The Republican Convention kicks off Tuesday 9-2-08

But you agree with me that it was the media, and not the Obama camp, which she had the right to forcefully go after for smearing her - right? You're not going to continue conflating the two?

I agree with you that her speech was very effective amongst Republicans. I doubt anyone else felt that way though.

Cycloptichorn

And even you my dear friend, Okie, I think would not be so critical of her presentation if she was a man.

Last night’s polling shows that, by a ten-to-one margin, voters believe reporters are trying to hurt Palin’s campaign rather than help. Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly believe that a double standard is being applied to Palin because she is a woman. Democrats disagree. Perhaps most stunning is that, among unaffiliated voters, just 42% believe Obama has better experience than Palin to be President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) say Palin has the edge on experience. Again, most of the interviews for this survey were completed before Palin’s well-received speech last night.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_
presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

They try to make a case that it is 'McSame' and that what McCain/Palin are suggesting is no different than the last eight years which is not only blatantly dishonest however much it is politics as usual but is just as critical, in fact MORE so than what we have been hearing at the GOP Convention.

On a personal note, I would have admired Obama enormously if he had shown true statesmanship and had gone public to request the leftwing blogs and the media to cease and desist in their unprecedented hateful attacks on Sarah because 'we are better than that'.

Foxfyre wrote:

They try to make a case that it is 'McSame' and that what McCain/Palin are suggesting is no different than the last eight years which is not only blatantly dishonest however much it is politics as usual but is just as critical, in fact MORE so than what we have been hearing at the GOP Convention.

Ok, but that's on issues, right? They're not mocking McCain's service to his fellow Americans or Palin's biography. They're not showing utter disdain for their opponents' accomplishments and making petty remarks about their stage set.

Foxfyre wrote:

On a personal note, I would have admired Obama enormously if he had shown true statesmanship and had gone public to request the leftwing blogs and the media to cease and desist in their unprecedented hateful attacks on Sarah because 'we are better than that'.

Uh, he has done that, though he didn't single out "left wing blogs". He specifically said that families are personal and off limits. I heard him with my own ears. Biden said the same thing this morning on Fox.

McCain also has not claimed that his service to his fellow Americans is anything more than it was. He isn't pretending to have credentials that are being ignored and essentially unscrutinized by the mainstream media and his supporters aren't hollering foul when the credentials he does claim are scrutinized. How many stories re Obama's community organizer experience, something his campaign has oft cited as an important qualification, have you seen explored on the front page of the NYT for instance? I count zero. Or to any depth on inside pages for that matter. But they ran three....count them THREE...negative stories on Sarah Palin's personal life on the front page on the same day.

I said that he said it. But he did not look into the camera and ask his supporters in the media and elsewhere to cease and desist there.

Conflating the two. Show anywhere that I have done that.

Well, speaking as a woman who has felt fury and extreme resentment at the leftwing media's unprecedented unfair and hateful attacks on her and the bottom feeders like Daily Kos and Huffington Post who feed it, I thought she showed amazing restraint, class, and poise. Do you think if they had treated Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Michelle Obama even anywhere nearly in as contempitble manner that there wouldn't have been enormous outcries at the Democrat convention and protests by everybody who could find a camera to protest into? When they have delved into the most intimate aspects of her life--some even demanded she submit to a DNA test to PROVE that she is Trigg's mother--how scumbag is that???????--while declaring anything of Obama's family or background or family to be off limits for even close scrutiny, much less criticism,. . . .

Considering all that, Sarah was more than entitled to get in a few digs in her own defense. And yes, it is high time we started demanding that double standards not be applied in scrutiny of any political candidates, even if they happen to be woman.

what I hearing from the Leftwing media and blogs this morning--smug, snippy, shrill, too partisan yadda yadda.

I wish everybody could be circumspect and not caught up in blind emotional celebrity worship.

Foxfyre wrote:

I wish everybody could be circumspect and not caught up in blind emotional celebrity worship.

what, you didn't like ronald reagan?

