Posted on 09/01/2008 12:14:57 AM PDT by neverdem
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- This one was really different.
John McCain has flummoxed the leaders of his Republican Party and most of the media by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. It's a choice no other candidate conceivably could have made -- a typical McCain gamble, unpredictable in its consequences.
The least plausible part of the McCain camp's scenario for Palin is the hope that she will help capture dissident Hillary Clinton voters. If my reporting in New Hampshire and Colorado is right, there were fewer of those voters -- even before the Democratic convention...
--snip--
The two-step reaction is best capsulized in the comments of a very smart veteran campaign operative, a New Hampshire delegate and early Mitt Romney supporter, who told me: "When I first heard, I was appalled. I thought we had forfeited the election. But then I got a call from my 22-year-old daughter. She's a pro-choice voter, just like I am. But she was very excited and enthused by this choice. She is captivated by Palin's life story, the way she has taken on the odds. She may be more acute than I am."
That's the reaction McCain is counting on, not just among Republicans but, importantly, among independents and women, where most of the undecided votes are. And without realizing it, Obama may have boosted the odds on this gamble paying off.
Obama began his campaign for the nomination as the outsider candidate, promising fundamental change in Washington and offering a post-partisan approach to politics. With time, he has come to be seen as a much more conventional Democrat, now half of a ticket based in Congress, the least admired institution in a widely scorned capital. Millions who saw his acceptance speech heard a standard recital of liberal Democratic programs...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
At only this moment I miss having a Parliament because this should be shouted at the other side while staring them directly in the face!
I just sent the following e-mail to him
Mr Broder,
You had the following statement in an article I just read:
“The Democrats’ great advantage is that they are not responsible for the pain and frustration that many voters have suffered in the Bush years.”
I beg to differ with you. I see it more like this:
“The Democrats’ great advantage is that they are not perceived as being responsible for the pain and frustration that many voters have suffered in the Bush years.”
I believe that the media has been so biased that people are convinced they are worse off and it is Bush’s fault. The economy was doing fine until the Democrats took over the majority in Congress. That’s when it all started going downhill. Most of us are not worse off.
(the e-mail bounced so now I’ve got to figure out his real e-mail addy. The one he has posted is obviously wrong)
I was pumping gas and a SUV, which followed me into the station, stops at the pump behind me. Suddenly a woman jumps out and runs over to me like she wanted to kill me. Instead she reached out her hand and said, “I wanted to shake your hand because you are one of the few people I've seen with a McCain sticker.”
She then told me how pleased she was that McCain picked Palin and that it affected her so much that she stayed up all night watching Fox for all she could find out about Sarah Palin.
She told me that she was like many other women around the country that are just pumped about a woman like her. And the more they find out about her, the more excited they will get.
I think that McCain found that magic to take him to the White House.
I was pumping gas and a SUV, which followed me into the station, stops at the pump behind me. Suddenly a woman jumps out and runs over to me like she wanted to kill me. Instead she reached out her hand and said, “I wanted to shake your hand because you are one of the few people I've seen with a McCain sticker.”
She then told me how pleased she was that McCain picked Palin and that it affected her so much that she stayed up all night watching Fox for all she could find out about Sarah Palin.
She told me that she was like many other women around the country that are just pumped about a woman like her. And the more they find out about her, the more excited they will get.
I think that McCain found that magic to take him to the White House.
Thanks neverdem for posting this column by the great William Safire. I wish he would write more.
This election is so much fun! I can hardly wait till the presidential and VP debates!
Just hear her speaking,YES SHE CAN, and it will no more be seen as manipulative except by raghead demokraps cornered to make SEXIST statements....
The real target is always states and not national polls.
We are left to analyze which states McCain’s calculus told him this would help in.
Biden wanted to segregate Iraq and quit;what the heck good is experience if your wrong and have a weak stomach?
And Obama is even worse!
McCain’s VP choice has stymied the BO mini bounce expected by that Berlinish Convention...now Gustav provides more coverage for the BO Campaign but the knock out is coming, the Annenberg Papers are not forgotten.
Huh? Does it mean Bush is the only who has been mean to everybody which created the partisan warfare?
See Palin wearing fur and as Commander of the Alaska National Guard:
“”Or do they just think they are so smart, they should not check out what the peons are thinking or talking about?”
_________________________________________
Bingo!
And good musical analogy!
For those who don’t understand the musical reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDAEXn8RJFs
Great slide show. You should post that as its own thread.
That's cause Sarah Palin is the woman all of us wish we could be.
Mr. Broder, did you ever consider that maybe McCain wanted a true reformer on his side to help him reform all of the awfulness of your “inside the beltway” mentality? And that maybe he thought that this would appeal to a majority of Americans (male, female, black, white, Hispannic)? Wow, imagine that... making a choice based on principle. Oh, and how does this compare with the selection of “Scrappy Joe from Scranton” — you know: change you can believe in!
“Democrats and their wrong-headed social engineering are almost solely responsible for virtually all the ills that beset us as a nation.”
You should see the disconnect here in Michigan. The state is run by a clueless Berkeley communist governor, and the highest unemployment in the nation, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a collapsing realty market are all blamed on Bush. And the idiots believe it.
The majority of people here are stone-cold stupid.
VERY GOOD POINT... I didn’t pick it up on the first read. Irresponsible really is a good word to stick on the Dems...
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