A Vice Presidental candidate thread.

Watergate, a cheap burglary into a campaign office, thats it. And we've been hearing about it for decades. I have a good understanding of it. I watched all the hearings day in and day out, with good ole Sam Ervin, I thought it was important then. It was important, but hardly what it has been played up to be. I have seen far more important corruptions go virtually unnoticed and uncared about.

I hate to keep having to bring this up, but evidence that Clinton used the IRS to harass and target his political enemies was ignored. That is a biggee. Evidence that he got campaign money from China for favors was ignored. That is a biggee. Evidence that he pardoned terrorists to help his wife get elected was ignored. That is a biggee. Evidence that he pardoned criminals that gave him money for his library. That is a biggee. The list is endless. At least Nixon did not sell out his own country, and pardon me, you seem to think Nixon was the first president to know about bugging devices against political enemies? Have you not read about Hoover in cahoots with other presidents?

I have seen far more important corruptions go virtually unnoticed and uncared about.

Sorry you're wrong....375 votes for...and 156 against (from his link) of the leaders of this nation (both House and Senate).

Yet it's a quote from McCain himself that most accurately captures what's going on. In the book Woodward recalls a conversation with McCain from 2001, months before 9/11, when the Arizona Senator summed up his opinions of Bush and his team pungently: "Everything's f*ing spin," he tells Woodward. How true, but then again, that was the old McCain.

09.09.08 -- 11:57PM // link | recommend (3)
Newsweek Burning Up the Trooper-Gate Case

The latest out of Trooper-gate.

Remember that Palin's Trooper-Gate scandal revolves around her apparent efforts to use her power as governor to have her ex-brother-in-law, an Alaska state trooper, fired from his job. The trooper, Michael Wooten, was in a long-lasting and bitter divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister. (Once the state Commissioner of Public Safety, Wooten's ultimate boss, wouldn't do the deed, she fired him.)

Now it comes out that before she even became governor -- and was in a position to abuse her power of office -- Palin had to be warned by the judge in the divorce case that her harassment of Wooten amounted to "a form of child abuse."

If her behavior was so abusive and over-the-line before she became governor (this was in 2005), can there really be much doubt she would have used all her power of office to get him fired?

--Josh Marshall

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers' union about how Sarah Palin"then a private citizen"and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were "not job-related," and that Wooten was being "harassed" by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated"it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives."

Palin helps McCain with evangelicals, doesn't ensure their vote: analysts
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) " The "Palin factor" may have boosted support for Republican presidential contender John McCain among evangelical Christians but he should not bank on the religious right putting him in the White House as it did George W. Bush in 2004, analysts said Tuesday.

White evangelical Christians were key in getting Bush elected to a second term in 2004, but the US political landscape has changed for this year's contest, analysts from the Pew Research think-tank told reporters at a forum in Washington.

For a start, fewer voters, including evangelicals, align themselves with the Republican party.

"Since about 2005 we have seen a sharp decline in the number of people calling themselves Republicans," Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Washington-based Pew Research Center, told reporters.

"The Democratic Party has a bigger advantage among the public than they've had any time in our polling since 1992," he added.

The same slump is apparent, although not as dramatic, among white evangelicals, who voted massively for Bush in 2004.

"Evangelical voters have displayed a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current state of things, including the Republican Party," said John Greene, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

And yet on Tuesday, it was the Democrats who appeared to be on the defensive as polls put McCain ahead of or tied with his Democratic rival for the presidency, Barack Obama.

"All the polls show a significant convention bounce for the Republicans ... and very high approval of Sarah Palin's selection as the vice presidential candidate," said Keeter.

Gallup had McCain at 49 percent and Obama at 44, noting a major shift by white women and independent voters to the Republican ticket thanks largely to the "Palin factor".

A poll by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation had Obama at 49 percent and McCain at 48.

Another poll, by CBS, showed McCain doubling his support among evangelicals -- from 24 percent before he named the unknown conservative Alaska governor as his running mate to 48 percent afterwards, Keeter said.

"McCain achieved a doubling of support among a key voter group" by choosing Palin, "a strong evangelical woman", Keeter said.

But the post-convention bounce was unlikely to last.

"Some of what we are seeing now may be, if not ephemeral, subject to change with further events in the campaign," he said, without going into detail.

Greene pointed out that Palin was "relatively new, even to evangelicals, so it will be interesting to see how well she wears."

Another factor that could affect the religious vote was that mainstream Protestants have shifted to the Democratic Party this year -- 45 percent versus 43 percent four years ago.

An "extraordinarily low satisfaction" rate among Americans with the state of the US economy -- fewer than one in five are happy with the way the country is going -- has also knocked Republican popularity.

"In conditions like this, we typically don't see the incumbent party winning elections," Keeter said.

And moral issues, which are important to evangelicals and other conservatives, have lost traction: abortion was down eight points in importance among all voters since 2004, and gay marriage was down four points, according to Pew.

Also working against McCain is the rising number of Americans who say they are not affiliated to any religion.

That number has grown by four percent over the past 20 years, with young adults significantly more likely to say they are not linked to a particular faith.

In the primaries, young Democratic voters were far more enthusiastic and numerous than their Republican counterparts, and the religiously unaffiliated were a very important part of the Democrats' congressional victories in 2006, Keeter said.

But the religious group both parties should pay attention to is white, non-Hispanic Catholics.

"The white Catholic community is evenly divided between Obama and McCain -- quite a difference from 2004," when Bush won the majority of Catholic votes, said Green.

"There is a possibility that the Democrats might do better with white Catholics than in 2004 -- they are the quintessential swing-voting group," he said.

Uhhh cyclops, sounds like he should have been fired. I don't think this is a winning issue for you guys. Listen to Mike Gravel on this subject. He says the man should have been fired before he killed somebody, he was a danger:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBXYcgXV8M[/youtube]

Doesn't she want this matter put to rest ASAP.

firefly wrote-

Quote:

Doesn't she want this matter put to rest ASAP.

You mean on Ignore I suppose.

What's the point in being loaded down with the heavy burdens of a Govenorship if you can't hire and fire who you want. Don't we choose our leaders as our best hope to have things run properly? To govern within a legal framework.

There are levels of ethics. Firing nannies is even lower on the scale than firing troopers.

Do you mean that someone she has a personal dispute with automatically has job security. Many people have used that gambit.