For starters, a lot of women voters don't live in New York, Boston, L.A. or San Francisco. Maybe Sarah Palin from Wasilla is a lot closer to the way many women today see themselves than the standard feminist model. Gloria Steinem, one of the many mothers of that ideal, is 74. Sarah Palin is 44. Times change.

Many younger women didn't learn what it means to be an achieving woman from dormitory feminism. She didn't abandon her hometown for the big city. She stayed home, had babies, helped her snowmobiling husband with his commercial fishing business and with him, tried to assemble a life.

She got into politics in Wasilla with zero connections -- no famous father, no financing husband, no mentor, nothing. She got elected mayor. She got into politics to improve her community, not to launch herself on some career path she had figured out while in college.

Then came the interesting part. Under the standard model, you deploy your superb IQ to maneuver upward around the oppressors. Sarah Jock, learning her self-discipline in such weird pursuits as morning moose-hunts with her dad, ran at the system. Doing something few women and no males would do, she went after the men who run Alaska's inbred politics, the machine. And cleaned their clocks. The people elected her governor.

I asked a number of women this week to account for Sarah Palin's sudden appeal. Here are the common threads.

The angry woman-as-victim drives them nuts. They hate victimology. As one woman said, "The point is that across the ages women have been doing pretty much what Sarah Palin has been doing: bearing children, feeding families, bringing in an income, working to improve their communities."

Another woman said, "Her story reflects a more normal reality" of active women; "the harder you work, the luckier you get." Hillary Clinton still plays the victim card. Sarah Palin gives off no victim vibes. These women mentioned her grit, determination and character.

They also said the Roe v. Wade litmus test has become too knee-jerk. Simply writing off Sarah Palin as "pro-life" caricatures pregnancy and motherhood.

Let's stipulate that not all "liberal" women share the Roe-dominated test of which women in public life get a pass and which are shunned. But this notion of sisterhood as a rules-based club is the public face of the feminist message, and in politics message is all -- until it no longer makes sense.

Sarah Palin looks like the old model's first real political challenge. They will be gunning for her. Good luck with that.

Continue reading "The New Model for Female Politicians" »

08:30 AM | Print | Permalink

John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice-presidential running mate is proving more shrewd by the hour. As Blackfive points out, Governor Palin, as Alaska's chief executive, has shared strategic command of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard:

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It's on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska, Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's.

She's also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counterterrorism plans.

Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to the entire country's defense. Given Alaska's proximity to Russia, she may have security clearances we don't even know about.

According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets.

She can be entrusted with our national security, because she already is.

Donald blogs at American Power

08:10 AM | Print | Permalink

Let's start with the good news for Barack Obama fans - your guy did his usual excellent job last night. He delivered a well-written speech with his usual energy and eloquence. He looked great and sounded great. Presidential, you might say. He didn't go on too long. He didn't let the adoring crowd stall him out by letting their incessant cheering drag on. He was fine. He'll get a nice bump in the polls, and probably consolidate the progress he made this week uniting his party behind him.

OK, now, the bad news. The speech was too much. Too many promises of too much spending and too many profound changes without any real explanation of how they'll actually happen. Too much talk of a magical, mystical, impossible uniting of a country that has over the last century grown profoundly diverse and ideologically divided in ways that no politician can seriously hope to reverse. Too many nice turns of phrase to the point where none will likely stand out in any swing voter's mind past the weekend, if that. Keep in mind, this is typical of these big presidential nominee convention speeches. That's why so few of them are memorable to anyone but the party insiders.

John McCain will probably repeat the same mistakes next week at his convention. Because that's the kind of culture we have now, a culture of too much. This has always been a big country of big plans and big appetitites. But in recent decades we've become almost obese in so many ways. Too much cultural license without a restraining sense of taste. Too much political extremism. Too much of an edifice complex on things like the Big Dig and the Bush "democratization" of the Middle East. Too much narcissism, too much materialism, too much of everything, when all too often, less is really more. The Republican party has suffered from this disease; that's why they're rightly on the banana peel. But Obama-ism fits the mold too. And it leaves you to wonder - where's a fed-up voter to turn?

