Ken Vogel has this interesting story on what records or other relevant information the four major candidates (McCain, Obama, Palin and Biden) are not releasing to the public.
Archive for the ‘Sarah Palin’ Category
Palin 2012
Posted: October 23, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, Is It 2012 Yet?, Sarah Palin
Marc Ambinder has this analysis on why Palin might be the Republican frontrunner going into the next presidential election cycle, and how she might be laying the groundwork for that role with the base now.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility and the logic behind the argument makes sense. But one thing worth remembering is that Sarah Palin’s approval numbers nationwide and in Alaska have taken a beating since she became the party’s VP nominee. The findings of the Troopergate investigation didn’t do wonders for her reputation either. Democrats will probably try to find a serious challenger, maybe Tony Knowles again or someone else, to run against her in 2010 when she’s up for reelection as governor of Alaska. If she loses in 2010, any presidential ambitions she might have will go the way of former senator George Allen.
Palin Campaign Plane Flies Over Corncut Image
Posted: October 23, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, Sarah Palin
The Tell
Posted: October 23, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Media, Sarah Palin, Talking HeadsTags: 2008 Elections, John McCain, Media, Sarah Palin, Talking Heads
Chuck Todd is one of the most influential political observers and commentators in Washington. When he says something, people listen. This is not what the McCain people want the chattering class in the media to be talking about less than two weeks before the election.
Commenting on a new joint interview with John McCain and Sarah Palin, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd described the Republican ticket as lacking cohesion, chemistry, and (he hinted) trust.
“There was a tenseness,” Todd told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “I couldn’t see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said ‘here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.’ They are not comfortable with each other yet.”
Todd, who was remarking on the interview conducted by NBC’s Brian Williams (he was in the room), speculated that the candidates had come to the realization that “they are losing” the campaign, and guessed that McCain may have begun to hold his vice presidential choice responsible for his dwindling White House chances.
Quotes of the Day
Posted: October 22, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Quotes, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, John McCain, Quotes, Sarah Palin
Both about Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.
“Isn’t this the best $150,000 the RNC has spent the entire cycle?”
– Unidentified McCain aide
“I don’t want to tell them how to do their business, but I would have picked a week of TV somewhere.”
– Unidentified Democratic operative
Sarah Palin’s New Wardrobe By the Numbers
Posted: October 22, 2008 in 2008 Elections, October Surprise, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, Follow the Money, October Surprise, Sarah Palin
Sam Stein at the Huffington Post:
If Edwards had gotten one of his legendary haircuts every singe week, it would still take him 7.2 years to spend what Palin has spent. Palin has received the equivalent of $2,500 in clothes per day from places such as Saks Fifth Avenue (where RNC expenditures totaled nearly $50,000) and Neiman Marcus (where the governor had a $75,000 spree).
…
Indeed, the story could not come at a more inopportune time for the McCain campaign. During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class — and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber — it was revealed that Palin’s fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.
Update: Marc Ambinder:
That’s one good week of television time in Colorado.
The New 400 Dollar Haircut
Posted: October 22, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, Follow the Money, John McCain, Sarah Palin
Remember how much fun Republicans had tarring and feathering John Edwards with this?
If that was fair game (I thought at the time – and still do – that it was quite silly) then Sarah Palin and the Republican National Committee just handed the Democrats a whole caseload of ammunition.
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission’s long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.
Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.
Somehow, I think a six-figure shopping spree for a personal makeover is not what Republican donors had in mind when they wrote out their checks. Expect the Democrats and the late night comedians to pounce on this.
Update: Marc Ambinder quotes Republicans, GOP donors and an RNC staffer who are disgusted with the expenditures, although not surprisingly all of them are on background.
Going Off the Rails On the Ayers Train
Posted: October 20, 2008 in 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, John McCain, Sarah Palin
William Ayers and Sarah Palin have become polling liabilities for John McCain, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Further proof that what’s good for the Republican base isn’t always necessarily best for the electorate at large.
Update: According to the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said during an interview with Hugh Hewitt he is considering bringing back the ghost of Jeremiah Wright to hit Obama during the final weeks of the campaign.
Why he wants to spend any of the limited time and money he has left trying to beat this dead horse is beyond me. It’s his campaign to run, but if I were advising him, I’d remind him of Rita Mae Brown’s famous quote about insanity.
Sarah Palin and SOFA
Posted: October 19, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Foreign Policy, National Security, Sarah PalinTags: 2008 Elections, Foreign Policy, Iraq, National Security, Sarah Palin
John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden get calls from Bob Gates and Condoleezza Rice about the ongoing Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) being discussed with the Iraqi government because of their respective roles on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. Sarah Palin… not so much.
According to the State Department, Palin is a governor with no relevant jurisdiction or oversight of the State Department or Department of Defense, but as this briefing shows, some people aren’t going to be able to help but interpret it as a snub of the Republican vice presidential candidate. From Friday’s daily State Department briefing:
QUESTION: You called Senator Biden, you called McCain, you called —
MR. MCCORMACK: Chairman Biden, I guess I should have said.
QUESTION: Yeah. Did you also call Governor Palin?
MR. MCCORMACK: No, no. She – if you hadn’t noticed, she’s a governor, not a senator or congressman.
QUESTION: She’s a vice presidential candidate.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: She also has extensive foreign affairs experience. (Laughter.)
MR. MCCORMACK: Look, I explained to you the reasoning behind the phone calls.
QUESTION: Anything that has to do with Russia, you would have called her?
Regardless of the substantive issue of whether or not a governor has jurisdiction of foreign policy, as vice presidential candidate, she or any other candidate – regardless of gender or political affiliation – are entitled to get a briefing or courtesy call on this subject so they can be informed as candidates. If she is entitled to receive classified intelligence briefings from the DNI, I see no reason why she shouldn’t be filled in on SOFA.
The headline does not reflect the lead of the story, a rare mistake for my alma mater.
(CNN) – Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told supporters at a North Carolina fundraiser that her aides discouraged her from watching campaign news because they thought she would get “depressed.”
“At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit discouraged, when you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news,” she said Thursday night, to laughter from the crowd. “Usually they’re like ‘Oh my gosh, don’t watch, you’re going to, you know, you’re going to get depressed.’
“But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they’re reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for, sometimes that, that gets draining,” she added. “But it’s at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country, and that’s why we so appreciate you being here.”
The view isn’t all glum from the trail. “We even saw today, thank the Lord, we saw some movement,” looking upwards and making a fist. Another bright note for her, she said later, was visiting “pro-America” areas of the country.
My next question is what are the “anti-America” areas of the country, according to Sarah Palin?
Update: As expected, Joe Biden pounces on Palin’s “pro-America” comment.
Icepicks and Nukes 