http://www.forward.com/articles/14121/
Tue. Sep 02, 2008

While Barack Obama has struggled to capture the Jewish vote, it turns out that one of his wife’s cousins is the country’s most prominent black rabbi — a fact that has gone largely unnoticed.

Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, and Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side, are first cousins once removed. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson) and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister.

Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is chief rabbi at the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well-known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.

Funnye’s famous relative gives an unexpected twist to the much-analyzed relationship between Barack Obama and Jews in this presidential campaign. On the one hand, Jewish political organizers, voters and donors played an essential role in Obama’s rise to power in Chicago, including some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent families. But the Illinois senator has struggled to overcome suspicions in some parts of the Jewish community, including skepticism about his stance on Israel and discredited but persistent rumors that he is secretly a Muslim.

Funnye, who described himself as an independent, said he has not been involved with the Obama campaign but that he has donated money and was cheering it on.

“I know that her grandfather and her father and my mom and all of our relatives that are now deceased would be so very, very proud of both of them,” Funnye told the Forward.

Michelle Obama and the Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Funnye told the Forward that he has known Michelle Obama (born Michelle Robinson) all her life. His mother and her father, Frasier Robinson III, enjoyed a close relationship, and Funnye said he saw Michelle several times a year when they were growing up, mostly at family functions and on occasional visits to her house.

“Her father was like the glue of our family,” Funnye said. “He always wanted to keep the family very connected and to stay in touch with each other.”

Funnye, 56, said he and Michelle, 44, were not especially close growing up, but he remembers her as “energetic and smart and very caring.”

The two fell out of touch when they grew older and went their separate ways but then reconnected years later when Michelle Obama was working for the University of Chicago and Funnye was leading a local social service organization called Blue Gargoyle. Funnye also worked with Barack Obama, then a state senator, who came and spoke at events for the organization. When Barack and Michelle Obama married, Funnye and his family attended the wedding.

Although Funnye’s congregation describes itself as Ethiopian Hebrew, it is not connected to the Ethiopian Jews, commonly called Beta Israel, who have immigrated to Israel en masse in recent decades. It is also separate from the Black Hebrews in Dimona, Israel, and the Hebrew Israelite black supremacist group whose incendiary street harangues have become familiar spectacles in a number of American cities.

Funnye converted to Judaism and was ordained as a rabbi under the supervision of black Israelite rabbis, then went through another conversion supervised by Orthodox and Conservative rabbis. He serves on the Chicago Board of Rabbis.

Funnye’s relationship with the Obama family was reported in the Chicago Jewish News in an article dated August 22. A Wall Street Journal article in April reported that the aspiring first lady had a cousin (whom the paper mistakenly referred to as a second cousin) who is a prominent black rabbi but did not mention Funnye by name.

The rabbi’s familial connection with the Democratic presidential nominee is also a matter of common knowledge in Funnye’s synagogue.

“He really jumped on everyone’s radar after the 2004 convention,” Funnye said. “That’s when some people said, ‘Isn’t he related to you or something?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s married to my cousin, and she’s making him everything that he is.’”

——————–

Then the same article appears on - http://www.zimbio.com/pilot?ID=ZtkUxgmRJrM&ZURL=%2FMichelle%2BObama%2Fnews%2FZtkUxgmRJrM%2FChicago%2BIL%2BMichelle%2BObama%2BConvert%2BRabbi%2BFamily&URL=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.vosizneias.com%2F%7Er%2Fvin%2F%7E3%2F381472372%2F

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Chicago, IL - Michelle Obama Has a Convert Rabbi in Her Family.

Published on: 09-02-08 at 11:55 AM

Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr.

Chicago, IL - While Barack Obama has struggled to capture the Jewish vote, it turns out that one of his wife’s cousins is the country’s most prominent black rabbi — a fact that has gone largely unnoticed.

Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, and Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side, are first cousins once removed. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson) and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister.
Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is chief rabbi at the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well-known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.
Funnye’s famous relative gives an unexpected twist to the much-analyzed relationship between Barack Obama and Jews in this presidential campaign. On the one hand, Jewish political organizers, voters and donors played an essential role in Obama’s rise to power in Chicago, including some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent families. But the Illinois senator has struggled to overcome suspicions in some parts of the Jewish community, including skepticism about his stance on Israel and discredited but persistent rumors that he is secretly a Muslim.
Funnye, who described himself as an independent, said he has not been involved with the Obama campaign but that he has donated money and was cheering it on.
“I know that her grandfather and her father and my mom and all of our relatives that are now deceased would be so very, very proud of both of them,” Funnye told the Forward.
Michelle Obama and the Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Funnye told the Forward that he has known Michelle Obama (born Michelle Robinson) all her life. His mother and her father, Frasier Robinson III, enjoyed a close relationship, and Funnye said he saw Michelle several times a year when they were growing up, mostly at family functions and on occasional visits to her house.
“Her father was like the glue of our family,” Funnye said. “He always wanted to keep the family very connected and to stay in touch with each other.”
Funnye, 56, said he and Michelle, 44, were not especially close growing up, but he remembers her as “energetic and smart and very caring.”
The two fell out of touch when they grew older and went their separate ways but then reconnected years later when Michelle Obama was working for the University of Chicago and Funnye was leading a local social service organization called Blue Gargoyle. Funnye also worked with Barack Obama, then a state senator, who came and spoke at events for the organization. When Barack and Michelle Obama married, Funnye and his family attended the wedding.
Alhough Funnye’s congregation describes itself as Ethiopian Hebrew, it is not connected to the Ethiopian Jews, commonly called Beta Israel, who have immigrated to Israel en masse in recent decades. It is also separate from the Black Hebrews in Dimona, Israel, and the Hebrew Israelite black supremacist group whose incendiary street harangues have become familiar spectacles in a number of American cities.
Funnye converted to Judaism and was ordained as a rabbi under the supervision of black Israelite rabbis, then went through another conversion supervised by Orthodox and Conservative rabbis. He serves on the Chicago Board of Rabbis.
Funnye’s relationship with the Obama family was reported in the Chicago Jewish News in an article dated August 22. A Wall Street Journal article in April reported that the aspiring first lady had a cousin (whom the paper mistakenly referred to as a second cousin) who is a prominent black rabbi but did not mention Funnye by name.
The rabbi’s familial connection with the Democratic presidential nominee is also a matter of common knowledge in Funnye’s synagogue.
“He really jumped on everyone’s radar after the 2004 convention,” Funnye said. “That’s when some people said, ‘Isn’t he related to you or something?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s married to my cousin, and she’s making him everything that he is.’”

News Source: Forward By Anthony Weiss-link-

Renewing America’s “Contract With the Middle Class.”

by: Leo Hindery Jr, The Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2008.

In the last 25 years, what is good for America and what is good for much of corporate America have gotten way out of sync.

Not all that long ago, America’s prominent business and government leaders widely believed that our nation’s prosperity depended on a strong middle class growing from the bottom up. Workers were rewarded for their hard work with fair wages, benefits and advancement opportunities - and our economy and our national security were much stronger for it.

Henry Ford certainly knew this, and often said that his company would prosper only if his workers earned enough to buy the Fords they produced. And in 1953, when General Motors’ president told the Senate that “what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa,” he was simply stating the then-commonly held belief that success for American corporations generally meant success for America and American workers.

However, over the last 25 years - especially over the last decade - what is good for America and what is good for much of corporate America have gotten way out of sync. Our current business culture too often emphasizes only short-term corporate profits and shareholder returns - however and wherever they are generated - and in the process, what is good for America is being pushed aside.

