Sarah Palin Facts
Posted on August 31, 2008 at 9:50 pmIn the tradition of Chuck Norris and Fred Thompson, a new meme has emerged in celebration of John McCain’s Veep selection — Sarah Palin Facts. Some of my favorites:
When Sarah Palin attends ritual blood orgies, she always brings the most delicious ambrosia salad. - Three of Sarah Palin’s five kids came out sideways - she never flinched.
- The Russians sold Alaska to America because Sarah Palin would not submit to autocracy.
- Sarah Palin once bit the head off a live Osprey snatched from the air as it tried to fly off with a fish she caught.
- We don’t know who would win in a Chuck Norris - Sarah Palin cage match because they’ve never invented a cage that can hold Sarah Palin.
- Sarah Palin is the “other” whom Yoda spoke about.
- The Arctic Circle runs through Alaska so the Sun can have some relief from Sarah Palin’s bright glare.
- Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.
- Sarah Palin makes Andrew Sullivan regret some key life choices.
- Sarah Palin will give birth to the man who will lead humanity’s war against the machines.
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Palin Chatter Dump
Posted on at 9:29 pmJon Wright analyzes the reasons Gov Sarah Palin was picked to join Join McCain’s Presidential ticket:
She’s a “movement conservative”, the sort of hard-right blend of social conservatism (anti-choice, creationist) with squishy pseudo-libertarian mercantilist economics that reassures the Fred Thompson crowd. In other words, she’s like Marsha Blackburn, except she’s a woman.
Les Jones explains why McCain chose wisely:
Voters haven’t elected a Senator to be president since JFK in 1960, yet the Obama-Biden ticket has two of them. The pattern for the past 30 years is that Americans vote for the ticket with a governor and a Senator, though it’s usually the governor for the presidential slot and the Senator for the veep slot. In that sense McCain has set up the classic winning ticket that voters like.
McCain chose well.
MORE PALIN PRESS AND PALAVER:
John McCain is BUGGING!
In defense of gimmickry
Some Conservatives Air Concerns Over Palin
Coyote Chronicles
People Magazine
Saying it with cash
VIDEO: Moms react to Sarah Palin
Vpilf
Dobson loves it
Homerun
Buchanan Love
Recently religious
Cool Cat Daddy-O
Naughty Librarian
Dru’s Vues
Ferraro on Palin
The biggest gamble
VIDEO: Red State Update
One More Thing
Palin’s Financial Disclosures
Knox Views
Girl Power!
Mick is Wright
Thoughts from the Noog
Sexists attack
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Anatomy Of A Meme
Posted on at 8:46 pmJackson Baker on how “the talk” gets started:
Those that hit and make a lasting impact are generally those that are well targeted. Clinton of the loose zipper and Dan “Mr. Potatoe” Quayle of the anti-gravity brain are cases in point. (Warren G. Harding, he of the ‘normalcy’ neologism, qualified in both those categories.)
“Mythologies,” we said a few lines back. To call something a “myth” doesn’t belie it. Ask Carl Jung. (OK, his ghost.) But political memes, like some myths, can start out as malicious (or self-serving) fabrications or as the careless templates of a lazy press pack.
“Mean Bob Dole,” a truly bizarre way to tag an exemplar of both wit and warmth, was a clear case of the latter, while “Al Gore the Inventor of the Internet” ended up as a press meme but started out at some V-2 base near Peenemunde. The pedigree of “Barack Obama the celebrity” was similar.
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Blogging The RNC
Posted on at 8:36 pmRob Huddleston will be in the house and he’s laying down some ground rules:
I am not a credentialed blogger for the Republican National Convention, and that is probably a good thing. I’ve been credentialed on many other occasions, and, rightly or wrongly, being designated as such can have an effect on one’s blogging of events. This way, I can retain my objectivity, and, as regular readers know of my past (some would say constant) criticisms of the Republican Party, I will not be afraid to dish out some smack if it is called for. (I read a few of the blogs that covered the Democratic National Convention, and I’m convinced that some of them would have happily reported the bright side of even the most despicable actions if the offenders at the DNC would have been Democrats. Objectivity was out the window to the point where their “reports” were nothing more than Astroturf press releases from the Democratic Party.) My aim is to stay clear of that obstacle. The downside of not being credentialed is that my posts will be either very late at night or very early in the morning. Only credentialed bloggers and media can carry their laptops past security, so my blogging will be tethered to my hotel.
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Dark Nights: Op Research In Tennessee Politics
Posted on at 7:27 pmErik Schelzig runs down the role of opposition research in Tennessee politics:
Bredesen said he takes to heart the advice of his original political adviser, Joe Napolitan.
