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[dextrous]

god knows the kind of pressure bristol's baby's father is under to marry her!!!

[kban1]

Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MICHAEL COOPER


WASHINGTON — In the end, the choice of his running mate said more about Senator John McCain and his image of himself than it did about Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska whose selection has shaken up the presidential race.

For weeks, advisers close to the campaign said, Mr. McCain had wanted to name as his running mate his good friend Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent. But by the end of last weekend, the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that Mr. McCain would fill out the Republican ticket with Mr. Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, had become too intense to be ignored.

With time running out, and after a long meeting with his inner circle in Phoenix, Mr. McCain finally picked up the phone last Sunday and reached Ms. Palin at the Alaska State Fair. Although the campaign’s polling on Mr. McCain’s potential running mates was inconclusive on the selection of Ms. Palin — virtually no one had heard of her, a McCain adviser said — the governor, who opposes abortion, had glowing reviews from influential social conservatives.

Mr. McCain was comfortable with two others on his short list, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But neither was the transformative, attention-grabbing choice Mr. McCain felt he needed, top campaign advisers said, to help him pivot from his image as the custodian of the status quo to a change agent like his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama.

Not least, Mr. Obama’s decision to pass over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate opened the possibility for Republicans to put a woman on the ticket and pick off some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, at the McCain vacation compound near Sedona, Ariz., Mr. McCain invited Ms. Palin to join him on the ticket. He hardly knew her, and she had virtually no foreign policy experience, but Ms. Palin was a “kindred spirit,” a McCain adviser said. Mr. McCain was betting, the adviser said, that she would help him reclaim the mantle of maverick that he had lost this year.

The selection was the culmination of a five-month process, described by Mr. McCain’s inner circle and outside advisers in interviews this past weekend, and offers a glimpse into how Mr. McCain might make high-stakes decisions as president.

At the very least, the process reflects Mr. McCain’s history of making fast, instinctive and sometimes risky decisions. “I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For.” “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

Mr. McCain began the search for a running mate shortly after he secured the Republican nomination, with some 40 names on a list. By early spring he had cut it to 20, including, a top adviser said, at least five women: Ms. Palin; Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Carleton S. Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard; and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas.

Mr. McCain cast the process, at least in those days, as orderly and said that the last thing he wanted was the kind of rushed decision that President George Bush had made in 1988 in selecting his running mate, Dan Quayle, then a senator from Indiana.

But it was not until the last few weeks that Mr. McCain winnowed his list to five or six finalists. They included, a McCain adviser said, Mr. Pawlenty, Mr. Romney, Mr. Lieberman, Ms. Palin and Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania who also supports abortion rights. Ms. Palin, unlike the others, was barely mentioned in news media speculation.

The finalists, including Ms. Palin, were vetted, a campaign adviser said, and Mr. McCain then asked his inner circle — Mr. Salter, Rick Davis, Steve Schmidt and Charlie Black — to provide him with assessments of each. “He said, ‘Give me plusses and minuses on each of these people,’ ” Mr. Black said.

One of Mr. McCain’s closest friends, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, weighed in as well, pushing so hard for Mr. Lieberman — Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and Mr. Lieberman are longtime traveling companions — that he vexed some of the other advisers. Others in the inner circle favored Mr. Pawlenty or Mr. Romney. Ms. Palin had no strong advocates in the group, an outside adviser said, but she had no detractors, either.

Last Sunday, 24 hours after Mr. Obama announced his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Mr. McCain met with his senior campaign team at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix. By then, campaign advisers said, the group had long decided that Mr. McCain’s “experience versus change” argument against Mr. Obama had run its course, to the extent that it had worked at all.

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s coming acceptance speech before a stadium of about 80,000 people (and what turned out to be a television audience of nearly 40 million) loomed large. As much as the campaign was publicly dismissing Mr. Obama as a celebrity in a rock-star setting, the concern was that his command of such a large crowd on the last night of the Democratic convention would give him the aura of a president.