———————
This disconnect between the national interest and corporate responsibility and interests has helped shatter the “contract with the middle class.” And in the most painful measure of just how broken this contract is, based on data from 2005-2006, the top 1% of Americans - 300,000 - earn as much as the bottom 150 million combined. Income inequality is the greatest it has been since 1928, and for every three-year period since 1981, the top 1% of taxpayers have gained, on average, $100 billion in total earnings, while the bottom 80% have lost $100 billion.

Corporate America frequently justifies its actions, however harmful those actions may be to workers and to the local and national economies, as necessary to remain competitive globally. But globalization doesn’t have to mean more job insecurity, stagnant wages for workers and little or no healthcare coverage for 75 million people. It doesn’t have to mean threats to move jobs overseas and slashed benefits just because multinational corporations have almost complete mobility of capital and technology and American workers have almost none. It doesn’t have to mean excessive executive compensation and preferential corporate and personal taxes. And it doesn’t have to mean unfair trade practices of the sort that are contributing greatly to the extreme income inequality.

———————
Our overseas trading partners have generally gone in a completely different direction. These countries have instead instituted economic policies to hold on to and improve the quality of their existing jobs and to induce foreign corporations to shift production facilities and technology their way. This is particularly the case throughout Asia. In China, for example, 60% of its exports come from “foreign-invested companies.”

It is imperative - way past time, in fact - for America to be as mercantilist as are our trading partners. We must forcefully counter the illegal subsidies, the manipulated currency exchange rates and the unfair labor and environmental practices that some of them are employing to strike at our economy. Domestically, we must stop encouraging the offshoring of millions of American jobs through misguided corporate tax practices. Indeed, what other country would give tax breaks to companies shipping high-quality domestic jobs overseas and hoarding their foreign profits?

At the same time, we need to get “back to the future,” where success for American corporations again means success for American workers, and where corporations are again managed with concurrent and equal responsibility to shareholders, workers and the public.

We must reform corporations from the inside by strengthening the voices of workers and shareholders. And we must reform them from the outside by limiting excessive executive compensation and by increasing transparency and accountability.

The next president and Congress need to put forward and advance a new “corporate responsibility contract” based on five reforms that will help reestablish the contract with middle-class America.

———————
We need to modernize labor laws to give workers more of a voice. To help the 60 million workers who research says would join a union if they could, Congress must pass the proposed Employee Free Choice Act to let workers organize when a majority of them sign union cards. This legislation needs to apply to part-time and contract workers as well, and there must be quicker and tougher penalties for breaking labor laws.

We need to strengthen shareholders’ rights, including the right to render advisory votes on executive compensation, to call shareholders’ meetings, to recall a limited number of directors and to gain proxy access to candidate slates for boards of directors.

We need to ensure that pension promises are kept and make it much tougher to dissolve collective-bargaining agreements and raid pension plans. And retirees who have lost health and pension benefits should be reimbursed with proceeds from any future asset sales.

We need to limit excessive executive compensation. Executives should not be paid more than a reasonable multiple of average employee compensation, and, along with hedge fund and private equity managers, they should be fully taxed on their earnings at the same income tax rates that apply to their workers. Congress must also close the tax loopholes that allow executives to shelter massive amounts of earnings using both accounts overseas and tax-free deferred compensation plans here at home.

———————
Finally, we need to create public accountability through greater transparency. Congress needs to enact a new corporate disclosure law requiring all major businesses to disclose, in annual reports to shareholders and regulators, easily understandable information regarding stock options, deferred compensation, pensions and personal benefits as well as information regarding their lobbying activities, political contributions, government contracts and subsidies, major environmental impacts and foreign supply-chain conditions.

Everyone needs to pitch in to help right the economic ship, not least of which are America’s corporations. Only then will a vibrant middle class growing from the bottom up again be our economic beacon and our example to the world.

