A Bold Move: Sarah Palin for VP

I'm very impressed with what I have learned about her so far. I think it's a bold move on McCain's part to select her. He has absolutely blunted the "surge" Obama was about to get from the convention. She is someone who can simultaneous unite and energize the Republican base, while appealing to swing voters. For the first time conservatives are looking at a vote for McCain as a positive good rather than just a lesser of evils. It also gives the McCain campaign a little history-making potential of it's own to counteract the Obamagic. Of course, hard core feminist Clinton supporters will not vote for McCain because of Palin, but he wasn't going to get their votes anyway.

Her husband is a union guy (steelworker, oil worker) and commercial fisherman, and she's a former union member herself. She played basketball (point guard) as well as competing in a beauty pageant. They're both from working class backgrounds. She's said to be very tough and sharp, but also warm and highly likeable.

Her relative inexperience does blunt one of McCain's best weapons against Obama, but I expect that argument will be recast in terms of "judgment" and "accomplishments" rather than "experience." It's also hard for the Obama campaign to attack her inexperience without highlighting his own issues on that score. It should be very interesting to see her debate Joe Biden in a few weeks. Indeed this is turning out to be one of the most interesting elections in my lifetime so far, and my memories go back to Nixon vs. Kennedy.

Time will tell whether this is a brilliant move or a blunder by McCain. That will largely depend on how well she holds up in the whirlwind of a national campaign.

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Funny column from David Brooks on the generic convention speech (Democrat).

Debate dialog I'd like to see:
Obama: [something comparing himself to Abe Lincoln]
McCain: "Senator, I knew Abe Lincoln. You're no Abe Lincoln."

(H/T "The Corner") I think even Obama would have to laugh at that one. For the younger readers: it's a reference to Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 vice presidential debate.

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver

His "crime" was taking pictures of Democrat senators with big money donors from a public sidewalk in front of a fancy Denver hotel. It seems the Democrats themselves want to Recreate-68:

DENVER -- Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

(Click here to watch video of the arrest.)

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producer's arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

[snip]

Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson."

This is unbelievable. A TV network actually doing an investigation of the influence of money on Democrats? It can't be true.

Another Obama Joke

An anxious nation waits breathlessly for Obama-related humor. Here's another release from the Strategic Joke Reserve to ease the shortage:

Poor John Edwards has gone from VP nominee to non-person in just a few short weeks after admitting he was lying and the National Enquirer was telling the truth. Sen. Obama, showing his Heart of Gold, expressed sympathy for Edwards. "The man has suffered enough," said Obama, "He's already been punished with a baby. Based on the smell of that baby, I'm calling for a Change We Can Believe in."

Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

The American Issues Project, an independent, 501(c)(4) organization produced this ad highlighting the long association of Sen. Barack Obama with admitted, unrepentant former terrorist, Bill Ayers.

Rather than just ignoring the ad and counting on the help of the media in continuing the cover up of the connections, the Obama campaign counter-attacked. They claimed the ad was full of lies. They pressured TV stations to refuse to air the ad. They have asked to Dept. of Justice to file criminal charges against the man who had the Audacity to Hope that he could exercise his First Amendment rights by funding the ad. They published their own ad to "rebut" the first one.


Note that the Obama ad starts by falsely accusing the McCain campaign of producing the American Issues Project ad. Oddly, for a "rebuttal," it doesn't rebut a single point in the original ad. It does, however, put the hay down where the horses can get it, i.e. put the issue in play in the MSM, who have been all to happy to ignore it up to now.

The fact that Obama immediately rushes to the DoJ to try to suppress speech that can damage him politically certainly tells us a lot about what he would be like as a president. It isn't pretty.