While the selection of a huntin' shootin' fishin' Alaskan mom is a "good thing" in its own right, McCain's choice of running mate is even more welcome when you consider what could have been. According to IHT, and doubtless many other journals, right until the last minute, McCain wanted to appoint his good friend Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent.

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Richard,

Let's not forget that it is not unlikely that McCain will only serve one period. (I totally discount the possibility that the McCain/Palin ticket will lose. The GOP base has turned from tepid to very enthusiastic. The Democrats are still split.) Governor Sarah Palin will then be in an excellent position to become President of the USA 2012.

Good news for us AGW sceptics.

Seems there is a God in heaven after all!

Richard are you mad ? 'Non-party political' - 'free votes in the House'. Anyone who watched the sham the other month knows that abortion was a very political issue. Dawn Primaloo refused to accept loads of amendments to the Bill, ignored consultation etc, and claimed the Bill had to pass as it was because it was implementing 'the Committee's findings'. In fact the Committee was totally split with many important decisions going through on the Chairman's casting vote. Originally the HoC votes were going to be whipped but Gordon McStalin backed down after there were numerous objections to this. It still wasn't a 'free vote' as their were disgracefull incidents of the 'Sisterhood' forming their own whip's line and forcing Labour MP's into the 'correct' lobby. The third reading is in the next session of Parliament - expect more fun particularly as the Sisterhood is minded to amend the Bill to include Northern Ireland. We could see Dr 'No' marching down the Shankill Road alongside Sinn Fein/IRA in protest !!

I was reading Conservative Home comments thread about opinions on McCain's choice of Palin. One commenter objected to her because she had gone back to work 4 days after her fifth child was born. Apparently there is an active sisterhood in the Tory Party and she had broken 'diktat No1' which is 'claim all the time off for 'maternity leave' that you legally can'.

Palin pushed through a new Natural gas pipeline to lower 48 earlier this month:

The legislature had been trying for 30 years to authorize something like this and, up until now, had blown it. Palin got it through. Getting it off the ground, the state says, will be the biggest construction project in U.S. history.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticle ... 3123946167

Watch the MSM and see how many refer to the way she took on corruption within her own party or Big Oil:

In the roughly three years since she quit as the state's chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the "body count" of Palin's rivals. "The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah," says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called "Voice of the Times," which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Publi ... 1orcjq.asp

I just hope she can leave a "body count" at the national level as well.

"She says her favorite meal is moose stew or mooseburgers..."

Sounds like her favourite meal is other politicians!

the more i read of palin the more i like her.

likes to hunt caribou, is an excellent shot - and her son is due to go off to iraq in the Stryker brigade. STRONG anti-corruption record - and even went after the corrupt officials in her own party.

and get this - when oil prices went up , and the sales tax on petrol resulted in increased money coming into the alaska treasury guess what she did - she issued rebates for alaskan taxpayers...

and her husband is awesome too - classic rugged outback , non-nonsense kind of blue-collar guy...

he's a pro in racing across alaska in a snowmobile...

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Travel/story? ... 619&page=1


read elsewhere that he wants to be called "first dude" rather than "first gentleman".

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08302008/ne ... 126727.htm

these guys seem normal. i could have a beer with them. have a laugh and a dinner and a chat with them.. and i guess there's millions of americans who also think the same.


my guess - its in the bag for mccain. just wait until the bill ayers-obama stuff comes out. that's starting to build , and hasnt gone mainstream yet.


and one final crucial thing - she's got 80 per cent approval ratings in alaska.

by contrast, congress is at around the 9 per cent mark.

having 80 per cent in our current credit-crunch tough times is something else.

