Palin V

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b]In light of the fact hockey is so tremendously popular in Minnesota, and that Minnesota is a swing state, do you not think such labels might have some effect?[/b]

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Don't let anyone kid you. Minnesota is not a swing state. For the last 30+ years, Minnesota is the [i]only[/i] state in the union that has not voted for a Republican candidate (Minnesota was the only state that Reagan lost in his 1984 landslide).

Minnesota will vote Dem in 2008.

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Minnesota will vote Dem in 2008.

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I always thought of Minnesota as sort of Canadian like.

Minnesota did seem to be drifting a bit Republican in recent years, but I don't think it'll go red in the Presidential election this year, especially since its Republican governor wasn't chosen as VP.

With a friend like Sarah Palin in the White House, special-needs kids won't need enemies.

[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/04/politics/animal/main4414049.sh... turns out she slashed funding for programs for them by 62%.[/url]

Palin drew in a lot of viewers last night because of the controversies she involved in, and because she's a relative unknown to America outside Alaska, and viewers flocked to she her for the first time out of curiosity.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
[b]Palin drew in a lot of viewers last night because of the controversies she involved in, and because she's a relative unknown to America outside Alaska, and viewers flocked to she her for the first time out of curiosity.[/b]

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All very true.

[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN3125537020080901]Re... on the Bridge to Nowhere[/url]

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During her first speech after being named as McCain's surprise pick as a running mate, Palin said she had told Congress "'thanks but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere."

In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska's Congressional delegation during her run for governor.

The bridge, a span from the city to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people, secured a $223 million earmark in 2005. The pricey designation raised a furor and critics, including McCain, used the bridge as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians' pet projects.

When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term "bridge to nowhere," according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin's campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.

"People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I'm for this' ... and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting," Weinstein said.

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This is the international press coverage. This morning on CBC and in the local newspaper were talking heads saying how great a speech she made. Where are the news updates on CBC? Nothing so far on their web site about these lies.

This woman claims to want to represent most commoners out here in the "free world" and I thought that middle america whatever that is would not want to support a bald faced liar. If the Rep. win this election it sends a very strong message to the world about democracy. Lie, cheat, bully, slander that's the winning ticket for the rich and powerful.

I was at least pleased that she mentioned her child and her downs syndrome diagnosis. But then when I read she slashed funding prior to the birth for all other children who need our help as a society I get angry at this outrageous child abuse. I say child abuse because to use your child's challenges as a political prop to deceive voters into believing that a Republican government would do anything for people with disabilities is both disgusting and abusive to the dignity of that child.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b][url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-QevraCQUc]Is McCain Palin's Bitch?[/url][/b]

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That rates as "Chairman ROFL Mao"

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As the much-anticipated debut of The Sarah Palin Show crept closer in the Xcel Center last night, the overwhelmingly white and well-heeled Republicans rose to their feet, cheering, to dance and sing along to the infectious strains of Sly Stone's Everyday People--demonstrating not only a giddy lack of self-awareness (or irony), but also showing that the folks in the hall had gotten the alerts from GOP Message Central: Palin, the woman they'd come tonight to celebrate and cheer, is above all else Everyday People.

I'd been hearing it all week from the delegates. "She's relatable," a Florida fellow said. "I think what Gov. Palin's able to offer is the perspective of any everyday American," a Mississippi delegate told me. "She's real--real people. Wow!" a Texas delegate chimed in. Her family troubles, which have fueled a feeding frenzy among the dimwits who blog on the Huffington Post, only testified all the more powerfully to her everydayness. "If anything, it just kind of shows what a normal American she is. Family crises and situations like this arise in families all across the country, and I think she's doing the best with the situation. I think it will make Gov. Palin all the more strong," said another Texan.

You might not think that averageness would qualify a person for the second-highest office in the land. But if you might not think that, you haven't been paying attention to the way Republicans have won presidential elections for the last forty years. Palin is the logical extension of the cultural populism that has warped our politics--and for which the Democrats have, as yet, found no good answer....

When Palin cracked wise about Barack Obama or the media, she delivered the lines like a snarky neighbor leaning over the fence, complaining about the elitists--or the "good old boys"--to her next-door neighbor. Her dandiest line of the night, equally well delivered, was directed at Obama's stupid comment about the bitterness of struggling Americans: "We tend to prefer a candidate," she said, "who doesn't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco." This, more than anything, made me cringe. However much I admire Obama, it carried the ring of home truth--delivered by someone who can make such lines hit home.

It's all pure-T bullshit, of course: another "everyday" politician who's going to put the screws to every working person in America if she gets the chance. But so was Nixon's populism, and Reagan's, and Bush's. Americans fully expect bullshit from their politicians. It only matters that it's the right kind. And Sarah Palin, as we learned last night, is frighteningly full of it.

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[url=http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354172]Source[/url]

[url=http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7541303.s... op-ed by Steinem [/url] may have been missed because it was Sven who linked to it and tried to spin it his way.

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Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.(...)

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According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

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[url=http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/no_questions_please_were.html...

Update on the usual Republican tactic. Usually they intimidate and marginalize the media so they won't ask any questions. Now they literally bar them from asking any questions.

