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I think this verifies with some pretty substantial numbers that there just isn’t the same excitement for Paul Ryan, as there was in 2008 for Governor Palin. Via Mediabistro (emphasis): On night two of the Republican National Convention, Fox News Channel was once again the network more people went to to get their political fix. That said, every network was down substantially from the same night in 2008, when Sarah Palin made her RNC debut…

ACORN founder Wade Rathke didn't have a problem with domestic terrorists trying to kill delegates at the Republican Party's national convention in 2008, former radical community organizer Brandon Darby suggests at Andrew Breitbart's new website Big Government. Darby, who got to see how the ACORN crime syndicate operates up close in New Orleans, writes that after he acknowledged that he helped the FBI foil a plot to attack the RNC convention in Minnesota Rathke denounced him on his blog. Darby writes . . .

Back during the 2008 Iowa Cacuses, a rumor was circulated the night before that Fred Thompson was going to pull out of the race. During an interview the next day, Thompson said he knew who was behind it, but refused to discuss beyond saying it cost him "a couple of points". I understand during the election, nobody was going to admit who did it, certainly not until after November. OK, November came, went, and now the socialist-in-chief has everybody distracted, so, I ask: who did it?

Monday, August 24, 2009 A Texas woman faces trial this month in Austin on charges she threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated an Austin-based group that planned to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last fall. Katyanne Marie Kibby, 25, was indicted in June by a federal grand jury in Austin. She is accused of retaliating against Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant who helped federal prosecutors win convictions against Bradley Neal Crowder, 24, and David Guy McKay, 23. Prosecutors say the e-mail threat was made Jan. 10. That was two days after Crowder reached a...

In a speech that has electrified the pro-life movement, Alaska governor and John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, touched on her own family’s personal pro-life decision. While 80 to 90 percent of pregnancies involving Down syndrome babies end in abortion, the Palin family chose life. “And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig. From the inside, no family ever seems typical,” Palin said. “That's how it is with us,” the governor went on to say. “Our family has the same ups and downs as any...

I have been reading a lot of the anti-Palin comments on Free Republic lately. For one I find them very depressing. These people usually start out with comments like "I like Governor Palin, BUT I think the media has ruined her". or bring up Tina Fey. Or some other nonsense about Palin not being able to win states "outside of the bible belt". As if red states and blue states are graved in stone. I think we need to stand up for Sarah and rally behind her. It is depressing. But the best thing that can happen for Sarah Palin...

Social activist, organizer ... and FBI informant It was all about stopping violence, says Austin man who revealed alleged firebomb plot at GOP convention. By David Hanners ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS Saturday, January 03, 2009 ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a federal courtroom in Minneapolis this month, the public transformation of Brandon Darby of Austin will become complete. In four years, he has gone from a never-trust-the-government activist to the confidential informant who helped the FBI arrest two Austin men on suspicion of building firebombs during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September. "I feel like, as an...

An immigration activist says the Republican Party lost any real chance of retaining the White House the day John McCain won the GOP primary. William Gheen is president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, or ALIPAC. Throughout the presidential campaign, Gheen ardently refused to support John McCain because of the Arizona senator's continued support to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Gheen believes McCain was counting on GOP voters to march into the booths at the last minute, hold their noses, and elect him out of fear of Obama. He notes while many Republicans reluctantly made that choice, a...

November 17, 2008 Categories: Huckabee Huck unloads on Mitt; Romney camp hits back Mike Huckabee is using his new book, out this week, to settle a few scores, not the least of which is with his fierce primary rival, Mitt Romney. Per Michael Scherer, Huckabee picks up where he left off earlier this year, tweaking Romney as a rich guy and firing what may be the first shots of the 2012 primary. Romney, Huckabee, writes, was "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president.” At another point, Huckabee portrays a...

Numerous Minneapolis-Saint Paul area EMS agencies, headed by the U.S. Secret Service, undertook special preparations to handle EMS operations during the Republican National Convention held Sept 1-4, 2008. Following is an inside account of the experience along with some lessons to take away for future events. Fake Ambulance Spotted On Tuesday, the second day of the RNC, a Twin Cities Paramedic spotted an "ambulance" with unusual generic markings in the city of St. Paul. The medic had attended RNC briefings on the need for heightened awareness, and as an Iraq War Veteran, he was well-educated and possessed a keen eye...