Jon Keller blogs regularly for WBZ-TV Boston at Keller @ Large

08:24 AM | Print | Permalink

Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis disappeared from the top echelons of the party establishment after his devastating loss to George H.W. Bush in 1988. I recall in 2004, during the Democratic Convention in Boston, where Senator John Kerry was being nominated, commentators still spoke of Dukakis as a disgraced loser who would not be on hand to address the delegates.

So it's interesting to see Dukakis reemerging from obscurity to attend this year's festivities in Denver. Katie Couric, in the video below, interviews Dukakis outside the Pepsi Center arena. The former Massachusetts Governor is apologetic for his loss in 1988, lamenting that he didn't combat the GOP attack-machine effectively. He says this year Obama's got to "fight fire with fire":

Continue reading "Michael Dukakis Emerges from Political Exile in Denver" »

08:01 AM | Print | Permalink

Rudy Giuliani, in his established role as a traveling flack for John McCain, is now speaking with tremendous respect for "his senator," Hillary Clinton, whom he had expected to run against, and who turns big star as we post.

Very subtle.

There's speculation in GOP circles that Giuliani Partners could do well under a McCain presidency, say with fat contracts. Or, if Obama wins, and then looks vulnerable enough in 2012, Giuliani could give the presidency another try.

But of course the ex-mayor was against Clinton before he was for her, as shown by the sample dispatches below. Emphasis, of course, added.

In a dispatch filed yesterday by CBS Giuliani says: "Well, I think it's actually weakness. I mean is it 'tough' to turn down the person that gives you the best chance to win because it unites the party or is it some kind of difficulty in dealing with one of your rivals? I mean honestly, I am just speculating, I don't know," said Giuliani from the beach resort town of Sag Harbor on Saturday.

And this is from September 17, 2007: (AP) Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani denounced Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday for challenging the Capitol Hill testimony of the top U.S. military commander in Iraq.

"Hillary Clinton, questioning Gen. (David) Petraeus, said you had to suspend disbelief," Giuliani said after a brief campaign stop at an Akron restaurant. "Why would you say that about an American general?"

Continue reading "DNC: Rudy Cuts and Pastes to Fit the Moment" »

09:24 AM | Print | Permalink

This is just odd...

McCain is traveling with the U.N.'s World Food Programme, whose work she monitored in Southeast Asia and Africa this spring and summer. McCain plans to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and to visit wounded Georgian soldiers. She would also visit representatives of the HALO Trust, which works to remove land mines and on whose board she serves. [...]

Cindy McCain said she has been trying to get into Georgia since the conflict started, but it took time to arrange the logistics. Her husband, she said, is "very supportive. As soon as he saw what was happening -- he and I, we connect on many levels. I mean, he knew immediately [that I would want to go]. I've been to Georgia with him; I know the country."

Imagine if Michelle Obama was taking this trip. Imagine the outrage on the right as they'd accuse her of turning a foreign policy crisis into a photo op. And you know what? They'd be right.

I mean, what else can this trip be seen as since Cindy is essentially going to be in the country for less than a day? Yes, I know she has worked with the UN before, but folks, this is not "monitoring."

Again, just odd.

Justin blogs daily at Donklephant.com

08:33 AM | Print | Permalink

In the wake of Joe Biden's nomination, Fred Barnes drags out the National Journal 2007 Senate ratings to argue that Obama and Biden are the first and third most liberal sentors:

Once regarded as a centrist, Mr. Biden was rated by the National Journal in 2007 as the third most liberal member of the Senate. Mr. Obama was rated the most liberal. Neither has a record of bucking the wishes of liberal interest groups or promoting bipartisanship.

