Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin

From today's Wall St. Journal by John O'Sullivan:

Being listed in fourth place for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," as Sarah Palin was for 2008, sounds a little like being awarded the Order of Purity (Fourth Class). But it testifies to something important.

Though regularly pronounced sick, dying, dead, cremated and scattered at sea, Mrs. Palin is still amazingly around. She has survived more media assassination attempts than Fidel Castro has survived real ones (Cuban official figure: 638). In her case, one particular method of assassination is especially popular -- namely, the desperate assertion that, in addition to her other handicaps, she is "no Margaret Thatcher."

Very few express this view in a calm or considered manner. Some employ profanity. Most claim to be conservative admirers of Mrs. Thatcher. Others admit they had always disliked the former British prime minister until someone compared her to "Sarracuda" -- at which point they suddenly realized Mrs. Thatcher must have been absolutely brilliant (at least by comparison).

Inevitably, Lloyd Bentsen's famous put-down of Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debate is resurrected, such as by Paul Waugh (in the London Evening Standard) and Marie Cocco (in the Washington Post): "Newsflash! Governor, You're No Maggie Thatcher," sneered Mr. Waugh. Added Ms. Coco, "now we know Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher -- and no Dan Quayle either!"

Jolly, rib-tickling stuff. But, as it happens, I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common.

They are far from identical; they rose in different political systems requiring different skills. As a parliamentarian, Mrs. Thatcher needed forensic and debating skills which her training in Oxford politics and as a tax lawyer gave her. Mrs. Palin is a good speaker, but she needs to hone her debating tactics if she is to match those of the Iron Lady.

On the other hand, Mrs. Palin rose in state politics to jobs requiring executive ability. Her successful conduct of the negotiations with Canada, Canadian provinces and American states over the Alaska pipeline was a larger executive task than anything handled by Mrs. Thatcher until she entered the Cabinet and, arguably, until she became prime minister.

Mrs. Thatcher's most senior position until then had been education secretary in the government of Edward Heath where, as she conceded in her memoirs, she lacked real executive power. Her political influence within that government was so small that it took 17 months for her to get an interview with him. Even then, a considerate civil servant assured Heath that others would be present to make the meeting less "boring." Her main political legacy from that job was the vitriolic slogan, "Margaret Thatcher, Milk-Snatcher," thrown at her by the left because of a budgetary decision she had opposed to charge some children for school meals and milk. It was the single most famous thing about her when she defeated Heath for the Tory leadership in 1975.

At this point she became almost as "controversial" as Sarah Palin. Heath, for example, made it plain privately that he would not serve under her. And Sir Ian Gilmour, an intellectual leader of the Tory "wets," privately dismissed her as a "Daily Telegraph woman." There is no precise equivalent in American English, but "narrow, repressed suburbanite" catches the sense.

Mrs. Thatcher attracted such abuse for two reasons. First, she was seen by the chattering classes as representing a blend of provincial conservative values and market economics -- Middle England as it has come to be called -- against their own metropolitan liberalism. They thought this blend was an economic dead-end in a modern complex society and a political retreat into futile nostalgia. Of course, they failed to notice that their modern complex society was splintering under their statist burdens even as they denounced her extremism.

Second, Margaret Thatcher was not yet Margaret Thatcher. She had not won the 1979 election, recovered the Falklands, reformed trade union law, defeated the miners, and helped destroy Soviet communism peacefully.

Things like that change your mind about a girl. But they also take time, during which she had to turn her instinctive beliefs into intellectually coherent policies against opposition inside and outside her own party. Like Mrs. Palin this year, Mrs. Thatcher knew there were serious gaps in her knowledge, especially of foreign affairs. She recruited experts who shared her general outlook (such as Robert Conquest and Hugh Thomas) to tutor her on these things. Even so she often seemed very alone in the Tory high command.

As a parliamentary sketch writer for the Daily Telegraph (and a not very repressed suburbanite), I watched Mrs. Thatcher's progress as opposition leader. She had been a good performer in less exalted positions. But initially she faltered. Against the smooth, condescending Prime Minister James Callaghan in particular she had a hard time. In contrast to his chuckling baritone she sounded shrill when she attacked. But she lowered her tone (vocally not morally), took lessons in presentation from (among others) Laurence Olivier, and prepared diligently for every debate and Question Time.

