Sarah Palin

Republican pollster Frank Luntz just finished a closed-door breakfast meeting with the New York and Wisconsin delegations here at the Marriott Hotel.

Representative Peter King of Long Island gave me a brief sketch of what Luntz said, specifically about Sarah Palin.

"Don't get distracted by what the media asks," King said. "Stress that she's a kick-ass reformer." 

ST. PAUL--Cecilia Soh, a Korean-born, American-raised alternate delegate from Manhattan, is hoping for the best with Sarah Palin.

“Oh my god," she said on the bus ride from the Marriott to the Xcel Energey Center yesterday, describing her initial reaction to the pick. "I hope she’s more than a pretty face.”

When asked how she felt as a woman upon hearing Palin was on the ticket, Soh said, “I’d like to think this race is not about race, religion, or gender, but I have to admit, I like the fact that she’s a woman. It changes the face of the country. But even more than that, it shows [John McCain] went for quality.”

ST. PAUL—“Nice place out here,” said Rudy Giuliani.

The former mayor and his wife, Judith, had just arrived at a private party—re-purposed as a benefit for Hurricane Gustav relief—thrown in his honor on the terrace of an upscale restaurant in downtown Minnesota a few hours after the opening of the Republican National Convention.

Waitresses in thigh-baring skirts passed around buckets of Möet and trays of chocolate to senators and congressmen and supporters, who lounged on red-cushioned couches, unwrapped their complimentary cigar clippers and admired the view of the city’s bustling Hennepin Avenue. Mr. Giuliani’s longtime security detail and his usual coterie of former deputy mayors, including Peter Powers and Tony  read more »

Families deserve privacy about family matters, but families that want absolute privacy should probably stay out of politics. Sooner or later someone would have noticed the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, 17-year-old daughter of John McCain’s vice presidential pick, especially since everyone in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, seemed to know already. The question that remains is what, if anything, her plight may portend for the rest of us.

With all due respect to this young woman, her future husband and the rest of the family—and best wishes to all of them for a successful birth—let us first stop pretending that this is good news.  read more »

John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is historic and intriguing. She certainly is not one of the usual suspects chosen by and for Beltway insiders. Her background, her personality and her personal narrative figure to add new twists and turns to the fall campaign.

While Governor Palin may bring some hitherto forgotten constituencies to the Republican table—hockey moms, salmon fishers—her presence on the ticket suggests that Mr. McCain and his party have written off the Northeast. That would be a foolish mistake.

You wouldn’t know it by Republican’s westward-leaning ticket, but some of the party’s best-known figures live far from the great open spaces beyond the Mississippi River.  read more »

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.—Bill Noll, an Alaskan delegate to the Republican convention, has been a coal entrepreneur, an appointed state officeholder and the mayor of a small town in his home state. “Smaller than Wasilla, actually,” he said with a grin. It had been four days exactly since John McCain had made Alaskan Sarah Palin the most famous former small-town mayor in America. (With the possible exception of Clint Eastwood.)

Since Palin was introduced to the world last Friday as a reformist, no-nonsense female chief executive, her image has been clouded by the revelation of family problems (a pregnant teenage daughter, a no-good state trooper brother-in-law, a husband with a history of drinking and driving), flip-flopping problems (on “the bridge to nowhere” and the subject of earmarks), embarrassing-bedfellow problems (she served on the board of a 527 called “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.  read more »

One week ago, just a couple of days into the Democratic National Convention, a number of media outlets declared that Barack Obama had failed to receive a bounce from his selection of Joe Biden and from his convention.

But bounces don't usually happen overnight; they take a few days to develop, especially when a V.P. candidate who was previously unknown to most Americans is involved. So it wasn't exactly surprising when Obama's numbers began ticking up over the last two days of the convention. After his and Biden's acceptance speeches, Gallup's tracking poll showed the Democrats ahead by eight points - easily Obama's best standing in Gallup's poll since clinching the Democratic nomination in June.  read more »

ST. PAUL—John McCain confidant Charlie Black told a private reception of conservative leaders Monday evening that in his first-ever nonpolitical conversation with the candidate earlier that day, McCain asked him to help solicit donations for the victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I deliver that message and hope for the best,” Black told the crowd, eating vegetables and wearing pro-life buttons in the atrium of the Hilton Garden Inn. “He always puts his country first."

In keeping with the Republicans' decision to scale back their activities and political rhetoric, Black kept his public remarks focused on the Gulf states and led a prayer asking for the protection of the people who live there.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Word that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant was easily the biggest bit of non-Gustav-related news to emerge from the opening day of the Republican convention.

It’s doubtful that this revelation will end up hurting the G.O.P. ticket in the fall—Ms. Palin’s statement made it clear that her daughter plans to keep the child and marry the father, the least politically explosive denouement for such a dicey situation—but it nonetheless seems to confirm a widespread suspicion: Ms. Palin was not thoroughly vetted by John McCain’s team.

Otherwise, this news would not be leaking on the convention’s opening day.  read more »

Eighteen-year-old McCain delegate Spencer Rice of Onondaga County doesn't "approve" of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter having a child, but doesn't think it should affect the campaign.

“I’m hoping it never happens to me,” he said.