In any case, one campaign adviser said, Mr. McCain hated running as the wizened old hand of experience. Despite his embrace this year of President Bush and many of the administration’s policies, Mr. McCain, a campaign adviser said, still saw himself as the maverick who delighted in occasionally throwing political grenades at his own Party.

Ms. Palin, and not Mr. Pawlenty or Mr. Romney, would reinforce Mr. McCain’s self-image, an adviser said. She had a reputation as a reformer in Alaska, she hunted and fished, and she had once belonged to a union. Just as crucial, Ms. Palin, 44, was beloved by the party’s religious base but did not come off as shrill. “She’s conservative,” Mr. Black said, “but she’s not an ideologue.”

After Mr. McCain contacted Ms. Palin, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Salter met with her on Wednesday in Flagstaff, Ariz. It was not until the following morning that she traveled to Sedona to meet with Mr. McCain, who then sat down with her for his only interview of a potential running mate.

Within hours if not minutes after the interview was concluded, Ms. Palin had the job.

Over the next weeks, Ms. Palin will be prepared by Mr. McCain’s foreign policy staff, led by Randy Scheunemann, for the vice-presidential debate with Mr. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who moves easily among heads of state.

Introducing Ms. Palin at a rally Saturday in Washington, Pa., Mr. McCain praised her and spoke about her selection.

“You know, I had a lot of good people to choose from, and I want to thank Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani,” said Mr. McCain, referring to his rivals for the Republican nomination. “And,” he added, “it’s with great pride and gratitude I tell you I have found the right partner to help me stand up to those who have corrupted Washington.”

For her part, Ms. Palin still sounded surprised to have been picked. “Well, I know that when Senator McCain asked me to be his running mate, he had a short list of highly qualified men and women,” she said. “To have made that list at all was a privilege. And to have been chosen, it brings a great challenge.

“I know that it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.”

Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Michael Cooper from Pittsburgh and Washington, Pa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/us/politics/31reconstruct.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[kban1]

The Battle Between McCain and Bush: The Cancelled First Night, The "Furious" President and the Palin Gambit

Sidney Blumenthal

Posted September 2, 2008



The cancellation of the first night of the Republican National Convention marks the renewal of the rivalry between George W. Bush and John McCain. Since their bitter contest over the Republican nomination in 2000, they have taken years to make peace. But now McCain's last chance has collided with Bush's legacy.

Hurricane Gustav was "a big blessing," according to a source close to the McCain campaign. Facing a Katrina level wipeout--the landfall in St. Paul of both President Bush and Vice President Cheney--McCain felt trapped. How could he prevent the President and Vice President from appearing at the convention? Only an act of God could intervene. Suddenly, a hurricane whipped up in the Gulf and looked headed for New Orleans. Like a divinely inspired miracle, a storm to blow away Bush and Cheney had been conjured.

The McCain campaign and the Bush White House negotiated terms that unfolded as a script over the past several days, several sources told me. First, Bush announced he must oversee the preparations for dealing with the hurricane. He would not be able to attend the convention. Cheney, too, would drop out. In order that Bush and Cheney not seem to have been humiliated, McCain cancelled the entire proceedings for the first evening.

Almost certainly, Bush had to cancel his planned speech while Gustav loomed. But the sources say he didn't like the idea and felt pushed. Bush is described by sources as "furious" at McCain for being deprived of his last appearance before his party, which nominated him twice, as a sitting president. He believes he is being treated disrespectfully.

Shuttering the convention for a night was probably inevitable given the hurricane, but to provide a cover-up for scratching Bush and Cheney it became absolutely necessary. But once the hurricane passed, Bush asserted his primacy as president and forced his way back on the schedule to deliver a satellite speech to the convention.

McCain is desperately seeking ways to pivot from Bush, whose in-person appearance on the first night of the convention threatened to obliterate his message as a "maverick" and "reformer." Even though McCain himself would not be onstage, Bush and Cheney would have dominated the opening and underlined continuity between their administration and McCain. The cancellation of the first night of the convention is a small price to pay for their absence.