“He told me way back when that his rule about negative campaigning was a) don’t negative campaign, and b) if you do, make it hurt,” Bredesen said.
Bob Corney, a former state Democratic Party official, said finding potentially damaging information alone isn’t always enough to earn an advantage.
“Sometimes it’s how you polish it,” said Corney, also a former Bredesen aide. “It’s a dark art, but it’s an art.”
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McCain Cuts First Day Convention Activites Short, Paul Convo Still A Go
Posted on at 6:34 pmFrom the Hill:
Republicans will hold an abreviated “business only” convention meeting on Monday at John McCain’s request.
McCain announced Sunday that most activities will be suspended on the first day of the Republican National Convention so the country could focus on Hurricane Gustav.
“We will proceed with the convention tomorrow but it will be abriviated,” said Mike Miller, director of operations for the convention.
He said that delegates will meet to elect convention officiers, ratify rules and approve the party platform because they are critical to the nominating process.
The convention will open as scheduled at 3 p.m CT and will meet until approximately 5:30 p.m. CT. There will be no roll call of delegates.
“We will proceed with the convention tomorrow but it will be abriviated,” said Mike Miller, director of operations for the convention.
He said that delegates will meet to elect convention officiers, ratify rules and approve the party platform because they are critical to the nominating process.
The convention will open as scheduled at 3 p.m CT and will meet until approximately 5:30 p.m. CT. There will be no roll call of delegates.
Ron Paul’s rump convo will go on without abbreviation.
SEE ALSO:
Gustav Could Be Boon to GOP
The politics of putting aside politics … is still politics.
McCain’s video message
McCain Doesn’t Rule Out Satellite Convention Speech
Something completely different
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McCain Didn’t Comb The Archives Of Palin’s Hometown Newspaper
Posted on at 6:26 pmFrom Huffington Post:
On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin’s hometown newspaper.
How does he know? The paper’s (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.
“No one else had requested access before,” said the source. “It’s unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn’t.”
The Frontiersman did not immediately confirm the revelation.
MORE: Ambinder.
Three Times More Fred: Thompson To Pinch-Hit For Arnold At Convention
Posted on at 6:00 pmVia the Weekly Standard:
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is skipping the Republican National Convention this week in Minnesota to manage an ongoing budget dispute in Sacramento. Republican officials say Fred Thompson will take his place in the prime-time lineup Monday night and onetime presidential candidate will have nearly three times longer to speak than he was originally given for his speech on Tuesday.
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Governor Sarah Palin On Ron Paul: “He’s Cool”
Posted on at 5:52 pmMTV Street Team: Well, a lot of students asked me to ask you, Ron Paul, cult-following in Alaska….
Governor Sarah Palin: He’s cool. He’s a good guy. He’s a good guy. He’s so independent. He’s independent of like the party machine, I’m like, right on, so am I. The party machinery, on both sides of the party, ya know, Americans are tiring of the incessant partisanship that gets in the way of just doing the right thing for this country.
SEE ALSO: Video Spider
Who Won The Republican Primary In State Senate District 28?
Posted on at 5:18 pmMick Wright wants to know:
No Republicans filed to run against Tennessee Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle in District 28 this year. The Shelby County Election Commission recorded 80 write-in votes in the August primary election, but the Tennessee Dept. of State Elections Division seems to assume there was no winner. How many write-in votes does a candidate need in order to win? Or are they even really counted at all? Why isn’t the list of write-in candidates available online?
Further discussion in the comment thread.
God Always Delivers
Posted on at 4:39 pmIlissa Gold takes note of some divine retribution which may befall a few religious conservatives this week.
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Counting The Days
Posted on at 4:34 pmKavon Nikard puts the experience argument against Sarah Palin in a bit of perspective:
Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator for 754 days before he began his full-time run for the Presidency.
Sarah Palin was Governor of Alaska for 603 days before she began her campaign for the Vice-Presidency.
As the head of his Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, Obama never held a meeting on Afghanistan. As the Governor of Alaska, Gov. Palin is the CiC of the Alaska Nation Guard.
Both of candidates have made trips to the Middle East during their time in office.
So tell me, how exactly Obama’s 151 day advantage make him more qualified to be CiC than Sarah Palin, the person who occupies the #2 spot on the GOP ticket?
SEE ALSO:
The Oracle
Pat Buchanan Claims Sarah Palin As A “Brigader”
Posted on at 4:15 pmThe McCain/Palin camp is distancing:
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Making New Friends
Posted on at 4:08 pm
TNGOP Chair Robin Smith with Prinscella Smith of Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions at the Republican National Convention. Photo by Ken Whitehouse.
UPDATE: Ilissa Gold LOLCats the photo.
