My guess is that McCain is trying to woo disgruntled Hillary Democrats. You're from Alaska? Cool.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26454655? Looks official to me.

You're an Alaskan and you don't know that Palin came from Wasilla? What rock do you hide under? Town of 9000? Got your news from liberalBias.com? There are 240,000 limbs on the people in the valley.

> ...Somewhere out there

There are literally hundreds of billions of molecules in the people who think she is a good choice.

Believe me, I'm no republican, I just think your message reeks. As for experience she is the only name on any ticket with any executive experience at all.

Are you from Alaska too, you maniacal chainsaw wielding cow?

Yes I live in Wasilla, the town she came from.

It came as a bit of a surprise to me to, my first reaction was, 'who is that'. I think its an attempt to get all those angry Hillary voters, McCain's attack ads have certainly been going that direction, "He didn't pick Hillary for his VP cause he hates you, Vote McCain."

>> ^deathcow:
You're an Alaskan and you don't know that Palin came from Wasilla? What rock do you hide under? Town of 9000? Got your news from liberalBias.com? There are 60,000 people + in the valley.
> ...Somewhere out there
Oh you mean the suburb of Anchorage were 30,000 people a day commute from into the biggest city of Alaska.
Believe me, I'm no republican, I just think your message reeks. As for experience she is the only name on any ticket with any executive experience at all.


No, I don't know Palin is from Wasilla. I thought she was from Palmer, which is considerably smaller. Does it really matter? The entire Mat-Su Valley is relatively small. It takes five minutes to get from Palmer to Wasilla. They might as well be the same.

Alaska is the second smallest state in the nation (population-wise, obviously), and Anchorage accounts for half the population of the state. She couldn't get her experience as mayor of a decent sized town?

>> ^Crosswords:
It came as a bit of a surprise to me to, my first reaction was, 'who is that'. I think its an attempt to get all those angry Hillary voters, McCain's attack ads have certainly been going that direction, "He didn't pick Hillary for his VP cause he hates you, Vote McCain."


That's what all the speculation says, and honestly I don't doubt it. The only thing Sarah Palin has going for her is that she has a high approval rating. I don't doubt the Republicans will now get the votes from [Republican] women who were on the fence before, because she's an attractive middle-aged woman with young kids. [and keeps popping them out.]

She's shown she can manage her political lifestyle and a family. That might be enough to draw some people in.

Ewwwwww!! La-di-da. She is from a suburb where HOW MANY commute every day?

ZOMG! That is like one stadium worth of college football fans back here in mainland America. That is like the smallest suburb of any large city back on the Continent. I mean, like Dayton is bigger than that.

You are crazy if you think mayor of po-dunk Alaska counts as executive experience, whereas anyone with Washington political experience doesn't count.

She is a cynical ploy to distract people from how old and ugly (on the inside) that McCain is. Just like Obama picked the opposite of himself, McCain picked a decent, probably caring human being who isn't near death, who isn't riddled with cancer or hatred. I'll bet Palin doesn't even support torture.

Palin is a creationist, and her resume (How do you get the stress mark?) is so thin that it includes her PTA membership and her basketball playing. What was McCain thinking?

^ Joedirt pretty much sums up what I was trying to say. Until two years ago, I hadn't ever heard her name. Now she's served two years as governor of the (sometimes second-) smallest state in the nation. The school I currently attend has more students than the entire Mat-Su Valley, even at Deathcow's estimate of 60,000 people. She hasn't even finished up one term as governor. At least most if not all of the other people on the ticket had a full term under their belt.

Hell, the town she served as mayor still hasn't gotten over the fact that she won their beauty pageant 24 years ago. Check out their Wiki page. A picture of the mountains, a picture of the start of the Iditarod Trail, and a 24-year-old picture of their former mayor. Caption reads "Photo of Miss Wasilla 1984, Sarah Palin, Gov. Alaska, Republican VP candidate 2008."

If that's not small-town, I don't know what is.

His ticker isn't long for this world, so if he becomes president, we may have our first female president by default. Wow. Repubs are so progressive!

LOL I know I know... it's all about oil anyway she is big oil

I saw this on digg:
"for 40 years, John McCain has been chasing women 30 years younger than he is. Clearly, John McCain is incapable of change."

Well on the plus side there is this:
Palin admitting that she had tried [marijuana]. "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled," she said at the time.

But then again, she hates polar bears:
"extending protection to the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is unwarranted and will hinder Alaska's gas industry and offshore drilling development."

nice one, you cunt.

I think there is more to this pick than meets the eye. I suspect the plan is for her to be savaged by the press, and to bait people into making sexist remarks ^(like calling her a cunt, nice going jd) in order to paint the opposition as sexist and then play off voter outrage and sympathy.

It's early, but I think this might actually be a decent strategy. McCain certainly has nothing to lose.

