We Have A Winner
In the 2008 “Which candidate looks more like America” contest, it’s Palin!
Boston Herald and a roundup:
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s bombshell revelation that her teenage daughter is pregnant lit up the presidential campaign trail yesterday, but officials of both parties say the issue is too sensitive to touch - and urged the press to leave the girl alone.
Immediately recognizing what a disaster this is for his campaign, Obama moves quickly.
Barack Obama immediately declared the issue “off limits” for his campaign, noting his own mother was a teenager when he was born.
“You know my mother had me when she was 18,” said the Democratic nominee. “And how a family deals with issues and teenage children - that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off-limits.”
Politico: New Palin details may help, not hurt.
Fishing permit violations. A blue-collar husband who racked up a DUI citation as a 22-year-old. An unmarried teenage daughter who is pregnant and a nasty child custody battle involving a family member.
All of this, to one degree or another, has surfaced in recent days as a result of efforts to discredit or undermine Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But these revelations may have the opposite effect: In one sense, they could reinforce how remarkably unremarkable she is.
Dickerson at Slate: Pregnancy off-limits but …
Sarah Palin sure is an exciting candidate—to you, to me and maybe even to John McCain. Monday we learned that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. The news probably won’t change the political landscape—especially since Barack Obama declared it out of bounds — but the pregnancy is a fitting metaphor for the gestating and growing surprises associated with the Palin candidacy.
Each new fact we learn about Sarah Palin—her reversal on the bridge to nowhere, her disagreements with McCain on issues from windfall profits to global warming, emerging facts about troopergate — contribute to the feeling that this whole Palin thing is being made up as we go along. It may be fun to read about, and it sure is fun to cover, but it also supports the judgment of the Palin pick that I first heard from a Republican veteran shortly after the announcement: “Reckless.”
Thornburgh, Newsweek:
So his name is Levi.
That’s about the only thing that I didn’t know about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. The rest of the details I picked up almost without trying, while talking about other things with townsfolk — some who know the governor and her family well, some who don’t. It was, more or less, an open secret. And everyone was saying the same thing: the governor’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, the father is her boyfriend, and it’s really nobody’s business beyond that.
…
Well, here’s the deal: small towns have their own value systems, and in this situation those values are more a lot more valid than the dispassionate, pushy inquisitiveness that political journalism encourages.
Trippi at RCP: Dems shouldn’t underestimate Palin.
The McCain/Palin duo will challenge Barack Obama’s claim of “a new kind of politics” and chastise Obama and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee, Joe Biden, for their “silence” in taking on corruption in their own party in Illinois, Delaware and Washington, DC.
The McCain campaign intends to claim that “more of the same” in Washington means Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and will make the argument that if you want to “shake things up” then McCain and his reform minded running mate from Alaska will get the job done.
My initial reaction was that in picking Palin, McCain had taken away the argument that Barack Obama wasn’t ready to be President. I now think my initial assessment on that score was wrong. Over time the McCain team will insinuate that if you think a first term Governor isn’t ready for the number 2 slot, are your really sure that a first term Senator is ready for the number 1 spot?
OK, now some underestimation:
Sargent at TPM: Palin Meltdown in Slo-Mo.
TalkLeft pool: What day will Palin drop out.
Boston Herald: Bloggers in attack mode get personal.
NYT: Disclosures raise questions on vetting process.
via Herald: McCain vetter defends Palin review.
Topics: motherhood, pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:07 am on Tuesday, September 2, 2008
5 Responses to “We Have A Winner”
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September 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
Great roundup. Palin’s awesome, and she’ll weather this affair with more experience going to the fall. Biden better watch out.
Noting that Herald piece, I too have been hammering away on the radicals in the attack mode, especially among the feminist left:
“Radical Feminists and Sarah Palin”:
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/radical-feminists-and-sarah-palin.html
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I keep reading that the Palin pick was “reckless”, that the McCain campaign didn’t “vet” her. Is there anyone who believes presidential political campaigns don’t examine, under a microscope, every single aspect of their campaign moves? McCain knew before he announced her that Palin’s daughter was pregnant. If anything, he did the political thing and allowed that announcement out in order to kill that ridiculous rumor about Sarah Palin’s baby son being her daughter’s instead (which, while ludicrous, can be potent in certain critical-thinking-challenged quarters). Troopergate is a non-starter. The “lack of experience” thing has already been squelched, as too embarrassing for the Democratic candidate.
The fact is, the Palin pick was a smart, and admirably risky, move. These are the people I want in power. Action-oriented, brave, and calculating when it’s necessary.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
The left can try and sling all the s**t they can but it won’t stick. McCain has pulled a blinder.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
If Gov. Palin is at fault for her daughter’s conduct, then Biden is responsible for this problem caused by his son and his brother:
“Biden’s Son, Brother Named in Two Suits” By Kimberly Kindy and Joe Stephens, Washington Post Staff Writers on Sunday, August 24, 2008 at Page A09:
A son and a brother of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) are accused in two lawsuits of defrauding a former business partner and an investor of millions of dollars in a hedge fund deal that went sour, court records show.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Nothing scares the “caring and sharing” side of the spectrum like a strong woman or minority who refuses to take the “you can’t make it without Democrats subsidizing your life” bait.
This is great fun. Heck, even if we don’t win, maybe it will cork up some of those lib pieties in a bottle and kill em.