Palin Pick Harms Republican Ticket In The Supermarkets

John McCain, realizing he was behind in the race against Barack Obama, gambled by trying to shake up the race by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. The good news for McCain is that by making the announcement on the Friday after the Democratic convention, McCain did manage to turn media attention from Obama to his campaign. The bad news is that most of this coverage has been unfavorable as the media reported on both personal scandals and her abuse of power in office. In failing to properly vet his running mate, new questions were also raised about John McCain’s own competence.

I’ve discussed how Sarah Palin is far less qualified for national office than Barack Obama, her dishonesty, her extremism, and some of the scandals in many recent posts. While these issues are far more important, the media has concentrated more on her seventeen-year-old daughter’s pregnancy and upcoming shotgun wedding but has also discussed the more relevant issues. While hits from Google searches on Palin have increased traffic here, the vast majority of voters will not read blog posts on Palin. Far more voters, especially the working class women which the campaign hopes Palin will attract to the Republican ticket, are likely to see the cover of US Weekly at their local supermarket. They will see the cover above, which is far more damaging to the Republicans than any of the facts on Palin I have discussed in recent posts.

The McCain campaign is also taking legal action to prevent The National Enquirer from publishing a story alleging that Palin had an affair with her husband’s business partner. The Enquirer has been both right and wrong on such stories in the past and I have no idea as to which it is in this case but Palin should be given the benefit of the doubt on this one until there is some evidence presented. Curiously it was the McCain’s decision to threaten legal action which resulted in coverage of this story by the mainstream media. I do find it interesting that the conservative blogs which immediately accepted the charges against John Edwards as true, and which ignored John McCain’s adultery, have immediately proclaimed that The National Enquirer is wrong when they accuse Palin of adultery.  The Enquirer is also writing about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and has claimed that Palin went public on the story only because they were planning to expose the pregnancy.

While I believe that the stories on Palin’s family are far less important than Palin’s extremist right wing views, AP does note the contradiction shown in their protests against media coverage of the family:

For two days, the chorus from Republicans on TV news and in the halls of the convention has been resounding: Back off and let the Palin family be. “That’s out of bounds,” said Minnesota’s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty. “There’s no need to be intrusive and pry into that.”

Yet Wednesday found the following scenes unfolding:

Sarah Palin‘s pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter and probable future son-in-law stood in a nationally televised, politically packaged airport receiving line to meet and greet the Republican candidate for president.

The extremely cute and bubbly Piper Palin, 7, made her debut on her mother’s behalf, appearing in a video on John McCain’s daughter’s blog. “Vote for my mommy and John McCain,” she said, giggling as Meghan McCain grinned.

Bristol Palin and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Levi Johnston, were expected to appear together as part of the GOP political narrative at the convention Wednesday night, according to the young man’s mother.

Huh? The Republican message about the Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. The mind boggles.

All of this occurred before the Republicans used Palin’s baby as a prop during the television coverage of Palin’s speech.

7 Comments

  1. 1
    Fred says:

    Speeches are great aren’t they. But one must consider who actually wrote the speech. The rhetoric was so thick one could hardly breeth. Some might have a different name for it, but it;s all the same, no meat, no potatoes, all hot air. Where’s the beef? 

    I am sure, if elected, John and Sarah will continue business as usual, prolonged wars, rigid stance against the people of the world and a hypocracy of words from their own speeches.

    If you listen to Sarah’s doubt of change tyhen you realize she shares no optimism for it, because the conservatives don’t believe in equality, fairness, healthcare, energy or any of the true issues that affect all US citizens.

    Well, do the research. Surprise!!

  2. 2
    Ulises Jorge says:

    “All of this occurred before the Republicans used Palin’s baby as a prop during the television coverage of Palin’s speech.”

    I’m sorry, but weren’t Barack Obama’s daughters with his wife at the Democrats convention last week?  Wasn’t Chelsea Clinton alongside her parents when Bill Clinton was running for presidents?  Who were those girls with Al and Tipper Gore at the 2000 Democrats’ convention?
    Isn’t that what politicians do all the time, show their family and kids around?  What have changed now, why are the Palin’s kids fair game…?  Is the media now digging around Malia Obama’s school records for some kind of expose in the National Enquirer..?

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    Other politicians don’t use their kids as a prop to the degree Palin has after making such a fuss about saying they are out of bounds. Note that it is AP, not a partisan source, which has written the article accusing Palin of this contradiction.

  4. 4
    Ulises Jorge says:

    Other politicians don’t use their kids as a prop to the degree Palin has after making such a fuss about saying they are out of bounds.

    Well, there’s the little matter of those rumors at the Daily Kos about Sarah Palin faking a pregnancy to cover for her daughter and the press following up on them.  So how it is “making such a fuss” to ask the press to stop spreading false rumors around?  Tell me, what you would do if you were in her shoes?

    Lets say she follows your advice and leaves the kids in Alaska and says nothing about Bristol being five months pregnant.  You think the press would leave them alone?  Remember that Bristol’s pregnancy was widely known in Wasillia, so that story would have come out in the open anyway.  How do you think that would’ve played out? “SARAH PALIN HIDES HER DAUGHTER TO CONCEAL PREGNANCY!”  That’s an exaggeration of course… the press wouldn’t do such a thing….

  5. 5
    Brian says:

    I see Charters of Dreams is as deranged as ever, linking back here with an untrue account of what you wrote once again. He sure has a bad case of Liberal Derangement Syndrome 🙂

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    Such dishonesty is typical of Charters of Dreams. I hope you don’t mind that I removed the link back to his blog from your comment. As he does not abide by decent netiquette he has been banned from commenting here and all links to his “blog” have been removed.

    His writings irrational rants consist of resorting to personal attacks whenever the facts show he is wrong, and generally consists of lying about what others have said to give him something to attack.

  7. 7
    Brian says:

    I see your point about him. No problem with removing the link. It does make sense for real bloggers to ostracize someone who behaves like he does. It is sometimes amusing to see how convoluted his logic can be but for the most part he sure doesn’t make any sense.

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