UPDATED

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he same tingle of excitement I felt when I first read of Sarah Palin in February hit the nation yesterday, just as I figured it would.

Joe vs. Sarah? No contest. Sarah pulled in 37.2 million viewers, 55 percent more than Biden’s convention speech, according to The Live Feed.

Hillary vs. Sarah? Don’t even bother. Over 5 million more females watched Sarah than watched Bill’s wife, formerly known as the keeper of the womens’ vote.

Barack vs. Sarah? The One almost got toppled from the pedestal he’s spent so long trying to convince us he deserves to stand on, eking out a paper-thin three percent lead in the viewership race. The consummate campaigner who’s had over a year to build up support and anticipation was almost knocked off by the new girl on the block – incredible!

Update: AP reports that with PBS added, Palin outdrew Obama by about 2 million, toppling the pedestal.

So, what of all the attacks on Palin? Can the Dems and their MSM buddies pat themselves on the back for a job well done? Not hardly, says Rasmussen:

Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

Ouch. But there’s got to be some good news for the Palin-smearers; surely they’ve at least cut her down with the whole experience thing, right? No; again Rasmussen:

Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

You mean better than Biden? Nope, no typo – better than Obama. So if you combine McCain’s experience and Palin’s … whoa, Dude.

Now finally, here’s a poll that was taken after the Palin announcement and the little talk she gave in Dayton, but before last night’s teleprompter-free stem-winder:

(CBS) The presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain is now even at 42 percent, according to a new CBS News poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week. Twelve percent are undecided according to the poll, and one percent said they wouldn’t vote.

This is in contrast to a poll conducted last weekend, where the Obama-Biden ticket led McCain-Palin by eight points, 48 percent to 40 percent.

Despite Obama’s reportedly incredible speech (I would give it a C+/B-), he’s lost his lead over the mere announcement and initial reaction to Palin. Is he feeling Hillaryesque? “I had this thing! I deserve this thing! Who’s this unknown @#$& to knock me off?”

For an indication of what’s going to happen when polls like this are re-run and pick up reaction to Palin’s speech, let’s look to the little reader poll next to the news on the CBS poll story, which asks, “How would you grade Sarah Palin’s speech?” I normally don’t give these sorts of polls any credence, but since this one’s on a CBS site that’s presenting polling news, it’s probably running fairly neutral, or maybe a tad left of neutral. The results:

A – 63.9%

B – 4.7%

C – 7%

D – 6.5%

F – 18%

In our 50/50 nation, do you recall seeing many polls where the Dem partisans can only muster together 18 percent?

I think the smearers can file away that “Palin’s going to resign soon” meme in the deepest trash can they can find.

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em economics at work: Assuming a modest upgrade so he’s not in the cattle car, Joe Biden’s storied Amtrak commute costs him $222 daily, or, if he were to work five days a week, 50 weeks a year like most working stiffs, “his train expenses would exceed the median household income in the nation,” says NRO.

And that’s Amtrak, forever subsidized by DC largess. Imagine what he’d be paying if Amtrak existed in a free market.

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lustered. That’s the sense you get of where the Obama campaign is on Sarah Palin. Today, in their first public comment on the GOP VEEP contender, both blew it.

Biden, natch, put his foot in his mouth, with a demeaning and tokenistic take on Palin

“There’s a gigantic difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and between me and I suspect my vice presidential opponent. She’s good-looking.” (CNN)

Ha, ha. How self-depreciating. And how dismissive of Palin’s resume.

Obama, though, was worse, giving a comment that may well come back to haunt him:

At an economy town hall here Sunday afternoon, Obama said his rival’s pick for vice president was against equal pay for equal work.