During a segment on Tuesday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez asked South Carolina Mark Sanford if the Republican needed to abandon its social conservative principles in order to be successful again: "Do you have to be anti-abortion, because that's a very important, big topic in the South..?" Sanchez later asked the Republican governor, as well as talk show host Neal Boortz, "Can you be a fiscal Republican and a social conservative Republican at the same time without making one side mad..?" Sanchez had both Sanford and Boortz on to discuss the upcoming Republican Governors’ Association meeting in Florida. The...

Mitt Romney would have broken Barack Obama like a cheap toy. Despite the image problems facing the Republican Party, the former Massachusetts Governor would have conquered Obama without breaking a sweat. In a time of economic turmoil, voters would have turned to Romney to steer the country through choppy fiscal waters. Romney was the thinking man’s choice for the GOP nomination. A success in both the business and political worlds, Romney presented the best opportunity to revive the Reagan vision in years. Like Obama, Romney was a handsome, well-spoken, highly intelligent figure who held out hope for a positive future....

The 2008 Republican Platform, Values section, topic Preserving Traditional Marriage; with comments from readers. ... cont.

John McCain raised more than $8.8 million in the two days after he announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would join him on the Republican ticket -- his biggest two-day haul of the long-running presidential campaign. The Republican National Committee collected $4.5 million the day McCain selected Palin, newly filed Federal Election Commission reports show. McCain's decision to tap the then-little-known politician excited the Republican rank and file, helping him raise about $2.1 million in increments of less than $1,000 in two days. Altogether, McCain raised $6.8 million Aug. 30, the day after the Palin announcement, and $2 million the...

Democrat presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois put his seal of approval on the woman who attempted to storm the stage during the acceptance speech by Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska at the Republican National Convention by welcoming her to his $28,500 per person fundraiser held in Hollywood on Tuesday night.Less than two weeks after garnering worldwide attention by getting within feet of the stage where Palin stood before getting dragged away by security personnel, Obama bundler Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink, was one of about 300 donors attending the high-priced...

A delegate to the Republican National Convention says he was robbed of more than $120,000 after he took a woman to his Minneapolis hotel room. The Denver man told police he met the woman in a bar, then took her to his hotel room at Hotel Ivy. Police say that once there, the woman made the man drinks and told him to get undressed. The 29-year-old delegate told police that was the last thing he remembered.

The post-convention national polls mostly show John McCain with a small lead over Barack Obama. But what's been happening in the states? I've been looking at the post-convention state polls at realclearpolitics.com, pollster.com, and fivethirtyeight.com and find some significant differences from pre-convention polls. They tend to suggest that the battlefield is shifting, with more states within McCain's reach and fewer within Obama's. Some caution is in order: We're talking about only one or two polls in some states but as many as eight in ultracritical Ohio. I haven't included the Zogby Internet polls in my analysis. I've rounded off the...

Blacks and persons of color, in prominent roles either as delegates or party officials at last week's 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, talked to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder about why they are proud of being a Republican. The GOP's Renee Amoore was a featured speaker at the convention. She has been a force to be reckoned with throughout the state of Pennsylvania as well as nationally and internationally. Her life has been full of firsts, including being the first Black ever elected to the Upper Merion (Pennsylvania) School District: first as vice president, then as president when her predecessor...

No matter what the Republican revisionists say, history will record that it was not a Democratic man who threw the live grenade of sexism into a crowded national political convention in 2008. It was a Republican woman. It was Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s impetuous pick to be his vice president. In an otherwise punchy acceptance speech by a relative unknown, Gov. Palin chose to mar her big moment with a wink, a smile and a pox on all her sisters’ houses. Thanks to her and the rowdies at the GOP national convention, we finally have the answer to that...

Maybe political conventions don't matter. That seems to be the conclusion from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, and the conservative Civitas Institute, which both released new poll results this week. Officials with both groups said their latest polls showed that the presidential candidates got little or no bounce with North Carolina voters as a result of the recent national conventions. The Civitas poll shows that Republican John McCain was the choice of 43 percent in a survey of 600 registered voters and that Democrat Barack Obama was the choice of 42 percent. When leaners were included, McCain's numbers were...