McCain's campaign is perfectly aware of the mortal danger of Bush's embrace. He has needed the president to rally the Republican base. But once he has the nomination his imperative is to project himself as an antidote to what has gone wrong with Republicanism.

McCain's political quandary is paradoxical. Bush has broken all parts of the Republican Party, as I document in my book, The Strange Death of Republican America. McCain's emergence as the party's nominee has been made possible by its crackup, which he must transcend. The primary field fractured the conservatives, none of whom were able to isolate the others and unite the whole movement. None could do what Bush achieved in 2000, running at the same time as the candidate of the party establishment and the conservative movement. McCain historically has represented neither.

McCain's selection of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska reflected his impulse to reject Bush. As I explained in a previous article in the Huffington Post, he really wanted to name Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but that option was a political impossibility that would have provoked an open revolt at the convention. Karl Rove tried to manipulate McCain into choosing Mitt Romney, endorsed by almost all members of the Bush family (except the president who had to remain above the fray). Rove organized a campaign against Lieberman and other potential choices. There could be little doubt that Rove was doing Bush's bidding. But McCain, resentful of Rove's maneuvering, outflanked him with Palin.

Bush is said to be dismissive of McCain's pick of Palin, according to the sources. Ironically, he is said to believe that now he will bear no responsibility if McCain loses. The old rivalry, supposedly buried, has come back to life.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidney-blumenthal/the-battle-between-mccain_b_123147.html

[kban1]

Palin: Global Warming Not Man-Made


It’s common for the top and bottom of a presidential ticket to disagree about certain issues, but it’s a little bit strange for them to disagree about elementary facts. Part of John McCain’s “maverick” status, for example, is that even though he now opposes his own climate change bill his website still says things like “John McCain will establish a market-based system to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy.” Sarah Palin, by contrast, says of global warming “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

This is perhaps a problem with picking a running mate you’ve never met.

Presumably McCain disagrees, though I’d be hard-pressed to trust the judgment of someone who denies basic scientific realities just because its bad interest-group politics in an oil state.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/08/palin_global_warming_not_man_made.php

[kban1]

Sarah Palin on faith, life and creation
 
Posted by Michael Paulson August 29, 2008 12:20 PM


John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is an evangelical Protestant with a strong record of opposition to abortion and an openness to teaching creationism in the public schools.

Palin is the mother of five children, one of whom was born with Down Syndrome. She learned that her son had Down Syndrome when she was four months pregnant, and she told the Associated Press in May that she never considered ending the pregnancy. "We've both been very vocal about being pro-life," she said in the AP interview. "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential." Palin also said of her son, whose name is Trig Paxon Van Palin, "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

In November of 2006, the Anchorage Daily News described Palin's positions on social issues in a story wrapping up the governor's race:

"A significant part of Palin's base of support lies among social and Christian conservatives. Her positions on social issues emerged slowly during the campaign: on abortion (should be banned for anything other than saving the life of the mother), stem cell research (opposed), physician-assisted suicide (opposed), creationism (should be discussed in schools), state health benefits for same-sex partners (opposed, and supports a constitutional amendment to bar them)."

And in October of 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin said the following about creationism at a debate:

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information....Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject -- creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."

Palin identifies herself as a Christian; she headed her high school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Here's a bit more detail on her faith life from the first story in a two-part profile that ran in 2006 in the Anchorage Daily News:

"Palin's parents say they are not political and don't know how she decided to turn her ambition and work ethic toward politics. Her Christian faith, they say, came from her mother, who took her children to area Bible churches as they were growing up (Sarah is the third of four siblings). They say her faith has been steady since high school, when she led the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and grew stronger as she sought out believers in her college years. Palin doesn't brandish her religion on the campaign trail, but that doesn't prevent others from doing so. After she was first elected mayor, her predecessor, John Stein, objected that a Valley cable TV program had hailed her as Wasilla's first 'Christian mayor.' In a column for the local newspaper, he named eight previous mayors and added that he, too, was a Christian, despite a name that led some voters to suspect 'I must be a non-Christian, have non-Christian blood or at least have sympathized with a non-Christian sometime in my career.'"