I can still recall her breakthrough performance in a July 1977 debate on the Labour government's collapsing economy. She dominated the House of Commons so wittily that the next day the Daily Mail's acerbic correspondent, Andrew Alexander, began his report: "If Mrs. Thatcher were a racehorse, she would have been tested for drugs yesterday." She was now on the way to becoming the world-historical figure who today is the gold standard of conservative statesmanship.

Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match this. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher's depths of courage, firmness and stamina -- we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America's problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter's speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That's the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Mrs. Palin had four big occasions in the late, doomed Republican campaign: her introduction by John McCain in Ohio, her speech at the GOP convention, her vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, and her appearance on Saturday Night Live. With minimal preparation, she rose to all four of them. That's the mark of a star.

If conservative intellectuals, Republican operatives and McCain "handlers" can't see it, then so much the worse for them.

Mr. O'Sullivan is executive editor of Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in Prague, and a former special adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His book, "The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister" (Regnery), has just been published in paperback.

Did Gov. Palin Cut Alaskan Aid to Catholic Charities?

In today's National Catholic Register, Dr. Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College provided the following analysis on Liberal blog reports that Gov. Palin was a hypocrite when it comes to supporting charitable organizations:

Since Gov. Sarah Palin has arrived on the scene, claims have proliferated that she engaged in draconian budget cuts aimed at needy and vulnerable people.

Case in point: Numerous bloggers have claimed that Palin cut funds to Catholic charities. The idea made at least one mainstream source, as well. In a Sept. 11 Bloomberg News op-ed, Margaret Carlson wrote: “Palin, who said parents of special-needs children would have an advocate in the White House, cut funds for the Special Olympics, Catholic Charities and Covenant House. It would be good to know what she favors that parents need.”

I have previously examined the Special Olympics and Covenant House claims and found them to be false. The Catholic Charities claim is a similar kind of accusation, but a bit more complex.

First, I cannot find a line item or listing for Catholic Charities in the fiscal year 2008 or 2009 Alaska budgets. In the 2008 budget (July 1, 2007-June 30, 2008), however, Catholic Community Services was allocated funding for several projects.

By my calculations, the Alaska Legislature proposed $582,925 in four capital projects, and the Palin administration left $62,925 intact. According to the Palin administration’s rationale for vetoes, the $20,000 for the freezer would have been duplicate funding (apparently another source was found), and the $500,000 would have created “new facilities and programs.” Wilda Laughlin, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services told me that most requests for new facilities were not funded, with the priority given to refurbish existing infrastructure (e.g., the Juneau Adult Day Center parking lot).

Now look at the 2009 funding for Catholic Community Services:

The Angoon folks still didn’t get their freezer and fridge. But the Juneau branch received $50,000 for hospice care, and the Fairbanks branch received $150,000 that they did not have before. Again, the charge regarding a cut relates to a reduced increase — and not a cut. As a legislator, it is relatively easy to ask for money for a constituent’s project knowing that the executive branch must balance the budget. In summary, the Legislature proposed $370,000 in three line items, with the final budget allocating $200,000 to the Catholic charitable organizations.

The Catholic organizations received almost six times as much funding in 2009 as in 2008. I do not see how this can be considered a cut.

In fact, the director of Catholic Community Services was happy to get the funding, according to a May 23, 2008 article in the Fairbanks News-Miner: “Palin also halved funding for counseling and adoption services at Catholic Community Resources. But Camille Connelly-Terhune, the group’s executive director, said the group was ‘thrilled’ with the $150,000 it did get. ‘It gives us the option to continue our services,’ she said.”

If Ms. Connelly-Terhune is happy, then why aren’t Palin’s detractors happy? Ms. Connelly-Terhune knows a raise when she sees one.

The Morning After

After a rocky 10 days for the McCain-Palin ticket, the GOP nominees took a step up last night during the Vice Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

VP Nominee Sarah Palin showed America that she is articulate and intelligent, especially when she is not set up by the Katie Courics of the world. Looking at the debate as an impartial observer, I would give Palin the victory for form and Biden the victory for substance.

