Palin Polling

Verity

That is simply amazing. Someone with 10 years' chief executive experience behind someone who has never so much as drafted one tiny piece of legislation ... and they think Obama, who is so clearly a phony and a crook, might have the experience.

As a con-man, he is without equal in the history of the world.

Verity

Sarah glasses are selling for $700, and that's before the lenses!

I am going to try to get some made here, much cheaper, hopefully.

WFO

Consider: She's shown herself to be an intelligent and capable politician. The likelihood of McCain dying the minute he gets into office is slim. So, say he dies after one year. The relevant experience and understanding Palin will have gained in that year as VP (and she will be paying special attention because she knows this is a possibility) will be far more than anything Obama can lay claim to at present. In this scenario, then, President Palin on her first day - after a year as VP - would be much better equipped to lead than President Obama would if he were voted in this year.

...or did I get that wrong?

Tiberius

I'll echo Melanie: a star is born.

Never mind about walking on eggshells - she crushes them.

The line about Obama wanting to read terrorists their rights - awesome. I hope the British judiciary was listening.

Max Kaye

Sarah Palin stated in her speech that she doesn't care what the press think of her - she'll talk over their heads (or via their pages/lenses) directly to the American people.

Additionally, I don't think that Mccain and the Republicans are going to 'hide away' their newest best asset. I mean, we're talking about the next but one President of the USA.

As for lack of experience, an American comment on a blog reminds us: "Once upon a time the British tories were mocked for chosing a housewife 'with no foreign policy experience' as their party's leader. Margaret Thatcher turned out to be one of the 20th century's great statesmen/stateswomen/statespersons. (Choose for yourselves). Sarah Palin's style is very diffent but she, too, has the potential to achieve greatness."

Peter Buss

Verity - its remarks like yours about Obama which leave me appalled. Obama strikes me a a genuine guy with high ideals who has (unlike Palin) really had to fight his way all his life. I may or may not support his political views but that does not mean I can't respect the guy. I have listened to many of his speeches and find them hugely inspiring - very unlike the condescending and ssneering speech of Sarah Palin which whilst brilliantly delivered was when all the rhetoric is removed a sarcastic sneer at a person (unlike her) who has - and still has a real background disadvantage. I was very glad that for the most part McCain did not stoop to her level last night - but very sorry that the Republican Party ( and to an extent McCain himself) seemed to equate patriotism as exclusively a Republican virtue. Really Nixon could not have done it better.

Hysteria

here is an interesting take on "Trooper Gate" - http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/05/palin.trooper/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Also interesting that latest figures show her TV audience was actually bigger than BO, not slightly less as originally reported.

I thought McCain came across pretty well.

Another key moment will be Palin v Biden.

How I wish Team DC could articulate their beliefs as clearly as McCain/Palin!!

Austin Barry

So here we are then:

War Hero -vs- Empty Suit

Ball-Breaker Babe -vs- Windbag

No contest: Let's fry some McCain chips and dip into a Baked Alaska.

Meanwhile, back home, the dreary late-period-Hancock Prime Minister and his crew of shouldn't-we-sectioned ditherers stir their own excrement in a vain attempt to divine the secret of prolonging power. Such, such are the joys of being marooned on this damp island.......

Verity

Peter Buss - It's remarks like yours that leave me appalled. Appalled, I tell you! Yes, and shocked, too!

I can tell you're not American. Someone who has enjoyed affirmative action hasn't had to fight with anything except to be sure to remember to turn on the charm when the right people are assessing him.

He went straight from Harvard to "community organiser" - in Chicago, that means "ward heeler".

The drivellings of British lefties who use fake Americanisms are too awful. They leave me appalled. Nixon was a hero. He opened up China. He was the victim of two greedy, lefty sleaze reporters who developed a greed for fame, and their editor Ben Bradley on the extremely lefty Washington Post. Get your history straight, bubbah.

Irish Redmondite

Austin, Brown as a dreary "late-period Hancock". Brilliant!

Verity

Making the rounds ... Sarah Palin anagram: A sharp nail.

Suck it up, lefties!

CG

I'm not a leftie, I supported Bush twice, but do you people really think that somebody who thinks that the world is only 6,000 years old and wants to ban books that she disagrees with from libraries is fitr to hold any sort of high office? Scary.

Fergus Pickering

Has Obama's life really been a struggle. Didn't he go to Columbia and Harvard? Wasn't he a human rights lawyer. It's a c.v. rather like Cherie Blair, along with the dodgy dad. Has there been ANY President or presidential candidate since Harry Truman who wasn't from the rich elite? Except Nixon maybe. I shopuld think the LEAST elite would be Ronald Regan, a jobbing actor.