“We’re gonna make sure that equal pay for equal work is a reality in this country,” he said. “You know, John McCain’s new VP nominee seems like a very engaging person, a nice person, but I’ve got to say, she’s opposed like John McCain is to equal pay for equal work. That doesn’t make much sense to me.” (MSNBC)

Obama had nothing at all to hang the equal pay slam on. When asked, he uh-ed his way through a “well, it’s McCain’s position” explanation. The McCain campaign quickly pounced:

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella issued this response: “For Barack Obama to accuse Gov. Sarah Palin of opposing equal opportunity for women, when she actually opposes the trial lawyers’ effort to overturn the longstanding statute of limitations in America’s courts — is not only an absurd accusation, it’s a disgrace.” (Also MSNBC)

That’s apparently a reference to Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, a suit that was a statute of limitations case in equal pay clothing.  SCOTUS saw through the ruse and decided 5-4 against Ledbetter. So reading through the lines, Palin has no position on the bogus equal pay issue, but has one on Ledbetter.

Even if Palin were opposed to the whole equal pay phony Dem issue, and there’s no evidence yet that she’s taken a position, more power to her. Employers need to be free to compensate employees based on one thing and one thing only: The value they give the corporation. Beyond the minimum wage, government has no business meddling. If a woman (or a man) takes off every day at 5 because of her responsibilities at home, or gets three calls a day from her child care provider, her boss should be free to factor that into the value of the employee, but the Dems would rather have bureaucrats make these decisions based on wholly irrelevant issues, like gender.

This stumbling by the Dem boys shows that they’re struggling with the Palin appointment. Apparently there isn’t equal knee-jerk viciousness against women in the Dem camp, so they’re a bit lost.

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ack on February 12, I wrote this on C-SM:

All in all, I confess: I’m too new to Palin to say she’s #1 for the #2 slot, but she’s definitely an intriguing possibility.

Being me, I led off my analysis with this:

Where is she on policy? Who cares! McCain needs a hottie on his ticket, right? Just kidding, although she single-handedly knocks off the post-Mitt GOP ugly stick, doesn’t she?

On to policy points: I said she’s anti-corruption, she’s a fierce hawk on government over-spending, she’s right on the bogus polar bear listing so she understands the politicization of global warming, she’s pro-energy, pro-life and right on same-sex marriage (opposing it, but supporting equal rights for gay couples).

What’s particularly exciting in the Palin nod is that it shows McCain as new, a  hope-bringer who is anything but McSame, while in Biden we see Obama is old-school, tired, political hack … O’Same.

We’ve got a new campaign, ladies and gentlemen, and all of a sudden the VP debate is #1 on my must see list. Poor Joe Biden – he’s been dealt a blow between the eyes; he’s walking around dead and doesn’t even know it yet.

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Super Nan Readies For Denver Showdown

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est you think this week’s Democratic convention in Denver will be just a showcase for the pontificating and grandstanding leaders of the party that knows what’s good for us even if we don’t, Nancy Pelosi stands ready to set you straight. This is no small deal.

“We’ve got a planet to save. Nothing less is at stake other than civilization as we know it today.” (source)

Thank God we’ve got a proven, capable Dem savior like Barack Obama to get us through the fight with the super-nemesis, Maverick Man.

And Joe Biden? The perfect sidekick for The Mighty O and Super Nan, sez Madam Speaker:

“Joe Biden is the all-American boy.”

I’m sure he looks great in tights, too.

hat-tip: Urgent Agenda Continue Reading »

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lenty is being written about Joe Biden’s foreign policy experience, with the Dems spinning it as a perfect balance for the ticket and smarter folk seeing it as an admission of overwhelming weakness in foreign policy as evidenced by the campaign’s response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, and a foresaking of the “Obama is change” platform in a panicked response to dropping poll numbers.

But what about Biden in another area voters have reason to question Obama: the economy? Obama’s offering up a high-priced solution to everything in keeping with his ranking as the most liberal Senator, so it would have been wise to seek someone with more moderate economic credential to bring balance to the ticket. Alas for the Dems, that is not Joe Biden.

I won’t bother quoting conservative think tanks on Biden’s economic record since Libs will dispute the source. Instead, here’s Biden’s ranking from the left-lib site TheMiddleClass.org: 95%. Only six senators are ranked more liberal – Bingaman, Durbin, Levin, Kennedy, Sanders and Whitehouse.