However, as I pointed out back in February, the National Journal ratings are seen as simplistic by political scientists who study voting in Congress. The far more respected ranking produced by UCSD's Keith Poole and UCLA's Jeff Lewis places Obama and Biden as the 11th and 10th most liberal senators (respectively) in the first half of the 110th Senate (2007) and as the 21st and 29th most liberal in the 109th Senate (2005-2006).

By contrast, Poole and Lewis rate the "maverick" McCain as the eighth most conservative senator in the first half of the 110th and the second most conservative in the 109th, so the comparison isn't actually as flattering as Barnes thinks (though see my previous post on the methodological problems posed by his inconsistent voting record).

Brendan blogs at Brendan-Nyhan.com

08:13 AM | Print | Permalink

Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden was designed to bolster the Democrats' flagging standings on the national security issue. Biden, a 35-year veteran of the Congress, serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, looked to provide foreign policy gravitas to Obama's dangerous inexperience on the international stage.

Yet, as analysts and bloggers take a closer look, Obama's Biden pick may end up being a disastrous liability for the campaign.

For one thing, Biden's holds a near-religious commitment to diplomacy before the resort to military force in a crisis. Biden's hedging has left the Delaware Senator a legacy of vacillation and hypocrisy in foreign affairs. For some background, here's Michael Gordon:

As the Bush administration was fine-tuning its plan to invade Iraq, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. helped draft a proposed resolution that emphasized the need for diplomatic efforts to dismantle Saddam Hussein's weapons programs but gave President Bush the authority to use military force as a last resort....

Mr. Biden is widely seen as a liberal-minded internationalist. He has emphasized the need for diplomacy but has been prepared at times to back it with the threat of force. An early advocate of military action to quell the ethnic fighting in the Balkans, he has not been averse to American military intervention abroad. As the debates over Kosovo and later Iraq showed, he has been loath to give the United Nations a veto over American policy decisions. But he has also sought to ensure that the United States acted in concert with other nations.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. joins the Democratic ticket as an acknowledged foreign policy sage whose 36-year record has won him bipartisan praise as a liberal internationalist who generally hews close to his party's center. But he has sometimes found himself at odds with members of his own party as well as with Republicans.

Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for U.S. military action in the Balkans in the 1990s. He also advocates U.S. action to stem the continuing bloodshed in Darfur.

Some liberal Democrats remain distressed by his 2002 vote for the Iraq war, which Barack Obama opposed. Other critics say Biden was misguided or even naive in his most recent proposal to resolve sectarian conflict by giving broad autonomy to Iraq's three major population groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And he opposed last year's troop "surge," which by most accounts has contributed significantly to the reduction in violence in Iraq.

What appears to bind Biden and Obama in the realm of foreign affairs, however, is a shared belief in strong cooperation with America's traditional allies and in the use of force only as a last resort. The Democratic standard-bearers reject the belief of President Bush and some other conservatives that the United States should not hesitate to act unilaterally if other nations demur.

Continue reading "Joe Biden's Disastrous Foreign Policy Liabilities" »

08:06 AM | Print | Permalink

That's the buzz coming from Denver, via Ambinder.

As I mentioned earlier in the day, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman could do numerous things to help McCain, not the least of which is act as a Hillary surrogate for many of those security moms and independent women who saw Hillary as the true candidate for "change."

Also, let's not forget that McCain named Whitman as one of those people whom he admires most at the Saddleback conference recently and who else could talk the talk when it comes to the economy?

Still, there are pretty obvious drawbacks.

For one, few know where Whitman stands on a lot of the hot button issues (she is pro-life), and while that may excite some independents, it'll still scare McCain's religious base...a lot. Basically, there's no legislative record behind Whitman, only private sector work...most of which never sees the light of day.

Ambinder has more negatives...

But eBay's lost a lot of value in ten years. There's a lot about Whitman we don't know. A lot that social conservatives might object to: eBay is very good to its gay employees, for one thing. And Whitman has her heart set on the governors's mansion in California. Is she ready to lead from day one? When was the last time she went to Iraq? Etc. Etc.