Palin deserves even that much more credit considering who she is up on the podium defending -- John McCain. That is not an easy thing to do considering his track record.

With just over a month to go until Election Day, I do fear for America that Obama will win by 4-6 points in the popular vote, based on a snapshot of today's environment. McCain had a good shot coming out of Minneapolis, but the economic situation, coupled with his poorly run campaign, brought him back down to pre-convention levels in the polls. He has been ineffective in getting his message out, whereas the Obama team, with a lot of money behind it, has done the job targeting independents in the key states.

To their credit, the Dems are speaking with one voice. All of the usual characters (Obama, Clintons, Pelosi, Reid, et al) blame Bush and the Republicans and no one else for the economic mess. Who does McCain blame during an interview on "60 Minutes"? Bush, the Republians and, oh by the way, the Democrats. This is not a way to win an election.

A few final comment on last night's debate:

(1) Global Warming -- Is Joe Biden actually being serious when he says that global warming / climate change is completely "man made"? Perhaps someone in the area of earth sciences can educate Sen. Biden on the two principal reasons why climate change is occurring -- (a) time and (b) the sun.

(2) The Obama Tax Plan -- So if ALL of us (95 percent of America) are not going to pay a penny more in taxes for all of Obama's spending plans, then who will? Oh, that's right, the big Corporations (how many times did Biden mention Exxon/Mobil during the debate?). Great, so let's tax the big Corporations. Gee, I wonder if those higher taxes will get passed down to the customer? Can anyone say higher gas prices??? Higher costs for Dell computers??? Higher costs for Apple I-Pods??? Actually, Apple will probably be spared since it is a Lib company...

Media Double Standards Become Even More Obvious

Just finished reading the following article in National Journal from Stuart Taylor, Jr., who typically leans left of center. The blatancy of the liberal bias from the mainstream media during this presidential election is becoming even too obnoxious for people like him...

=====================================

Campaign Lies, Media Double Standards

The media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis.

by Stuart Taylor
Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008

Some who have been admirers of John McCain think that the war hero has debased himself by using gross distortions to trash Barack Obama and his record. Others see the media fury over McCain's campaign ads as more evidence of a double standard driven by liberal bias at most major news organizations.

Both are right. Although each candidate is responsible for many distortions -- hardly a novelty -- McCain has lately been leading the race to the bottom. (Since the print version of this column went to press, Obama may have pulled even with McCain in the race to the bottom, or even ahead of him, by launching a scurrilously dishonest new Spanish-language TV ad. It misleadingly portrays McCain "and his Republican friends" as anti-immigrant bigots who say "lies just to get our vote." It also associates McCain with deceptively out-of-context quotes by Rush Limbaugh -- no friend of McCain's -- about "stupid and unskilled Mexicans." Jake Tapper of ABC News provides details.)

At the same time, many in the media have been one-sided, sometimes adding to Obama's distortions rather than acting as impartial reporters of fact and referees of the mud fights.
We still have many great journalists, but I no longer trust the major newspapers or television networks to provide consistently accurate and fair reporting and analysis of all the charges and countercharges. This in an era when the noise produced by highly partisan TV hosts and blogs creates a crying need for at least one newspaper that we can count on to play it straight.
Indeed, one reason that candidates get away with dishonest campaign ads and speeches may be that it is so hard for undecided voters like me to discern which charges are true, which are exaggerated, and which are false. Most people can't spend hours every day cross-checking diverse sources of information to verify the accuracy of slanted stories and broadcasts such as these:

* In Sarah Palin's first big media interview, on September 11, Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked: "You said recently, in your old church, 'Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' Are we fighting a holy war?" Palin responded: "You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote." Gibson pressed: "Exact words."

Viewers had no way of knowing that, in fact, Gibson was distorting Palin's meaning by leaving out critical context and thus making an unremarkable exhortation to prayer sound like a declaration of holy war. Palin had not said that the war was a task from God. She had urged her listeners to "pray" that it was a task from God. A September 3 Associated Press report by Gene Johnson distorted Palin's meaning in exactly the same way.