I don't know much about her. Is she charismatic? Is she good with words? Does she have a chance in the debates against Biden? Is she Dan Quayle II: Electric Boogaloo?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

She's smoked pot? Oh no, it was probably some of that Matanuska Thunder Fuck - her mind is no longer fit for any office - ask deathcow.

Seriously though, I think I remember getting high with her behind the mall in high school. She bogarted - lost my vote.


>> ^joedirt:
Well on the plus side there is this:
Palin admitting that she had tried [marijuana]. "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled," she said at the time.
But then again, she hates polar bears:
"extending protection to the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is unwarranted and will hinder Alaska's gas industry and offshore drilling development."
nice one, you cunt.

^Did you really live in Alaska and know her?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^Yes, I used to live there. Deathcow really does live in Wasilla. http://www.videosift.com/talk/Dag-Cow-Sift-Up

I probably didn't know her - though I may have ... wonder when she graduated? I feel a tell-all book coming on.

Dag, any overlap? (Note: DC and dag were '87) (I think she is older)..

Palin was born in Idaho but grew up in Alaska, and her hobbies — moose hunting, ice fishing, hiking — indicate a typical Alaskan upbringing. But it was her performance on the Wasilla High School basketball team that earned her the nickname "Sarah Barracuda"— supposedly because of her fiercely competitive nature. Palin, who played point guard, was the team's captain her senior year, and scored the final point — a free-throw — of the 1982 state championship game that Wasilla won against Anchorage. Two years later, in 1984, Palin, then 20, entered a local beauty pageant to earn college scholarship money. She was crowned Miss Wasilla — and Miss Congeniality — and went on to compete in the Miss Alaska contest, where she came in second. She graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987 with a degree in journalism

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

In all truth, probably little overlap. I may have watched her play basketball against my high school. But you know, who knows - Deathcow or I may have toked up with her at some point. Why ruin a good story. yes ... it's coming back to me now ...

It was February of 1987. A boombox with Judas Priest was playing Hell Bent for Leather. We were behind the Wasilla Carrs supermarket, in the little stand of trees there. Pepsi and Mountain Dew Cans littered the snow. They were all deformed into makeshift pipes -- punctured, used and discarded.

Much like the girls who clustered around the heavy metal boys in that chilly circle.

I was in my light Member's Only jacket, defying the freezing air. She was wearing a ski jacket. Her hair was poofed up in a ball, frozen on top of her head. I was close to her, I could smell the Aquanet that made her hair perform its unnatural act.
"Pass the pipe Sarah" she was holding her breath - the Pepsi can saddling its small package of pungent herb.
"Hold, on - I got room for one more." She croaked in reply, sucking the last of the green down into the can. Nothing left but burning ashes. "Here you go, enjoy that." She snickered, walking off into the dark.
"Dude, that's so uncool". I dropped the can into the beaten snow watching her fading figure return to the light, while I stayed in the darkness of the wood. Judas Priest played on.

If America selects McCain after this, we don't deserve to be a republic anymore. Maybe I'll move to Sweden.

Was she wearing moon boots? Did her jelly bracelets and friendship braids sparkle in the Alaskan sunshine?

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I recall that she was wearing running shoes - only dorks wore moon boots. She had a black, faded Iron Maiden shirt on under the ski coat - and she kept her Alyeska lift pass on the zipper - like all the cool kids do. I can still smell her strawberry lip gloss.

Am surprised they didn't pick someone female and black. It's going to be very hard for the McCain now, who talked shit about someone being inexperienced and young? Hmmm...

I asked a co-worker what he thought of Obama's experience, and he went on a rant about how somebody with no experience in foreign policy shouldn't even be able to run for office.

Then I mentioned the VP choice of McCain, and after explaining who she was, he couldn't say a word. He was dumbstruck by the choice, and was quite angry.

It was hilarious.

I've always thought it was common knowledge that you don't vote for a person just because they're a certain gender or race or religion or whatever. Why do that to democracy?

I think it’s quite typical that McCain chooses an ex-beauty queen. And it says a lot about the Republicans that they couldn’t find a female candidate with at least a little bit of experience. Palin is so obscure that nobody seems to know what her views on foreign policy are (http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837510,00.html) or even her thoughts with regard to anything that doesn’t directly relate to Alaska.

>> ^Fjnbk:
Palin is a creationist


This alone should trump any and all other shortcomings of McCain's VP pick. I'm not sure which is more upsetting, that someone running for the second highest position in the country is a creationist, or that people aren't making enough of a deal about it.

Kreegath - who are you voting for? Please give me a chuckle and say "Obama".

Wasilla City Hall...

I think I can understand the logic that went into Palin.

She's a big hit with the Bill Kristol set, because she's young, attractive, well-spoken, has a great biography, she's not an old white man, and she's a hardline neoconservative ideologue.

She's a Karl Rove style pick with a twist -- she'll comfort the people who're devastated that Bush can't just stay President forever, plus they think she has a chance to drive a wedge into the (in their mind) deeply divided Democratic party over women's issues.