Also, does anybody think Whitman would be ready to lead on day one if something happened to McCain. Dems would have a field day with that one.

Still, a female VP for McCain is extremely intriguing notion and I think it would be a game changer. In fact, it would be the only game changer.

Justin blogs daily at Donklephant.com

07:58 AM | Print | Permalink

A handy clip 'n' save guide:

1. Vice presidential selections rarely affect election outcomes.*
2. The selection is therefore only likely to be important insofar as the VP choice (a) helps or hurts the president they serve during his time in office and (b) becomes more likely to be a future president.
3. The selection should therefore be assessed primarily in light of #2, not #1. (It will not be.)

* You could tell a story where Obama's VP could help prevent defections from white working-class voters who would otherwise have voted Democratic (a possibility that was obviously not relevant in past elections). However, this idea is purely speculative and would be difficult to test even after the fact.

Brendan blogs at Brendan-Nyhan.com

08:21 AM | Print | Permalink

After the nonsense this primary season, I can understand why Democrats across the board would want to diminish the importance of these folks.

From Wash Post:

Barack Obama's campaign will call next week for the creation of a new commission to revise the rules for selecting a presidential nominee in 2012 with a goal of reducing the power of superdelegates, whose role became a major point of contention during the long battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton. [...]

The proposed changes grow out of discussions between Obama's campaign team, officials at the Democratic National Committee and representatives of Hillary Clinton's former presidential campaign, Plouffe said. [...]

"The number of super delegates has gotten too large in relation to overall delegates," Plouffe said. "We want to give more control back to the voters.... Everyone thinks there ought to be more weight given to the results of the elections."

Also, this new commission will be looking at changing up the primary schedule, although it doesn't look likely that Iowa or New Hampshire will be moved around...

The other significant change is the call to redraw the primary and caucus calendar. The 2008 calendar drew significant criticism both for the early starting dates for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, and also because there were so many states crowded into the first month of what turned out to be a five-month campaign.

As envisioned by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, most contests could not be held before March, except for a handful of states authorized to go earlier -- presumably in February rather than January.

I think these are all good changes, but I wish they'd mix up the primary calendar A LOT more. Give other states a chance to go first instead of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Justin blogs daily at Donklephant.com

09:02 AM | Print | Permalink

The long wait is nearly over! Grateful voters will soon be able to read "Mike's Election Guide," by movie maker and deep political thinker Michael Moore. Fortunately for the impatient among us, Rolling Stone has excerpts posted on-line, and they are riveting.

In his "blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history" (geez, really? More than FDR's landslide 1944 re-election? ), Moore begins with a familiar angry-left litany of laments: Barack Obama is giving far too much credit to John McCain for being, among other things, a war hero; is being far too hawkish by talking tough on Iran and supporting Israel; and is in general brandishing a "peashooter" at a "gunfight." Intriguingly, Moore predicts fallout from all that genteel centrism in the form of ennui among Obama supporters, whom he characterizes as beer-swilling, trash-TV-addicted couch potatoes. (We are left to imagine his view of McCain backers, although an educated guess seems possible.)

But Moore doesn't stop with imperious contempt for the followers and candidate of the campaign he claims to support. He offers Obama a fail-safe political solution, one that could only have been devised by a totemic member of the "me" generation - drop what you're doing and embrace...ME.

Moore imagines that the press will inevitably ask Obama if he really welcomes Moore's endorsement. And what if the Democratic nominee should be so unwise as to downplay his association with a figure on the political fringe? Moore recalls the trauma of watching 2004 nominee John Kerry tell a TV interviewer he had not seen and had no plans to see Moore's anti-Bush polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11. "But he had indeen seen it," claims Moore. "I sat there watching him say this, and I just felt sorry for him and for the election he was about to lose." Yes - that's the same moment we all remember thinking Kerry was toast.

