With Or Without The Kid
Posted on October 13, 2008 at 9:07 amBristol Palin’s babydaddy speaks:
For starters, he said his much-maligned MySpace page was a joke — the one that claimed he said: “I’m a … redneck,” and “I don’t want kids.” Johnston said his friends created the page a few years ago and he had nothing to do with it.
Johnston said he has dated Palin since his freshman year in high school.
“We were planning on getting married a long time ago with or without the kid,” he said. “That was the plan from the start.”
A Sarah Palin Story
Posted on September 2, 2008 at 12:32 pmFrom Matt C:
A nervous young McCain staffer took it upon himself to explain to Palin the facts of life in a national campaign, the intense scrutiny she’d be under from the media, the viciousness of the assault that she’d be facing, etc.:Palin: “Thanks for the warning. By the way, do you know what they say the difference is between a hockey mom and a Pit Bull?”
McCain aide: “No, Governor.”
Palin: “A hockey mom wears lipstick.”
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Meghan McCain Defends Bristol Palin
Posted on at 11:32 amFrom McCain Blogette:
The first political convention I ever attended was when my mom was pregnant with me in 1984 and the Republican Party nominated Ronald Reagan for a second term as President. I have been on political stages and in campaigns since before I could walk or talk. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that it is difficult to establish your identity and independence as the son or daughter of a politician. When I was 14 years old, a reporter questioned my father about me having a hypothetical abortion, had I been pregnant at 14. This reporter’s question single-handedly changed my life. This story comes up in almost every profile written about me and in almost every interview. It’s a rough go being the son or daughter of a politician. I have not known Bristol Palin very long, but there is a certain kinship I feel to her as I do other political daughters such as Chelsea Clinton, Jenna and Barbara Bush and Mary Cheney. You can’t fully understand it unless you have lived it. So I just wanted to let it be known that I support Bristol and the entire Palin family.
SEE ALSO:
Guerilla Women
ABC News
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No, Let’s Talk About It
Posted on at 9:50 amMick Wright, a Republican, thinks Barack Obama is wrong to say that the situation in which Bristol Palin finds herself is off-limts for public discussion:
It’s perfectly fair for us to talk about how Sarah Palin’s socio-religious views play out in her own family. What does it mean for her husband? What does it mean for her children, and her children’s children? Does Gov. Palin advocate abstinence-only education both at home and in public schools? If so, what is the product of that ideology, and how does she personally deal with the benefits and consequences of those views? Further, how practical is that ideology when contrasted with more liberal sex education, and what are the comparative statistics on pregnancy, birth and STDs?
SEE ALSO: Dan Lehr
The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand
Posted on September 1, 2008 at 3:09 pmThe revelation that 17 year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant will have an impact on this race, no question. Some “politically and culturally savvy” Republicans will no doubt question the already questionable pick and Democrats will pounce on the fact that, yet again, a socially conservative pol who cautions abstinence for others did not seem to instill those values in her own teenage daughter.
Couple this with the fact that Sarah Palin herself may not have had a ring on her finger when she conceived her first child and we have the makings of an political flashpoint which will not soon die down.
Make no mistake, whatever you think of Sarah Palin and how she runs her family, the fact that we now have a Vice Presidential nominee running for the second highest office in the land with teenage daughter set to give birth right around inauguration day is a big deal.
The attacks on Sarah and Bristol Palin, whether from sanctioned surrogates or not, will continue no matter what Barack Obama says. Campaigns in the internet age have had and will continue to have trouble containing their message and that is why, in the end, the Republican Party should be glad this happened.
As a friend just told me after the news broke, the left is fully unprepared to win this debate. He may not have meant it how I heard it, but he is right nonetheless. The Left does not understand the fundamental nature of the socially conservative mind. That, and what is likely to be their over-exuberance in attacking what they perceive as hypocrisy, will be their downfall.
Bristol Palin has single-handedly dealt the Republican Party its winning hand. With an economy in decline and an unpopular war started by Republicans, Bristol Palin’s unborn baby has now made the Culture War the focal point of this election. This is one ground and, in fact, the only ground on which Republicans can win this election.
In 1992, when the Republican Party was facing a similar prospect, Pat Buchanan gave his famous speech on the Culture War. The speech was roundly criticized but what many failed to recognize and what was lost in the subsequent mythology around the speech was that the exit polls the day after he spoke, George H.W. Bush’s poll numbers went up, not down.
Buchanan explained his speech’s focus on culture not so much as personal preference, but as a tactical imperative. George Bush had broken his no new taxes pledge. America was on the precipice of a recession and the Bush victory in the Gulf War was all but forgotten. The Culture War was all the Republicans had.
Same as it ever was. Cutting to 2008, the Cultural War is again all Republicans have. What failed in 1992, however, may save John McCain because this time it is not Pat Buchanan, angry white male stoking up fear and resentment on behalf of an unwilling standard bearer. This time it is the kinder, gentler social conservative, Sarah Palin. This time it is a woman with a stake in a game, a pregnant teenage daughter. And Palin will get to fight the war, not as invading offender, but as a victim in defense of her child and family, as well as her values.
The Obama campaign may realize that their supporters are about to give John McCain the upper-hand but with the explosion of the internet they will be unable to stem the tide of a netroots community far too eager to expose the hypocrisy of one more wayward social conservative.