* A front-page story in the September 12 Washington Post, by Anne Kornblut, was headlined: "Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 in Talk to Troops in Alaska." This was misleading, as were the first two paragraphs. They implied that Palin had advanced the long-discredited "idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped Al Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." In fact, Palin's reasonably clear meaning was not that Saddam had a role in the 9/11 attacks but that (as the article backhandedly acknowledged) the troops would be fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is related to the group that launched the 9/11 attacks.

* The New York Times did a huge (3,120-word) front-page story on February 21 implying that McCain had had a sexual affair with a female lobbyist while doing her political favors. But the article lacked strong evidence either that there had been a sexual affair or that McCain had crossed legal or ethical lines to do favors. Would The Times have printed the same story had the senator been Barack Obama or John Kerry? I doubt it.

* The Times also rushed to assert, in a front-page story on September 2 questioning how carefully McCain vetted Palin's background, that she "was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede." This turned out to be erroneous. (Her husband had previously been a member.)

This is not to deny that McCain deserves much of the criticism he has received for his distortions about Obama. But not all of it. Take the ad on which the most-bitter media complaints -- "blizzard of lies" and the like -- have focused. It asserts that Obama's "one accomplishment" in the area of education was "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergarteners."

But the bill was not Obama's (he was not a sponsor), was not an accomplishment (it never passed), and would not have been his "only" accomplishment even if it had passed. More important, it called for extending only "age appropriate" sex ed from sixth grade down to kindergarten. There is no reason to doubt Obama's explanation that he wanted kindergartners to be taught only the dangers of inappropriate touching.

But a Times editorial overstated the case in saying that "the kindergarten ad flat-out lies" and that "at most, kindergartners were to be taught the dangers of sexual predators." In fact, whatever Obama's intention, the bill itself was designed "to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children below sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten," as Byron York demonstrates in a detailed National Review Online article.

McCain has also lowered himself by claiming repeatedly, and incorrectly, that Obama's proposals would raise taxes on the middle class. (In fact, Obama would cut middle-class taxes more than McCain would.) And his campaign has descended into fatuousness by implausibly claiming that Obama was trying to demean Sarah Palin when he used the "lipstick on a pig" analogy to criticize McCain's economic proposals.

Obama seems to prefer a more civil discourse. But he, too, has sometimes lowered himself, without provoking anything like the media outcry against McCain. Obama falsely claimed in February that McCain "is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq." In fact, McCain had made it clear that just as "we've been in Japan for 60 years," he could see a 100-year presence in Iraq -- but only "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

More recently, Obama has run misleading ads claiming that McCain has voted to cut education funding and would give "$200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools"; implying that his aides are still lobbying for special interests; and more.
McCain also deserves criticism for the ugly culture-warring epitomized at the Republican convention by Rudy Giuliani's keynote speech and sneers about Obama's stint as a community organizer. But who started the culture-warring? Democratic talking heads and pols -- although not Obama -- heaped disdain on Palin's social class, religion, and anti-abortion values from the moment that McCain plucked her from obscurity.

I was deeply dismayed by the 72-year-old McCain's reckless choice of the inexperienced and untested Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. But I am also deeply skeptical when I see front-page headlines like "As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood" (Washington Post, September 14), or "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes" (New York Times, same day). Such loaded language is a badge not of a newsroom committed to impartial investigation but of an ideological echo chamber.

Many media commentators also exude a conviction that Republicans have long played dirtier and more dishonest political hardball than do Democrats. Maybe, but I'm not so sure. We are often reminded of Republican sins ranging from the (accurate) Willie Horton ads of 1988 to the (over-the-top) "Swiftboating" of 2004. We hear a lot less about Democratic sins such as President Clinton's distortions of Bob Dole's position on Medicare in 1996 and the NAACP's stunningly scurrilous ad campaign in 2000 associating George W. Bush's opposition to a hate crimes bill with the racist murderers who dragged James Byrd behind a truck.