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Nashville’s Old Timey Poster Shop Finds New Life In Politics
Posted on at 3:51 pmFrom Naomi Snyder:
After years of financial struggle, Hatch Show Print is booming.
CNN hired the business — whose designers handcraft posters using wood or metal blocks in much the same way printers did for hundreds of years— to design and create nearly all of its promotional materials for its presidential election coverage. Belmont University will hand out Hatch Show Print posters to everyone who attends the upcoming presidential debate on the college campus.
Clients from Nike to Neil Young have been ordering posters from the shop. The Ryman Auditorium continues to offer a Hatch Show poster to all its artists to go with each show and be sold to concertgoers. Hatch Show has been doing the Ryman’s posters since at least the 1920s, and its vintage designs have become an integral part of Nashville’s image.
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Sarah Palin, Maverick With Antiwar Tendencies?
Posted on at 3:37 pmFrom the New Yorker:
So the possibility that Obama might win Alaska did not worry Palin: “Turning maybe purple in the state means, to me, it’s more independent, it’s not the obsessive partisanship that gets in the way of doing what’s right for this state, and I think on a national level that’s what we’re gonna see.” And she added, “That’s why McCain is the candidate for the G.O.P.—because he’s been known as the maverick, as the conduit for some change.” In the state’s Republican caucus, McCain came in fourth, trailing Ron Paul. “I always looked at Senator McCain just as a Joe Blow public member, looking from the outside in,” she said. “He’s been buttin’ heads with Republicans for years, and that’s a healthy place to be.” Then again, on McCain’s signature issue—the prosecution of the war in Iraq—she did not sound so gung-ho. Her son is a soldier, and she said, “I’m a mom, and my son is going to get deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign energy.”
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The Tipoff
Posted on at 3:30 pmInstapundit reveals how one could have anticipated the Sarah Palin Veep announcement:
‘At approximately 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), the company’s analysts noticed a spike in the editing traffic to Palin’s Wiki page, and that some of the same Wiki users appeared to be making changes to McCain’s page.’”
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Metro’s Republican Convenes
Posted on at 3:19 pm
Mayor Karl Dean’s Legislative Director Toby Compton takes a little time off from Metro affairs to volunteer at the Republican National Convention. Compton is on the left (in this picture anyway), Kevin Phillips of Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock is in the middle and former Sundquistista Jennifer Hatten is on the right. Photo by Ken Whitehouse.
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Doing The Right Thing: The Left Helps Palin Turn Out Traditionalists
Posted on at 2:29 pmThe Tennessee Guerilla Women point to some progressive bloggers who are giddy to point out that Republican Veep nominee-to-be Sarah Palin may have conceived her first child while unmarried.
Kudos, I suppose, for being clever enough to do the math but what exactly is the tactical political advantage of pointing this out?
As the “outers” mention, they are progressives so it doesn’t really matter to them whether a child is made “legitimate” by marriage or not so one can assume that their objective is to somehow show the hypocrisy of a conservative and spread the seeds of dissent.
Yes, social conservatives believe that sex outside of marriage is ill advised. However, when sex is had outside of marriage and a life is conceived because of it, socially conservative also believe in “doing the right thing.” Which Sarah and Todd Palin did by getting married.
This line attack betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the traditionalist and conservative mind. The fact that Sarah Palin may have participated in a “shotgun marriage” is not a strike against her but shining star in her virtue column.
Compounding the virtue, of course, is the fact that she is still married to Todd despite what may have been the somewhat expedited circumstances of the proposal. If what Americablog says is true, then Sarah Palin did not only do what a social or theological conservative would likely counsel, she has succeeded in proving the path she took as a fruitful one.
Sarah Palin not only had the baby conceived out of wedlock and married the father, she proceeded to have four more children with that same man while maintaining a career and rising to the office of Governor of her state.
Sarah Palin’s alleged “illegitimate conception” pretty much systematically unravels several assumptions that many progressives and feminists hold regarding traditional life, codes and mores. Sarah Palin essentially embraced all those “patriarchal” rules that have been foisted women from the beginning of time and actually thrived either because of (or despite) holding true to traditionalism.
This seed of dissent will find no purchase among traditionalists and pointing it out only serves to undermine the progressive, secular values many of the Left hold dear.
Just as progressives will likely want to steer clear of the abortion issue with Palin due to her down syndrome child, so too will progressives want to shy away from mention of her first child’s date of conception.
Sarah Palin is already a darling 0f the traditional Right. The only thing this tactic will do is succeed in raising her status to that of full blown icon and matyr.