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2008/08/sarah_palin_on.html

[kban1]

Running mate differs on drilling, stem cell research

By Laura Crimaldi

Sunday, August 31, 2008 -


John McCain’s handpicked vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is not a McCain donor, a Herald review of campaign finance records reveals.

Federal Election Commission data shows the 44-year-old Republican Alaskan governor has never opened her wallet to a GOP national candidate. Palin did donate $328 to the Alaska Republican Party in 2004. And she donated $300 to former Alaska state Senate President Mike Miller for his 2004 primary challenge against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

The McCain campaign declined to comment on Palin’s contributions.

Retired University of Massachusetts at Amherst political science professor Jerry Mileur said that what’s more unusual about Palin’s selection is not her lack of a campaign contribution, but how little involvement she had with McCain prior to Friday’s announcement.

“It’s perhaps unusual that she’s not played more of a role in the campaign. He really had only met her once or twice before,” Mileur said.

The two candidates differ on global warming, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stem cell research.

Palin and McCain also differ in their views on whether human behavior is responsible for global warming. Palin has said that she does not believe that climate change is “man-made.” McCain has long believed that humans contribute to global warming.

On oil drilling, Palin supports drilling in ANWR. McCain is an opponent.

The running mates also are on different sides of the stem cell research debate. In 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin opposes stem cell research. McCain supports federal funding for stem cell research, but voted to ban researchers from using cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.

The differences are unlikely to matter to voters worried about the economy, said Boston University political science professor Thomas Whalen.

“They are interested in what are they going to do about my pocketbook, what are they going to do about inflation, what are they going to do about gas prices?” said Whalen. “This race is about color. And it’s not black and white. It’s green.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/view.bg?articleid=1116061&srvc=rss

[kban1]

McCain Camp Battles National Enquirer Over Alleged Palin Affair

John McCain's presidential campaign is threatening a lawsuit against the National Enquirer over a print edition story the tabloid ran today alleging that Gov. Sarah Palin has had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner.

The allegation would normally be dismissed by political observers as the random musings of a supermarket tabloid -- indeed, the McCain campaign said as much in its statements on Wednesday -- except that the paper has built up a reservoir of legitimacy following its earlier reporting on the John Edwards affair.

In a statement to the Huffington Post, a spokesman for the paper, who promised a larger report next week, tapped into that pool of quasi-respect.

"The National Enquirer's coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin's extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair plus details of family strife when the Governor's daughter revealed her pregnancy. Following our John Edwards' exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign's vetting process. Despite the McCain camp's attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum."

Clearly, this is a touchy matter. Already, rumors that Palin's youngest son was actually the son of her daughter were batted down. And the McCain campaign has strenuously insisted that the current crop of insinuations is not only false but also potentially libelous.

"The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Gov. Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie," said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt. "The efforts of the media and tabloids to destroy this fine and accomplished public servant are a disgrace. The American people will reject it."

But the Edwards reporting complicates matters. Just one month ago, conservatives were bemoaning the fact that no major media outlets had the temerity to follow the politically and personally sensitive rumors about the former North Carolina senator's infidelities. Jonah Goldberg, for example, wrote on the National Review's the Corner in later July that:

"Whatever the merits of the whole Edwards love child story, are we really supposed to believe that one of America's most famous trial lawyers wouldn't sue a publication that printed defamatory and slanderous lies about him? Also, it's worth pointing out that while the Enquirer may or may not be scrupulous in its choice of stories -- that's in the eye of the beholder -- it is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits. They've broken a host of stories the MSM guys couldn't."

Does the MSM now have an obligation to pursue this rumor, however touchy, or at least ask questions?