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Originally posted by josh:
[b]Now they literally bar them from asking any questions.[/b]

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Of course they do! She will very likely look like a deer in headlights when there are questions about subjects she is unfamiliar with (which are many). If she manages to avoid the deer-in-headlights look (i.e., is a good actor), what she [i]says[/i] will likely sound uninformed.

They attack Hollywood because it leans heavily left. However, they had no trouble with the likes of Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Arnold, etc. If Hollywood leaned Republican, they would be trumpeting what "great Americans" they were.

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They attack Hollywood because it leans [b]heavily[/b] left.

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Seriously? If that is heavily left I guess I'm off the charts... [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]

Hollywood is left wing. You mean like Arnold?

[url=http://www.slate.com/id/2199361/]http://www.slate.com/id/2199361/[/url]

A slate.com article on the distinction betwen hockey and soccer moms.

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Most hockey moms are located in colder parts of the country: In total, about two-thirds of youth hockey players come from either the Great Lakes states or the Northeast. More detailed demographics on youth hockey players are a little harder to come by, but they're almost certain to be largely Caucasian. Just 2 percent of National Hockey League players are black, despite the work of a "diversity task force" for both the professional and youth leagues. (The task force has held special camps in Wasilla, Alaska.) USA Hockey claims hockey-playing households earn nearly twice the U.S. average, with a median income of $99,200. According to polling by the Pew Research Center, a slice of registered voters that might be roughly equivalent to hockey moms—comprising white married women with kids under 18, incomes over $75,000 and living in the prime hockey-playing regions—tilts Republican by about nine percentage points, albeit in a pretty small sample. That group is somewhat less GOP-friendly today than it was in 2004, but it's still far more Republican than an overall electorate that favors Democrats by 13 percentage points.

How do hockey moms compare with soccer moms? They probably have to pay a good deal more to get their kids on the ice; for example, this Anchorage-based team charges preteen players $1,850 a year in fees. (The cost of equipment can easily add a few hundred dollars more.)

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But there are two competitive states where hockey moms may rival soccer moms for political importance: Minnesota and Michigan. Palin should expect a favorable reception to her hockey bona fides in the North Star state, home to 44,500 youth hockey players and one of the nation's largest concentrations of hockey-playing girls. (Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor who was reportedly McCain's second choice, has himself been known to take to the ice.) But Palin's hockey-mom ties run deepest in Michigan: Not only does the state boast 37,004 youth hockey players, but Track Palin spent six months of his senior year living in Portage, Mich., while playing for a midget major hockey team.

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The [url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/dawg_days.html]American Idol[/url] presidential campaign:

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[b]Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium -- the entertainment source that most often sets the trends for everything else in our culture. What proves popular on its airwaves more than likely will play in Peoria -- and everywhere else.

Thus, given the popularity of reality shows, it is no surprise that, in 2008, the nation is being treated to an American Idol election. The search for undiscovered electoral talent has led the Democratic Party to nominate Barack Obama, its least-experienced candidate in memory. And this past week, the Republicans trumped that exponentially by elevating Sarah Palin from the relative depths of political obscurity to the nation's center stage.[/b]

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Originally posted by remind:
[b]It would seem they are playing to a very select demographic, and state targeting, by their use of it, to promote Palin.[/b]

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Do you think they are literally and narrowly targeting just “hockey moms” (which, as I noted above in a recent post today, based on the numbers in the salon.com article, represent a microscopic percentage of American women) or do you think they are targeting mothers (or parents) more generally (i.e., those who are actively involved in their kids’ school and activities lives)?

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Originally posted by remind:
[b]Glad that so many viewers watched McCain last evening, as his speech and conduct certainly revealed that he should not be considered as material for the next President.[/b]

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We’ll see what the polls say in a day or so. The CBS News poll (taken before McCain’s speech but both before and after the Palin speech) shows McCain and Obama in a tie (both at 42%). If polls show a significant McCain bump in the next few days, that will indicate a positive reception to McCain’s speech.

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Originally posted by remind:
[b]BTW, gotta a link for that Sven?[/b]

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Yes. Here it is:
[url=http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/09/mccain-rating-1.html]The Live Feed[/url]

ETA: By the way, the CBS News poll from a week ago (during the Democratic Convention) showed Obama with an 8% lead over McCain.

[ 05 September 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b]Sven,

I think it's possible that the first time Palin used the term, sometime before she was governor, it was some benign thing, as in her kids play hockey not soccer. And maybe that's how it got created, but that doesn't explain why it's catching on.

But the fact they use the term A LOT means that they are doing so for a reason. The republican operatives and speechwriters are not stupid people, they are intelligent people with different values. They would not be using the term a million times unless they knew it had some subliminal message.[/b]

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Oh, I completely agree that it is being used to signify something.

What I disagree with (given that there are so very few actual “hockey moms” in America) is that it is some kind of “code” for exclusion. I suspect that if you asked a broad cross-section of people across America what the term “hockey mom” connotes when Palin uses it, you’d probably hear something like this: “A mom who is actively involved in her kids’ lives and who has to constantly juggle priorities”.