Keith

Yon Sarah is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Obama is a nothing..he's done nothing, and achieved nothing beyond conning dim-wits.

oldtimer

The chances are that McCain will live to a ripe old age - it is in his genes. His mother is a cogent, spritely 96 year old. If he wins this time, expect him to go for a second term.

Oscar

CG - it's a strange thing that those Americans polled on Obama who said he was 'scary' were immediately shamed by the media as being closet racists. This line was continually put forward on C4 news in particular. Yet anti-Paliners find no problem in announcing she is scary as if it's entirely legitimate. How come social analysts aren't interpreting this reaction? As usual moral culpability is something the left like to impose on the right, while the left regard their beliefs as existentially 'correct' and therfore beyond criticism or even interpretation.

JONNY

Saw a revolting shot of her posing with her famous pump- gun beside a karibou slobbering in blood. Tiny daughter looks on doing a goo-goo.
Apparently she doles out licences to hunters to pot everything in sight, sportingly perched in low-flying aircraft.

So it's babies, babies, babies all the way. And the devil take the wild life.
Nice lady - in hock with the oil lobbies and the lumber men to kill off America's last unspoilt wilderness.

Oscar

Jonny - you nicely put flesh on the bones of my argument (no puns intended ... )

The Laughing Cavalier

I listened to the repeated edition of Any Questions (long known in my family as "Bigot's Half Hour) on Radio 4 and was appalled to hear the two guardian feminista's sneering, patronising attitude. Apparently, women may not go into politics unless they are left wing. What arrant nonsense. Here is a woman from a modest background who has made it to the top through her own efforts, is eminently qualified for higher office and is a breath of fresh air to the political scene. No wonder the left is frightened of her.

Verity

CG - She doesn't. Point to where it says she does. Frankly, as far as evolution goes, I wouldn't even give it six days in your case.

CG - Just for that, gratuitous, for the guys, Sarah and a Harley. Sorry she doesn't have her rifle with her, but you can't have everything.
http://www.palmerelks.org/images/wwp-photo2.jpg

(Thanks to: No Submission, LGF>.)

hysteria

just FYI folks - I know something of "big oil" in Alaska and Palins treatment thereof. And trust me, it is not a bed of roses. She is tought to deal with and no friend of the oil majors.

Sure she wants drilling, but not at the expnse of the electorate.

Frank Pulley

Jonny

Don't like them nasty gun thangs, eh buddy? Even when, I guess, they're protecting your arse against those who would give it back to you in a paper bag were it not for people protecting who aren't quite so ... well ... squeamish!

Caribou are game, old chap. Food some some, sport for others. It's a wicked old world, get used to it, or get youself some smelling salts and a lace hankie. You'll continually have the vapours if you hang around this site, even with Oscar fanning you when you nearly faint from the gruesome stuff you Google up to try to prove some dumb-assed point.

Augustus

The master-stroke of the Republican convention wasn't actually the unleashing of Hurricane Sarah, clever although that was also. The cleverest touch was the endorsement from Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate in 2000 and now an Independent Democrat senator in Connecticut. So Joe Biden can hardly mock his old ally's new stance seeing that in 2004 he urged John Kerry to run on a joint ticket with...? Yes, John McCain!

When it comes to crossing traditional party boundaries, and the crucial winning over of blue-collar votes, McCain's the man.

Conservative Cabbie

Peter,

Obama's speeches maybe inspiring but they are meaningless. He cannot associate himself with having done anything substantive politically because he hasn't, he has no experience of governing.

Palin in her speeches can say "I vetoed a budget", "I cut government spending", "I gave the people of Alaska a lump sum".

Granted, a 2 year governor of Alaska is not the equivalent of the governor of California but is something tangible, not wishful as in Obama's case.

She's also a women with a young Downs child, a pregnant daughter and a son going to war and yet she can run a state so well she gets an 80% approval rating. If I was choosing a leader, I know I'd want one who can multi-task like this.

Marian C

Frank Pulley & Fergus Pickering - Well said to you both

Nick Kaplan

Peter Buss; This quote from Obama’s memoirs (explaining how he avoided talking to his mother about the issue of his drug use)really sums up his entire con trick of a campaign: "I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves."

Seems to me that this was a valuable lesson which Obama has been putting into practice for the last year or so. Is a man who speaks so frankly about his ability to manipulate his own mother someone that you can respect? Is he someone you can trust?