Ironically, there is some evidence that media venting about McCain's ads may be helping McCain. The venting, especially on TV gabfests, draws much more attention than the ads themselves, while distracting attention from the issues on which Obama wants to focus. Indeed, reportedly the McCain campaign often buys little or no TV time to air the ads, preferring to get them on the air free, denunciations and all.

Consider also a fascinating Washington Post piece by Shankar Vedantam on September 15. He cites studies showing not only that "misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds [even] after it has been debunked" -- especially among those predisposed to believe it -- but also that refutations sometimes backfire by increasing the number of people who believe the original misinformation.

The studies found this refutation "backfire effect" among conservatives but not liberals. Part of the explanation may be that conservatives have more-rigid views than liberals, as political scientists quoted by Vedantam suggest. And part of it may be that conservatives have more reason to distrust the usual refuters.

Correction: My September 13 column erred in saying that in 2003, as an Illinois legislator, Barack Obama "unsuccessfully" opposed a bill nearly identical to the federal "Born Alive Infant Protection Act." In fact, he helped kill the bill.

Democratic "Insider" Poll Gives Nod to Palin

In this week's National Journal, which hit the streets this morning, its "Congressional Insiders Poll" asked, "Which vice presidential nominee boosts his or her ticket's chances more?"

The results were:

Democrats (33 votes)
Biden -- 33 percent
Palin -- 45 percent
No Difference -- 21 percent

Republicans (39 votes)
Biden -- 0 percent
Palin -- 100 percent
No Difference -- 0 percent

My favorite comment from a Dem: "The ultimate swing voters in this race -- white women -- have moved from narrowly Obama to comfortably McCain. If that trend line somehow holds, Obama would have to post the best Democratic numbers with white men since 1976. As for Biden, the least consequential vice presidential pick in the modern era was Jack Kemp in 1996. Biden is on pace to match him."

Liberals Out of Touch with Americans

Column in today's Financial Times on the problems facing the American liberal establishment...

Democrats must learn some respect
September 7, 2008
Financial Times
by Clive Crook

This article is not the first to note the cultural contradiction in American liberalism, but just now the point bears restating. The election may turn on it.

Democrats speak up for the less prosperous; they have well-intentioned policies to help them; they are disturbed by inequality, and want to do something about it. Their concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.

Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.

It is an attitude that a good part of the US media share. The country has conservative media (Fox News, talk radio) as well as liberal media (most of the rest). Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral.

Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country.

Because it was so unexpected, Sarah Palin’s nomination for the vice-presidency jolted these attitudes to the surface. Ms Palin is a small-town American. It is said that she has only recently acquired a passport. Her husband is a fisherman and production worker. She represents a great slice of the country that the Democrats say they care about – yet her selection induced an apoplectic fit.

For days, the derision poured down from Democratic party talking heads and much of the media too. The idea that “this woman” might be vice-president or even president was literally incomprehensible. The popular liberal comedian Bill Maher, whose act is an endless sneer at the Republican party, noted that John McCain’s case for the presidency was that only he was capable of standing between the US and its enemies, but that should he die he had chosen “this stewardess” to take over. This joke was not – or not only – a complaint about lack of experience. It was also an expression of class disgust. I give Mr Maher credit for daring to say what many Democrats would only insinuate.

Little was known about Ms Palin, but it sufficed for her nomination to be regarded as a kind of insult. Even after her triumph at the Republican convention in St Paul last week, the put-downs continued. Yes, the delivery was all right, but the speech was written by somebody else – as though that is unusual, as though the speechwriter is not the junior partner in the preparation of a speech, and as though just anybody could have raised the roof with that text. Voters in small towns and suburbs, forever mocked and condescended to by metropolitan liberals, are attuned to this disdain. Every four years, many take their revenge.

The irony in 2008 is that the Democratic candidate, despite Republican claims to the contrary, is not an elitist. Barack Obama is an intellectual, but he remembers his history. He can and does connect with ordinary people. His courteous reaction to the Palin nomination was telling. Mrs Palin (and others) found it irresistible to skewer him in St Paul for “saying one thing about [working Americans] in Scranton, and another in San Francisco”. Mr Obama made a bad mistake when he talked about clinging to God and guns, but I am inclined to make allowances: he was speaking to his own political tribe in the native idiom.