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I wish everybody could be circumspect and not caught up in blind emotional celebrity worship.

what, you didn't like ronald reagan?

Yes I did after I got to know him. .... he won me over with his positive point of view, his ability to inspire, and convincing approach to government. And I'll have to say he delivered.

Palin strikes back at critics
From FERGUS SHANAHAN
in Minnesota
Published: Today

A WEEK ago nobody had ever heard of her.
Today she is the most talked-about woman in the world. And with good reason.

Sarah Palin's sensational performance at the Republican Party Convention may turn out to be the tipping point of this rollercoaster American election.

Obama fans hoping she would fluff her big night were in for a nasty shock.

This speech has turned the election upside down. It was simply stunning.

Democrats and their Lefty media backers had been sneering that she was a small town nobody, a hick from the Alaskan sticks put into a job way beyond an inexperienced woman.

Believe me, you will not be hearing that again.

Palin turned out to be an electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking.

Full of self-assurance and aggression, she popped Barack's balloon big-time.

From the moment she walked on stage in this cavernous bear pit, bandbox smart in cream jacket, trim black skirt and black heels, she proved that John McCain knew exactly what he was doing when he picked her as running mate.

Hair piled into a slight beehive " more Sarah White House than Amy Winehouse " she blinked and smiled behind her geeky spectacles as the vast crowd went ballistic.

For an unpopular party divided over Iraq and struggling to compete with Obama's Messianic glamour, the choice of Palin looks absolutely inspired.

Main Street America will have loved her performance.

And it was seen by 30million voters " the greatest number ever to watch a candidate for the much-derided VP post.

She is popular with voters for the very reason America's snooty political establishment despises her: She isn't one of the Washington gang.

She's a moose-hunting mum of five with a sledge-load of problems behind her own front door that workaday Americans can relate to.

A child with special needs. A daughter of 17 pregnant. A constant juggle between family and career.

As she said, her family has had its ups and downs like any other.

Last night her first task was to introduce herself and her family to an American public incredulous that the unknown Alaska governor could within weeks be a heartbeat away from being their commander in chief.

Compared to the journeyman career politicians dominating both parties here she seemed fresh, natural, one of us and not one of them.

She spoke to America as one mum to another. She cracked good jokes.

What's the difference between a hockey mum and a pit bull?, she asked.

Answer: One wears lipstick.

What will have scared the enemy camp most is the devastating series of prime-time punches she landed on the jutting Obama jaw.

Showing steel beneath her magnolia jacket, she slaughtered his lack of experience, his vanity, his emptiness beneath the windy waffle.

It was the most powerful demolition of the Democrat hero I have heard in two weeks on the US election trail.

The St Paul audience adored her.

When she duffed up the Lefty media commentators for their sexist sneers, the vast crowd roared approval and pointed in anger at the titans of the American press aloof in their special enclosure.

And quite right too: who ever asked whether Obama could still be a good dad if he became president?

The irony, as Palin pointed out, is that liberal media sniping has only succeeded in uniting Republicans behind her.

The wagons have been drawn up and the Republicans are ready for battle.

The McCain-Palin ticket now looks in exciting shape.

A war hero and a heroic mum. Experience and optimism. A man and a woman.

And when McCain joined the Palin gang " babies and boyfriends and all " on stage after her speech there was a sense of cheeky fun absent from last week's solemn Obama coronation.

How the Democrats must be regretting Hillary isn't running with Obama. Barack's sidekick Joe Biden looks a dull old dog compared with the ball of fire that is Palin.

But most fascinating of all, consider this: If Obama loses, Hillary Clinton will run in 2012. Opposing her is sure to be Sarah Palin.

That would guarantee America its first woman president.

And my fistful of dollars, having seen both in action here, would be on Palin.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/columnists/fergus_shanahan/article1647092.ece

Reagan carried California in both elections DTOM so how bad could he have been? In fact his first term he carried 91% of the electoral college and in the second every state in the union but one. And no, I won't be voting for somebody who avoided most of his actual track record at his own convention and who has nothing but a laundry list of big government programs and criticism of the present administration to offer.