remain in the governmental or common sphere.
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=5055328
NB: It's fairly common to remove the belly button during a tummy-tuck.
No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
A Menckenesque choice. Would that the master were living at this hour!
As for things like her religious views, she is a longtime member of the Assemblies of God, a pentacostal evangelist denomination. However, she seems to know how to avoid the common disagreeable practice of that faith of wearing one's religion on one's sleeve and expecting everyone around to "witness".
On the attempted firing of her former brother-in-law, the word I get from those close to the situation is that the guy is a thug who abused his authority often, not just with Palin's sister. If that is accurate, then she was right to try to get him fired, and to fire his supervisor for failing to exercise proper supervision of his troopers.
The test will come in debate if the debate questions aren't something for which the debater can have been prepared by their handlers. I predict that both Obama and Palin will do well in that situation, and Biden and McCain much less well.
Now if we can just get the Libertarians included in the debate. I would love to see McCain and Obama try to debate Barr, or Plain and Biden debate Root. In the latter case it would be Palin and Root against Biden, both of whom are much more effective in fast-breaking speaking situations.
"She has 5 children, so she knows how to get pregnant."
A sexist, derisive comment. Don't know your political persuasion, but since Palin being picked, I've have heard similar comments from folks I *know* are Democrats.