ST. PAUL—Here’s Representative Peter King on the floor of the Xcel Energy Center a few minutes ago, saying the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter “can’t be an issue in the campaign.”

“There’s not a family in America that who’s had a teenage daughter or a teenage son who hasn’t worried about this, thought about this," he said. "To me, the only test, the only question, is how the family reacted.”

My old friend Sidney Blumenthal, whose Republican friends sometimes tell him more than they should, has an intriguing
] post up at Arianna's place. Sid says Mc Cain's choice of Palin was motivated largely by continued feuding with Karl Rove. Which speaks well of McCain, I suppose, but is still a poor way to pick a vice president. McCain wanted Lieberman but Karl had hi own ideas. Read it.
Joe Conason

Overheard on the bus to the Xcel Energy Center, 2:30 p.m:

A middle-aged couple, members of the Georgia delegation, discuss the news that Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol is pregnant.

Her: “I guess it’s not so bad if the guy is 17. It’s not like he’s older, right?”

Him: “I wouldn’t know. I abstained until I was 24.”

Her: “We were dating when you were 24.”

Him: “Right.”

Laughter fills the back of the bus.

A Huffington Post luncheon at the Nicollet Island Inn earlier today explored how "the new media are impacting the '08 race." Hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the panel was conducted like a TV show, the hosts agreeing with each other and sometimes talking over the panelists, who included Tony Blankley, Huffington, Laura Ingraham, David Kralik, Cyrus Krohn, and Peggy Noonan.

The hot topic for discussion was whether the Internet drove the Sarah Palin pregnancy story.

As in any media panel, discussion also touched on how to make people pay to visit web sites. "Usually the only people pay for online is porn," Huffington said. "And weird porn."

Sarah and Todd Palin have confirmed a report by Reuters that their 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant.

Here's a statement released by the McCain campaign a few moments ago:

"We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.  read more »

Twice in the television era have the pre-scripted proceedings of a national political convention been badly disrupted – and both times it proved catastrophic for the party that put on the show.

In 1968, chaos in the streets and on the floor of the Democrats’ Chicago convention – punctuated by the unforgettable image of Richard Daley shouting epithets at Abraham Ribicoff after the Connecticut senator decried the “Gestapo tactics” of the mayor’s police force – led many Americans to conclude that a party incapable of managing its own affairs shouldn’t be entrusted with the nation’s affairs.

Four years later, similar chaos reigned in Miami Beach, when an endless parade of procedural motions from the floor forced George McGovern’s acceptance speech – perhaps his best chance to win a reevaluation from the millions of voters who’d come to view him as a fringe figure – out of prime time and into the wee hours of the morning, limiting the television audience to a few hard-core shut-ins and insomniacs who might otherwise have been watching infomercials.  read more »

A reader sends over part of an interview Monocle magazine conducted with Sarah Palin, John McCain's newly minted running mate, in October of last year, when Rudy Giuliani was rumored to be considering her as V.P. (So much for that!)

Here are some excerpts [story is subscription only]:

Monocle: You must have heard the recent gossip that Rudy Giuliani, if he emerges as Republican nominee for President next year, might ask you to be his running mate. Would you consider it?

Sarah Palin: I think it is so far in outer space, the possibility that he would ever want a hockey mum from Wasilla to be his running mate, that I haven't considered it.

 read more »

On January 5th of this year, Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed in the New York Times opposing listing polar bears on the endangered species list. Her argument was well reasoned and thoughtful, although in the end, unsatisfactory. In her piece Governor Palin noted her support for policies that helped preserve polar bears:

"We have a ban on most hunting - only Alaska Native subsistence families can hunt polar bears - and measures to protect denning areas and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations worldwide.

 read more »

The Obama campaign is not giving an inch when it comes to John McCain choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. In a statement released a few minutes ago, there was no warm language about the first female Republican vice presidential nominee, just a straightforward hit. From Obama spokesman Bill Burton:

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same.  read more »

The thinking behind John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin makes sense—on the surface.

No woman has ever been nominated for national office by the G.O.P., so the news will cause a stir, which will help McCain both in the short term—as he tries to deny Barack Obama a meaningful convention bounce—and in the long run, since the 72-year-old McCain has struggled to build excitement and capture headlines.

Plus, Palin is solidly conservative on social issues, so her selection—unlike that of other outside-the-box prospects, like Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge—will sit well with the party base, and perhaps even make the base more motivated.  read more »

Get used to seeing the above photos for the next few hours on the Web. With the announcement that John McCain has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, photo editors will be scrambling to Getty Images where they will find... almost nothing of Governor Palin.

That's sure to change soon as the GOP convention ramps up and there'll be photo-ops aplenty.

Yesterday, Barack Obama lost one of his better V.P. options when Jim Webb backed out of the running, apparently deciding that the rigorous vetting process and the intense scrutiny of a national campaign weren’t for him.  read more »

Around the same time, one of John McCain’s most intriguing options might also have removed herself – but not intentionally. That would be Carly Fiorina, whose nonchalant mentions of Viagra and birth control at a breakfast with reporters yesterday are reverberating in the blogosphere today, seemingly confirming the conventional wisdom that the ousted Hewlett Packard C.E.O. would simply be too risky an addition to the G.O.P.’s national ticket.