Why Democrats Fear Sarah Palin
No sooner had John McCain announced his pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, then the Obama campaign and other Democrats began their assault on her. While predictable, the fierceness of the initial assault was pretty strong. The Obama campaign’s first reaction was that she was an “inexperienced mayor of a town 9,000”. Realizing that they had just slandered the people in the small towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and other states that will decide this election, they quickly issued a more gracious statement.
You would think that after calling denizens of small towns “bitter and clinging to their guns and religion,” Obama and his people would be more sensitive to these voters. But that is how they truly feel about these folks and they can’t hide it.
Our own Barbara Boxer called her a “dangerous choice”. Dangerous? Barbara Boxer sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is dangerous.
Why the harsh reaction? They are scared.
At the Republican Convention, a Pregnant Pause
With all eyes fixed on Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast the Republican Convention was prepared for a quiet, uneventful, first day. Then as one reporter labeled it, the “hot story” broke–the news that presumptive Vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol was pregnant. This was the number one issue for reporters to the delegates. What would the news mean to Palin’s candidacy? How will the news effect the convention? What kind of mother is Palin? Did the McCain team know and when did they know it?
The campaign’s response was that McCain knew ahead of time and that the media should leave the candidate’s children out of campaign reporting. Even Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama argued that the media should stay away from the story.
The delegates rallied around Palin. On nearly every occasion when the names of John McCain and Sarah Palin were mentioned from the podium, Palin’s name received the louder cheer.
Photos from the RNC
The California RNC Delegation
The Doomsday Scenario
I recently mused on Facebook about which might arrive first: Christmas or a new budget agreement for California, which is already more than two months late. A conservative friend quickly responded with his hope that Christmas would come first.
You might call the Republican legislative strategy in California the Doomsday Scenario. And it’s not a threat. Republicans seem moore than happy to usher in the closing of state government. California will run out of cash within a month. It’s not at all clear that the governor could keep the state open if that happened. But for Republicans, there might be very little to lose.
The party is already terribly unpopular in the state. There’s little hope of any change in that. Nearly all of the Republican legislators are insulated from being kicked out of office in November by a gerrymander. And Republicans have little hope of gaining any new seats from Democrats because of the same gerrymander. Republicans already have thrown their best-known, best-liked politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger, under the bus, all but dismissing him as a Democrat. The California GOP is stuck at the bottom of the pit. So why not blow up the state? There’s nowhere to go but up.