They also believe that Hillary won't come out and hit Palin with a chainsaw over issues, because they're absolutely convinced that Hillary wants Obama to lose.

So the bullet points they gain are:

• Energize the "base" of evangelicals, and social conservatives
  
• Get a press buzz to focus on this "Fresh new face", to combat Obama on that front.
  
• Appeal to socially conservative women who want a woman in the White House
  
• Be able to say "see, we're not a bunch of sexists and racists after all"
  

What they lose is:

• The ability to hammer home Obama as not being experienced enough (Palin's resume is thinner than Obama's)
  
• The ability to reinforce the importance of National Security (since Palin has 0 experience with that)
  

That has me a little concerned, because in my analysis that means that the McCain campaign is going to totally detach from issues that matter (like experience), and go into total smear-merchant mode.

They've already made the shift, since there's now a spate of ads talking about William Ayers running here in Ohio, joining the ads that just flat out lie about Obama's tax plan (saying he'll raise your taxes if you make more than $42,000, which isn't true).

I expect the RNC convention to spend the entire time driving home baseless smears about patriotism, muslim, Wright, Ayers, and maybe we'll get to hear about the guy who claimed he had gay sex with Obama from the mouths of "serious" people.

I also expect that most of the positive stuff will focus on Palin's biography, and McCain's record as a P.O.W., and only Lieberman will talk about the bipartisan stuff.

I don't know if it'll work, but that's my prediction as an armchair strategist.

We're pretty sure our buddy Wayne had sex with her also. He bagged a new Maiden every couple weeks.

>> ^Fjnbk:
Palin is a creationist, and her resume (How do you get the stress mark?)



Lowercase e with acute accent: Alt+0233 (numpad). Olé.

"It was February of 1987. A boombox with Judas Priest was playing Hell Bent for Leather. "

"Fukkin' A dude, love that tune..... Rob Halfords' a GOD!!!

I was talking to someone about Palin's lack of experience when a fervent Republican heard a portion of the conversation and interjected, "Absolutely! Obama's got no experience at all!" I looked at her and said I was talking about Palin. She looked totally gobsmacked for a moment, then did a mental tapdance (I could see it in her eyes) and she went on about Palin taking on Stevens.

If you're a Republican, you're a Republican. I wish Democrats could be so fiercely loyal -- we can get distracted by the Nadars of the world and dilute our power.

My dad is a died-in-the-wool Republican. (I fell VERY far from the family tree.) I couldn't get him to say what he thought about Palin. He has a graduate degree in engineering from MIT but he sometimes sounds like a back country Okie hick, and he knows those folks well. He just kept saying -- oh the Democrats are scared shitless now. Palin will get votes. They'll see that she can fish, she's just a down home person, married to a oil field worker -- that'll help get the Union vote! I kept asking him -- but what do YOU think? You're smart, you are educated -- what do YOU think? He wouldn't say.

The whole thing scares me. The potential leader of the free world gets in that position because she can fish? I guess that's not too far removed from Bush bush-whacking.

The whole thing sickens me. This is exactly why some of our Founding Fathers didn't want the "rabble" to vote -- they knew they wouldn't use good judgment. Let's hear it for democracy....

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^ It's depressing because it's true.

haha. McCain is 72, so he's been chasing women 30 years younger since he was 32? He really likes those embryos.

>> ^joedirt:
I saw this on digg:
"for 40 years, John McCain has been chasing women 30 years younger than he is. Clearly, John McCain is incapable of change."

Here's the e-mail being sent out to the MoveOn-a-nites:

"Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:


She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4

She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.5

She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

We also asked Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here's a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK

She's vehemently anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

–Ilyse, Noah, Justin, Karin and the rest of the team

Sources:


1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=1

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=2


4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=3

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=4

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=5

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=6

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=7

7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-7654869-irR0vsx&t=8"

Here's a wonderful analysis of her as a candidate

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/

Heres just an excerpt:

"Basically, there are three kinds of wonderful people on the wonderful northern continent of our wonderful Western hemisphere. They are called Eloi, Morlocks, and Proles. This list is roughly in order of political power, from absolute dominance to abject submission.

In case it isn't absolutely glaring, Barack Obama is a third-generation Elo on his mother's side. Michelle is a first-generation Ela from a Prole background. Burning Man is an all-Eloi event. I don't feel this is a difficult picture to grasp.

And Sarah! Sarah! Sarah is the Prole to end all Proles. She is practically an Arch-Prole. Look at that hair, girl! Does it say bridge in the front and tunnel in the back, or is it the other way around? I also love the fact that the only scandal they can dig up on her is one involving the fact that her ex-brother-in-law threatened to "put a bullet in" her father. If Governor Palin turns out to be in some way related to Tonya Harding, I shan't be in the least surprised. Dear!"

When it all comes down, Americans vote with their pocketbooks.

And now to add to the excitement, her underage daughter is five months pregnant.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Sarah-Palins-daughter-pregnant