"The "success" with Edwards no doubt will give them some more credibility, although we should remember that some of the allegations in their "lovechild" stories have been far from proven (although also far from disproven)," wrote Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher Magazine.
"Some of their Palin revelations may be quickly firmed up, prove bogus or more likely rest somewhere in-between for awhile. But what will be interesting is whether the Republicans and conservatives and MSM critics who jumped on the MSM and liberals for not quickly embracing the Enquirer's Edwards work will now pooh-pooh the Enquirer when it comes to THIS candidate....:"

And yet, at the same time, the Enquirer's story may be something of a break for the McCain campaign, which has come under siege for the Palin pick. If the Arizona Senator and his aides are able to effectively portray attacks on the Palin as the product of smear, sleaze and innuendo, it clouds those that are more legitimate. And with new attack lines opening up against Palin seemingly every hour, Democrats may be even more hesitant about straying into the tawdry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/03/mccain-camp-battles-natio_n_123696.html

[kingcool1432]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/h8B3HQNmdco&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/h8B3HQNmdco&rel=0</a>

[kban1]

McCain campaign clamps down on questions in Alaska

By ANNE SUTTON, Associated Press Writer

JUNEAU, Alaska – GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is effectively turning over questions about her record as Alaska's governor to John McCain's political campaign, part of an ambitious Republican strategy to limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.

Republican efforts include dispatching a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York, Ed O'Callaghan, to assist Palin's personal lawyer working to derail or delay a pending ethics investigation in Alaska. The probe, known as "Troopergate," is examining whether the governor abused her power by trying to remove her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.

O'Callaghan is just part of a cadre of high-powered operatives patrolling Alaska as reporters and Democrats scrutinize every detail of Palin's tenure in government, plus her family and friends. One strategy: Carefully coordinate any information that's released. The McCain campaign is demanding that it becomes the de facto source for answers about the operations of Alaska's government during the past 20 months.

Palin's normal press secretary, for example, now turns away inquiries from any reporter who isn't permanently based in Alaska, referring questions to the presidential campaign. Trouble is, some of McCain operatives only recently have arrived in Alaska and struggle to explain Palin's positions on arcane state issues.

When a reporter for The Associated Press asked the state's Department of Health and Social Services about lawsuits involving state health policies, he was directed to call Meg Stapleton, a former spokeswoman for Palin now working for McCain.

"In general the state is sending media inquiries this way because we're just inundated with hundreds and hundreds of phone calls," Stapleton said. "It provides for the most expeditious channel to get stuff out there."

O'Callaghan, who helped prosecute terrorism and national security cases for the Justice Department until a few weeks ago, was sent to Alaska to handle "legal issues that are affecting the political dynamic of the campaign," said Taylor Griffin, a former Treasury Department spokesman in the Bush administration. O'Callaghan is expected to leave after this week.

Translation: O'Callaghan is helping ratchet up the heat on the Troopergate investigation, a probe with which Palin once promised to cooperate. O'Callaghan was the one who threw down the gauntlet during a news conference this week: Palin herself was unlikely to talk to the Alaska Legislature's investigator.

McCain's campaign has sent at least one dozen researchers and lawyers to Alaska to pore over Palin's background, ready to respond to questions about her tenure as governor and mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. Griffin has been leading the team in Alaska, which includes operatives of the Republican National Committee.

Republicans are rebutting what they describe as smears against Palin. Last week, McCain's campaign formed a "truth squad," which includes current and former GOP politicians who agree to speak with reporters. Heading up the effort from Arlington, Va., are Mark Paoletta and O'Callaghan, both Republican lawyers, and Brian Jones, a former communications director for McCain.

Democrats, meanwhile, are relying on Palin's homegrown critics in Alaska. They call themselves "Alaska Mythbusters," a nod to the popular television show. The team is made up mostly of elected officials who have opposed or know Palin and who criticize her work, such as the mayor of tiny Ketchikan, Bob Weinstein. Ketchikan was involved in Alaska's infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," a construction project that Palin initially supported but now says she opposed as an example of wasteful

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/palin_mccain_operatives