Heh-heh. http://www.sitemason.com/newspub/fQK3vW?id=58891

I've been thinking on the experience argument about Palin. In all honesty, I wish she had more experience at the national level, but what occurred to me is that inexperience argument would've been all but taken off the table if she had finished out her first term as Governor. Or, in other words, what makes the argument is a difference of two years. Romney was only a one-term Governor of Massachusetts, but I don't think anyone would've floated, or even worried about, the idea that he was inexperienced. And if experience alone were the deciding factor, Pawlenty would win hands down. Two terms and six years in office, where he took Minnesota from a $4.3 billion deficit, to a $700 million surplus, without significantly raising taxes.

So, I thought about what made the argument stick against Obama. He has had a short political career, but that alone wouldn't have done it. The inexperience argument works, in conjunction with the lack of anything concrete that he or his supporters can point to. More than one "big name" supporter has given variations of "uuummmm...." when asked, "Can you name one thing he's accomplished?" This is then reinforced by the lack of executive experience and the lack of policy specifics. So, as presidential as he looks (and he does accomplish that part quite well), casual voters still pick up that scent.

Palin, on the other hand, has concrete accomplishments, consistent with her stated principles, from both her personal and public life, which additionally makes her seem "real" and "authentic." But the issue that keeps getting lost is this: she isn't running for President, but rather VP, yet she is compared to the rival presidential candidate. Biden and McCain, the two men who should be the more pertinent subjects in this argument, are completely off the radar.

So, in summary, as much as I like her, I would feel more comfortable with the pick if she had finished out her first term. But, in any case, along with Obama's nomination, this is a game changer for American politics.

To Add: What I think McCain's done with his choice is well nigh Napoleonic. In choosing Palin, he found a candidate who co-opted the current of identity politics running through this campaign cycle, thereby neutralizing it. What has now replaced it is a focus on the character and accomplishments of the candidates themselves, as the focus on Palin has now become her personal story, rather than her sex.

Just a nit-pick: The more accurate term would be "social conservatives," rather than "Christian conservatives," (although we make up the largest group in that demographic) as it includes other groups like Jews, Muslims, and other religious conservatives, as well as the non-religious and even the occasional atheist.

good point on the "social conservative" aspect.

i'm an atheist , but i find the "pro-choice" arguments to be abhorrent. except of the case of rape or incest, if you make yourself pregnant , then you dont have the right to kill that kid. thats my take on it. there has to be a stronger option or promotion of allowing us to adopt these kids , if the girl or woman doesnt want them.

i'll never forget what the NHS did to one of my brothers girlfriends - no questions asked. yes - you can have the abortion. and all that over some drunken episode. if the NHS werent so "pro choice" , i'd now have a 10 year old adopted daughter.

and by god does that cut me up , to this day. especially since my SISTER is so pro-life - and no matter what mistake she made , she was adament that the kid should have a shot at life. through my sister i now have a wonderful 11 year old niece.

seems like an easy decision at the time - but the long term consequences are immense. and thats the aspect that the pro-choice crowd never mention.

It used to be, here in the US, we had one of the best child welfare systems in the world, where teenage and unwanted pregnancies were efficiently handled and the babies quickly, often before birth, found homes with parents looking to adopt.

The problem now, on both sides of the pond, is that we've raised a generation or two of adults who don't know what to do with children, who are taught not to have them, and that they are a "burden" and intrinsically undesirable. So, you have narcissistic singles and couples who lavish money and attention on pets, projecting upon them the attributes of human beings, all to fill that unseen void. Of course, those who do decide to have them, having lost a tradition of child-rearing, try to treat them like little adults and then scratch their heads when it blows up in their face.

Worldwide, particularly in the West, many tens, maybe hundreds of millions have been aborted. It's a silent genocide and part of the reason for Europe's demographic implosion.

i agree.

and i find it astonishing that not a single politician in the uk is mentioning this. its all glossed over and none of them want to engage in it.

thank god for the USA where it really IS an issue.

A very good first impression, we will know better in the next week or two whether the gamble has paid off as the Democrats will throw the kitchen sink at her. It seems to me it will be Clinton V Palin in 2012, I almost feel sorry for Hillary.

I hope she adds some hair shirts to the office wall, taken from humanely culled greenies.