Continue reading "Michael Moore's Threat" »

08:57 AM | Print | Permalink

Many are the riveting questions if Sen. John McCain picks Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running-mate (speculation stirred here). Does it make McCain the Sen. Al Gore of 2008? Does McCain therefore lose, grow a beard, gain weight, and start a foundation? Does Lieberman stand up at this convention, as he did at the other one, but this time give a whole new meaning to his tag line, "Only in America"? Does Lieberman continue to embrace the controversial Rev. Hagee -- as he did just a few weeks ago, and compare him to Moses -- now that McCain has renounced Hagee over the pastor's dicey comments?

Some of Hagee's printed quotes: "The Roman Catholic Church, which was supposed to carry the light of the gospel, plunged the world into the dark ages.

"[John Paul II] will be remembered for staring down Communism and embracing people of all faiths and colors. He will lovingly be remembered for his bold stand against abortion. (Lieberman is avowedly "pro-choice").

"When Hitler signed a treaty with the Vatican in Rome, he said "I am only continuing the work of the Catholic Church."

Dan Janison writes and reports for Newsday's Spin Cycle blog

08:42 AM | Print | Permalink

Here we go again with the familiar election-year ritual of entrenched incumbents ducking debates with their challengers. The Associated Press reports Sen. John Kerry is now saying that while he has instructed aide Roger Lau to "discuss the 'modalities' of a debate" with the campaign of Democratic challenger Ed O'Reilly,  he "just may not necessarily be able to" find time for one. 

Sure he can't. You know how grueling those modalities can be.

Anyway, predictably and justifiably, Kerry is taking his lumps for blowing off O'Reilly. The Globe editorial page spanked him this morning; op-ed columnist Joan Vennochi is said to be preparing her take, and knowing Joan, Kerry better have his asbestos suit on that day. But may I just say: why is anyone surprised? Kerry is simply demanding the same pass taken by Ted Kennedy in 2000 when he declined to debate GOP nominee Jack E. Robinson. In our one-party state, opinion-makers may find such disdain for the democratic process distasteful, but it seems few voters care. Up to a point, that is - while Ted got away with ignoring the hapless Robinson, a similar attempt to duck debates with Mitt Romney in 1994 was unsuccessful.

The funny thing is, with all due respect to O'Reilly, a debate with him offers little danger for Kerry, an accomplished debater. And by the way, WBZ's offer to host a televised debate still stands. But spare me hand-wringing from the political culture if Kerry's decides the modalities just aren't aligned. Why duck a debate? Because he can.

Jon Keller blogs regularly for WBZ-TV Boston at Keller @ Large

09:26 AM | Print | Permalink

June 30, 2008:

McCain himself disowned the Swift Boat nutters in 2004 as "dishonest and dishonorable." I find both attempts to smear the war records of people who volunteered to fight for their country to be repellent. But the far right is too invested in the politics of Vietnam to take the high road.

August 17, 2008:

I've now heard it countless times. McCain has used what appears to be an intensely personal moment in a prison camp as a reason to vote for him in a campaign ad. As he tells it today, it was the pivotal moment in his struggle to survive in the Hanoi Hilton. And yet, in his first thorough account of his time in captivity, in 1973, the story is absent. The story is also hauntingly like that recounted by Solzhenitsen, as told in Luke Veronis, "The Sign of the Cross":

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed.

I have one simple question: when was the first time that McCain told this story?

And he didn't stop there.  He has continued on today here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

That's 12, count 'em, 12 posts to date so far from the same guy who said back in June, "I find both attempts to smear the war records of people who volunteered to fight for their country to be repellent. But the far right is too invested in the politics of Vietnam to take the high road."

Um ... so does this mean Andrew's on "the right" again, or is it a confirmation that he's a far leftie?  Hell, I dunno anymore. In fact, I don't think he even knows.

Read more at SisterToldjah.com

09:12 AM | Print | Permalink