The problem in my view is less Mr Obama and more the attitudes of the claque of official and unofficial supporters that surrounds him. The prevailing liberal mindset is what makes the criticisms of Mr Obama’s distance from working Americans stick.

If only the Democrats could contain their sense of entitlement to govern in a rational world, and their consequent distaste for wide swathes of the US electorate, they might gain the unshakeable grip on power they feel they deserve. Winning elections would certainly be easier – and Republicans would have to address themselves more seriously to economic insecurity. But the fathomless cultural complacency of the metropolitan liberal rules this out.

The attitude that expressed itself in response to the Palin nomination is the best weapon in the Republican armoury. Rely on the Democrats to keep it primed. You just have to laugh.

The Palin nomination could still misfire for Mr McCain, but the liberal reaction has made it a huge success so far. To avoid endlessly repeating this mistake, Democrats need to learn some respect.

It will be hard. They will have to develop some regard for the values that the middle of the country expresses when it votes Republican. Religion. Unembarrassed flag-waving patriotism. Freedom to succeed or fail through one’s own efforts. Refusal to be pitied, bossed around or talked down to. And all those other laughable redneck notions that made the United States what it is.

Republicans’ Enthusiasm Jumps After Convention

Here's the latest from Gallup...

PRINCETON, NJ -- As the remarkable two-week stretch of back-to-back presidential nomination conventions ends, a weekend USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket has more than matched the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket's convention bounce of last week with a "rebound" bounce, and in the immediate aftermath of the GOP convention McCain and Palin now have a slight edge over their opponents.

The presidential race was dead even at 45% to 45% among registered voters in Gallup tracking conducted prior to the Democratic convention. Then, by the USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted in the first few days after the Democratic convention (and also after McCain had made his announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate), Obama had moved ahead by a 47% to 43% margin. (In Gallup Poll Daily tracking extending into the beginning of last week, Obama reached a point where he had 50% of the vote and an eight percentage point lead.) Obama's lead has now disappeared totally, and McCain sits on a 4-point advantage among registered voters in the Friday through Sunday poll. That's the largest advantage for McCain in either USA Today/Gallup Polls or Gallup Poll Daily tracking since May.

The convention and/or McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate not only had the effect of moving the horserace needle in McCain's direction, but also increased several measures of enthusiasm for the GOP.

There has been a very substantial jump in the percentage of Republicans saying they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election, from 42% a week ago (after the Democratic convention, but before the Republican convention) to 60% today. Democrats still retain a slight lead on this measure, having increased their enthusiasm slightly this last week as well. But the enthusiasm gap, which has been so much a part of the story of the presidential election so far this year, has dwindled from 19 points in the Democrats' favor a week ago to only seven points today.

To read the entire article, click here

Recap of the 2008 RNC Convention

From my perspective, the RNC Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul was much more successful than anticipated , especially following the "drama" in Denver. Kudos to Convention President and CEO Maria Cino and her staff who have been working in Minnesota for 18 months to prepare for this week.

My Top 5 highlights of the week:

No. 5 -- The Stage: Loved the simplicity of the stage, especially after seeing all the "fluff" in Denver the week prior. No gothic pillars, no fanfare, no loud colors -- just a simple stage and a BIG HD screen. A textbook example of K.I.S.S.

No. 4 -- Going on the Offensive Against the Media: It was nice to see speaker after speaker during the prime time speeches not beat around the bush when it comes to pointing out the obvious -- that the mass media are biased and liberal. It seemed to catch Anderson Cooper, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, and Tom Brokaw off guard.

No. 3 -- Mike Huckabee's Speech: Showed why he was such a force during the primary season. Extremely articulate, convincing and likable.

No. 2 -- Fred Thompson's Speech: Really did a fantastic job helping paint a picture of the character of Sen. McCain with a combination of humor and sincerity.

No. 1 -- The Speech: Still can't say enough about Wednesday night's speech. Only 1 million less viewers tuned in than the Obama speech in Denver (38M vs. 37M). It has been the talk of the carpool line, school pickup, neighbors, Irish Dance moms and dads, family members, et al. Even Michael Reagan wrote that he sees his dad in her.