Granted, Obama’s paper-thin record doesn’t give folks much to measure by, but TheMiddleClass ranked him behind Biden in economic liberalism, with 88%.

Biden voted to keep the death tax in place, for the 2008 phony stimulus package, for expanding the Child’s Health Insurance Program, for more no strings attached funding for education, for giving citizen’s rights to the children of illegals. He voted for every global warming cash cow and – curious that TheMiddleClass.org includes this in their ranking – against all efforts to expand our intelligence-gathering capabilities.

By November, it’s likely the war in Iraq will be over as a political issue, as headway is being made with Iraq on our disengagement. Foreign policy will remain an issue as long as there are Russian and Islamist threats, but the election will turn on the economy, and the Dems have put their stock in a VP nominee who espouses an anti-business, pro-tax agenda. And he lead the efforts to keep Bork and Thomas off the Supreme Court.

All this, and the tantalizing possibility of a major gaffe from the gaffe-prone Biden, as well as a substantial record of pro-McCain, anti-Obama statements by Biden, make Obama’s VP selection an opportunity for McCain to advance.

Art: Moti’s Motis

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Joe Biden has differentiated himself from other candidates with his position, Iraqi sovereignty be damned, that the country should be partitioned into Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish zones — and he managed to get a sense of the Senate resolution last week supporting the position.

One catch, though: His idea certainly doesn’t divide the Iraqis: They hate the idea. Not that it bothers Joe, who has shown his gift of gab is not matched with a gift for listening.

Watching America provides us an inside at the response to Biden in Baghdad by translating an article from the Iraqi newspaper Sotal Iraq, Iraqis Sound Off on Joe Biden’s Plan. By party, we learn:

• Iraqi National Party chief Mithal al-Alusi [a secular nationalist alliance made up of Sunnis and Shiites led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi] criticized several Iraqi politicians without naming them, for helping Biden formulate his program.

• Saleh al-Mutlaq, the President of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue [a non-sectarian coalition that wants to end the presence of foreign troops and to rebuild Iraqi government institutions] asked the United Nations and Arab League to denounce Biden’s program, describing it as a pathway to a civil war in Iraq.
• The Iraq Accord Front [originally a coalition of three Sunni parties that have supported participation in the political process] renewed its rejection of any draft resolution that seeks to divide Iraq along sectarian lines, and Accord Front deputy Omar Abdul Satar Al-Karbuli reiterated that the coalition has grave reservations about establishing what he described as “federalized sectarian regions.”

  Iraqi Accord Front MP said, “The partioning of the country on the basis of ethnic or sectarian divisions is completely unacceptable, since it would terminate the modern state of Iraq.”

• Member of Parliament Hamid Rashid Mualla of the United Iraqi Alliance [a broad-based coalition of over 20 groups, dominated by the two major Shiite parties] was a bit more diplomatic. While he emphasized the right of the Iraqi people to choose a system that suits them, he said in an interview with Radio Sawa that, “the amendment passed by the U.S. Senate is fairly open-ended, and would give Iraqis a vast opportunity to choose the kind of federalism they want.”

Biden called the vote, “a major repudiation of President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq,” seemingly ignoring the fact that his own approach has been certified as pre-failed by the Iraqi leadership.

Not listening (of course), Biden said after the vote on Wednesday,

This may be President Bush’s war. But it is America’s future. Together, we have to get this right. Today, we are one step closer to doing just that.

Biden has a funny definition of “together,” doesn’t he? He talks about “America” and “we,” but has left the Iraqis entirely out of the picture.

The Dems, for all their talk of this being Bush’s war, don’t want any troublesome meddling in their work to make it their defeat.

Updpate: In a highly unusual move, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq issued a statement condemning Biden’s resolution:

“Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself,” the unsigned statement said.

“Iraq’s leaders must and will take the lead in determining how to achieve these national aspirations. … attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed,” it said. (AP)

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