Cindy McCain Asserts Alaska’s Proximity To Russia As National Security Experience
Posted on at 1:29 pmThat just happened — just as Mary Mancini said it would on Friday:
The Great Betrayal
Posted on August 30, 2008 at 11:56 pmA former member of the staff of Senator Joe Lieberman reflects on today’s political culture:
When a reporter asked Democratic convention-goers who would be less welcome in Denver, Joe Lieberman or John Edwards, the unanimous conclusion was my former boss. The notion that his transgressions were somehow more egregious than Edwards’s speaks volumes about today’s political culture.
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A Vagina Monologue
Posted on at 11:51 pmIdentity politics leave a bad taste in the mouth of Mike Byrd no matter who is playing them:
And I’m no less critical of the sudden gush of passion that the GOP has for playing identity politics or of the desperate-housewifed or soccer-momed Hillary Clinton supporters who are willing to be seduced by the latest Republican gimmick. If McCain wins and Sarah Palin is faced with the prospect of assuming the Presidency under duress and the threat of dire consequences, it won’t be her vagina that saves us. It will be her experience and skill, both of which are currently unproven
Run Away: Bob Corker To Be MIA From Minneapolis [CORRECTED]
Posted on at 11:13 pmCORRECTION: National Journal appears to be misinformed. Post Politics is told Senator Corker will be returning from his trip to Georgia September 2 and will attend the Republican National Convention.
Tennessee’s junior senator will be among the GOP members of Congress conveniently finding somewhere else to be during the Republican National Convention:
The office of Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee announced that he won’t be in Minneapolis-St. Paul because he will be inspecting damage this week in the country of Georgia after the recent Russian attacks.
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While They Were In Denver
Posted on at 3:48 pmBlogger and radio host Mary Mancini took the seat traditionally held by a Tennessee Democratic Party apparatchik on this week’s Muellerpolis panel while Chair Gray Sasser and the Boy Wonder were in Denver celebrating the nomination of Barack Obama. Panel discussion starts around the 16:36 mark:
Partying Over Pigment And Plumbing
Posted on August 29, 2008 at 6:55 pmJed Brewer is excited that, no matter what happens in the election, one of the top two spots will be held by someone who is not a white male:
Bravo to you Senator for looking past the labels this country sometimes has problems looking past. This is a truly historic selection, as it ensures that one of our top two offices will be held by someone other than a white male.
Yeah, She Also Birthed Five Babies Though
Posted on at 6:45 pmRon Fournier belittles the experience of Republican Veep nominee Sarah Palin:
Palin is 44, Obama 47. She served in her statehouse 20 months. Obama served in his statehouse for eight years. Obama and Palin are running less on their resumes than on they are on their promise. The promise of change and new politics.
The difference: Obama wants the top job, Palin the No. 2. But experience is something that matters to all voters — whether Republican, Democratic or independent. And, as McCain has suggested himself, his 72nd birthday is a reminder that age matters, too.
Passing The Torch
Posted on at 6:41 pmR. Neal wraps up his coverage of the Democratic National Convention:
Anyway, Obama rolls like a rock star and his well-run campaign has done an incredible job of energizing a new generation of voters and attracting working-class Americans who are willing to at least take a look at the long-overdue change Obama is selling.
And looking around at the young (and young at heart), diverse, highly-charged crowd at Mile High stadium, there was a palpable sense of the torch being passed from the Baby Boomers in charge of Depression-era politics to Generation X, with Generations Y and Z jumping on the bus for the wild ride into November.
The Obama campaign’s masterful job of juxtaposing stodgy, old-school GOP politics and the image of their fossilized leadership with the spectacle of last night’s stadium-rock-fueled 21st Century politics gets one thinking “maybe we can,” which is the first step to closing on “yes we can.” I don’t know how it played on TV, but Obama, the “always be closing” candidate, likely moved millions of prospects one step further down the road to closure.
Speaking for us fatigued Baby Boomers on board, all I can say is that we’re happy to hand over the reins of government (well, maybe not the Clintons so much), but these kids, they’d better deliver.
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Buchananite Palin
Posted on at 6:34 pmFrom Christoper Hayes:
“Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan’s strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. … Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage.”
Sarah Palin On Northern Exposure
Posted on at 6:27 pm(via newscoma)
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I Would Have Bet You One Thousand Dollars It Was Trent Seibert
Posted on at 5:00 pmThe second journalist investigated by rogue THP officer Ronnie Shirley was Victoria Hansen:
A former News 2 anchor was one of two journalists whose personal background was accessed by a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper currently on administrative leave.
Victoria Hansen, who left WKRN-TV in 2006, told News 2 the Tennessee Highway Patrol confirmed with her an unauthorized check of her personal background was conducted.
She was not told why.
Lt. Ronnie Shirley is on administrative leave while the THP investigation continues.
Hansen is the second named journalist on the list of 182 people.
The THP has refused to release the list of names.
SEE ALSO: Theo Emery
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