The Left on the internet and elsewhere will attack this mother of five for failing to live up to the code that she preaches. They will explain that this is proof that traditionalism doesn’t work. That the religious right is a fraud. That the preaching of abstinence is a fool’s errand. They will explain all this thinking they have just laid down the trump card when all they have done is hand it to the opposition.
I say again. John McCain cannot win this campaign on Iraq. He cannot win it on the economy. He is not the most charismatic man in the world and he has trouble with his base. That last one, of course, is the kicker. Bristol Palin just solved his problem.
All the talk this election has been how Barack Obama will expand the electoral pie. He will get the votes that went to Al Gore and John Kerry but he will couple them with his new voters, the young and the black and win a sweeping majority.
However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and Bristol Palin is that reaction. Sarah Palin now has the capability of being what Hillary Clinton claimed to be — a hero of the blue collar working class.
Sarah Palin is a working mom with five kids who managed to become Governor of her state. Now Palin has been confronted with the great fear, and for many, the difficult reality of a pregnant teenage daughter. Sarah Palin lived by a code and tried to have her kids live by it as well. Did she fail?
Maybe she did. But as many parents know, you do the best you can with your children.
The Left will fight this battle as a political debate. They will argue that Bristol Palin proves their assertions about traditionalism. They will lay it out point by point. The evidence will be solid. And their case will make sense — in theory.
But this is not theory, and to a certain extent its not even politics, this is life. Steve Schmidt is not wrong when in reaction to the news he says, “Life happens.”
Life does happen. It happens again and again to people in rural America who go to church, work and pray hard. Everyday life happens. Despite their prayers, it happens.
The Left simply misunderstands the Cultural War because they believe that social and religious conservatives think they are perfect people. Rural, working class people know exactly who they are. The Left seems to think that they are somehow breaking the news to social conservatives that sometimes, even often, kids will have sex and get pregnant. Social conservatives know these things. They are not as divorced from reality as they sometimes get painted.
You see, conservatives have code by which they live that accounts for it all. Whether they are “right” or “wrong” is immaterial. It is the Left’s misunderstanding which is important here.
Conservatives know they are imperfect. Instead of embracing the imperfection and “giving up” they instead prefer to strive for something better.
Now, whether this outlook is conservative outlook is true or untrue, healthy or unhealthy is, again, not the point, politically speaking. Telling the American working class that Sarah Palin was wrong to have tried to bring up her daughters by a code in which she believed and that Bristol Palin’s unborn child is the proof that the Left’s arguments about traditional life are true will not resonate with anyone who is not already an Obama voter.
The Left cannot win this Battle of Bristol. The more they try to win it, to demonstrate they are right, the more they will lose ground with those voters they desperate need to stay home or vote for Barack Obama.
For what the Left sees as hypocrisy, most folks who are not Obama voters just see as falling short. As, of course, we, as humans, all do.
Bristol Palin’s journey is a human story. She tried to be good. She fell short. Instead of aborting the baby she will carry it to term and marry the father. To socially conservative America, there is nothing tragic about this.
You see, to many of the voters Barack Obama has not yet seemed to reach and who have thus far been ambivalent about McCain, this is exactly how these things are supposed to go. Their reality has not been shaken, the scales have not fallen from their eyes.
Sarah Palin did nothing “wrong.” And Bristol Palin did nothing other than sin, which we all do. She is now managing her sin as prescribed by tradition. To the traditionalist the situation is not ideal, no, but it is not a disaster.
This is a human story. The more the left attacks, attempts to expose “hypocrisy”, the more the personal will very much become the political. Unfortunately it will become political in a way that leads all those hard working Bubbas, all those church-going single mommas, right out to the polls to vote for that war hero and and those women they now identify with, Sarah and Bristol Palin.
To the Left, this situation looks like that big fat change-up they have been waiting for coming right across the plate. Let me assure you, friends, what is coming at you is a knuckleball, a greased pig with wings.
You are gonna want to take this pitch. You may win the “argument”, but you will lose the election.
SEE ALSO:
The Evangelical Daily Double
Jon Wright
Chris Sanders
Ilissa Gold
Moore Thoughts
Sarah Palin’s 17 Year Old Daughter, Bristol Palin, Is Pregnant
Posted on at 11:37 amReuters reports that Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for Veep, has made a statement on her daughter’s pregnancy in part to strike down rumors on the internet that Sarah Plain’s fifth child, Trig, was not hers but rather the son of her daughter, Bristol:
“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.
“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”
John McCain was aware of the pregnancy before choosing the Alaska Governor as his running-mate. On Saturday, a diarist on the left-wing website Daily Kos accused the mother of five of faking her fifth pregnancy in order to cover-up her daughter’s first. That rumor was eventually proved false.
Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock conception may be a case of like mother like daughter. Sarah’s first child, Track, appears to have been conceived outside of wedlock as well. Like her mother, Bristol Palin intends to marry the father of her baby.
UPDATE: A Post Politics analysis.
SEE ALSO:
Attacks will backfire
Andrew Sullivan
Tennessee Free
The Page
First Read
Hotline
Ben Smith
Jim Antle
Billy Valentine
Grantham is Talking
The Hill
Stacy McCain
Jeremy Lott
Rich Hailey
Vox Politics
Huff Post
Kay Brooks
Dan Lehr
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