You'll note that I did not include Sen. McCain's speech in my top five. He had a tough act to follow after Gov. Palin's night on Wednesday. McCain's speech seemed choppy in many places and the green background on the screen at the start of his speech made him look older than he already is, but he did put it together between 10:45 and 11:05 and ended nicely. He needed to get a C+/B-, which he accomplished -- not a "knock-your-socks-off" speech but also not a dud.

Now it's off on the campaign trail for both tickets, with the first debate set for September 26. Also looking forward to the VP debate -- Palin vs. "Plugs" -- on October 2.

The Next Reagan?

Take a look at the article below from President Reagan's son, Michael, which appeared in Human Events yesterday...

September 04, 2008

Welcome Back, Dad
By Michael Reagan

I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.

I was wrong!

Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she.

And what a she!

In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene.

This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.

Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain’s presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser.

Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.

Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.

Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.

Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.

Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.

As hard as you might try, you won’t find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign.

Sarah Palin didn’t go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation’s most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama.

Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.

Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.

Mr. Reagan is a syndicated radio talk-show host and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

"WOW!"

...That was all I could say last night after GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin's speech. I even got a phone call around 11:30 p.m. from a friend who typically does not get excited about politics who was blown away.

After a week of media and NOW bashing about her experience, her family, her ability to mother, TrooperGate, etc., she stood up and gave one of the most impressive political speeches in recent memory, especially as her first in front of a national audience. As Fred Barnes commented last night after the speech, "It’s a gift. She’s a natural. You can’t teach this." He is so right.

Palin is the "real deal" and win or lose this November, Conservatives who felt they had no one for the future saw their future last night. She is the first Top Ticket candidate that I can remember who not only attracts the extreme end of a party but also the middle. The Dems have to be distraught after what they saw last night. They continue to only respond with "another four years of Bush" and "she's inexperienced". She might be, but she has the same inexperience and charisma as Obama but without the aura of elitism.

We'll see what the polls say in the days and weeks to come, but I would be shocked if Palin doesn't provide the GOP ticket with a good size bump.

Liberal Hypocrisy (Again...)

Hypocrisy from the Libs, once again...

This time it comes from the National Organization of Women (NOW), which consistently criticizes Conservatives and the GOP for "keeping women down" and not being inclusive of women at the highest levels of the party. So when Sen. McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin yesterday at his VP nominee, NOW must have come out with strong praise for McCain and the GOP for nominating a woman to such a position, right? WRONG!

August 29, 2008

Statement of NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy on the Selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s Vice Presidential Pick

Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.

Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women’s rights, just like John McCain.

The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.

In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would “choose life” — meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion.

Palin also had to withdraw her appointment of a top public safety commissioner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, although Palin had been warned about his background through letters by the sexual harassment complainant.

What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.

Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.

Finally, as the chair of NOW’s Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic ‘No.’ We recognize the importance of having women’s rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women’s rights.

Obviously the NOW harridans only approve of women who get ahead on the coat tails of their husbands, like Hillary Clinton. Isn't it ironic that Conservative women and African Americans are not the "right" kind of women and African Americans? And they say that we are the party of prejudice...

Gov. Palin Selected as McCain's VP Nominee in Dayton, Ohio

On the day following the media's "Annointing" of The Messiah in Denver, GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain made the best decision of his presidential campaign to date with the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee.

The announcement, made in the GREAT Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio (sorry for the media bias...), was a step forward in attracting hard-line Conservatives as well as indepedent voters and those women and women groups who left Denver today still upset and feeling betrayed by their party with the final outcome.

Gov. Palin is a strong Pro-Life mother of five children, including her latest son who has down's syndrome, is a "hockey mom", served on the local PTA and worked her way up the ranks of local and state politics. She has a strong reputation for leading bipartisan efforts to get things done in Alaska. In addition, she is a strong gun rights advocate and has fought fraud, waste, and abuse in her native state of Alaska.

Kudos to Sen. McCain for the smart pick!