——-

Leo Hindery Jr. is currently managing partner of a New York-based media industry private equity fund. He chairs the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation and is an unofficial economic advisor to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Cindy McCain defends Palin pick, husband
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press, Sunday, August 31, 2008

WASHINGTON - Cindy McCain said Sunday that Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin understands what’s at stake in national security issues in part because she is governor of Alaska, whose borders nearly touch Russia’s.

The wife of soon-to-be GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain also said she’s “offended” by Democrats calling her husband elitist because of the number of homes their family owns.

Asked about Palin’s credentials, Cindy McCain told ABC-TV’s “This Week:” “The experience that she comes from is with what she’s done in the government. And also, remember: Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So, it’s not as if she doesn’t understand what’s at stake here.”

***

Alaskan and Russian islands are fewer than 3 miles apart in the Bering Strait. The two mainlands are about 55 miles apart.

Reminded that Democrats are calling Palin too inexperienced to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, she responded by saying that Palin’s son is about be deployed to Iraq.

“I asked her, how do you feel about this? This is two things you have to do, is not only possibly be a vice presidential candidate, but also, you know, listen, to worry about your son,” Cindy McCain recounted of her conversation with Palin before the vice presidential announcement. “And she looked me square in the eye and she said, ‘You know something? I’m a mother. I can do it.’”

***

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, his party’s 2004 presidential nominee, disputed Palin’s credentials a few minutes later on the show, saying the Alaska governor has “zero, zero experience in foreign policy.”

It’s unusual for the spouse of a presidential candidate to go on a Sunday talk show, but Cindy McCain used her 10 minutes to defend her husband from charges of elitism.

She also signaled she’d want to focus on humanitarian crises as first lady, talking about her meetings in Georgia last week with refugees of the recent Russian invasion.

Georgia “is a wonderful, young democracy,” McCain said. “We can’t let it go. We can’t let a country come back in and take it back down to a Soviet-style government. This is democracy, and that’s what we’re all about.”

She added: “The United States is the best at what we do. We’re the ones that give the most and give the earliest, every time something happens. And I’d like to continue that, and also encourage others to get involved. You don’t have to cross an ocean to be of help.”

***

McCain bristled at charges by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama that her husband is out of touch with most Americans because of the eight homes their family owns.

“My husband was a Navy boy. His father and mother were in the Navy. I mean, there’s nothing elitist about that,” she said. “I’m offended by Barack Obama saying that about my husband.”

 http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/3…

—————

John McCain is Older Than Alaska:
The Senator from Arizona is 23 years older than America’s 49th state.
Posted by Isaac Fitzgerald, AlterNet, August 29, 2008.

The Wall Street Journal Says Senator McCain is a former fighter pilot - so he loves to take risks.

*****

Amazing Today’s Financial Times Print Edition (Saturday, August 30, 2008) - A clear Sign Of Having Been Caught in Complete Surprise.

The inside of the paper deals with the change from the Clinton party leadership to the Obamas. “Bedecked in Denver” and the Ingram Pinn cartoon showing “Turning The Page.”

Then The Editorial already scrambles to - “Battle of the Conventions: The Democrats did well, Next up, the Republicans.” … “Most appealingly, Obama wants to unite not just his party but his country.”… “No sooner had the Democrats wrapped up their convention - Mr. McCain congratulated Mr. Obama on a job well done - than Mr. McCain recaptured the headlines and stunned many in the party and the country at large with his choice of running mate…. Above all, young and inexperienced, is she a plausible president?”

A heroic effort was seemingly needed to put on the front page: “PALIN TO SHAKE UP ELECTION FIGHT IN US” and back this up on page 2 with “McCain Takes Big Gamble on Palin: Suburban Mom Who Took On Her Own Party.”

The obvious - Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Denver the night before was relegated to a secondary story. The media chatter was about the 44-year-old governor of Alaska. Mr. McCain has managed to grab the media’s attention in his unexpected move.

“Political insiders were divided between those that saw a masterstroke that could transform the race in Mr. McCain’s favor, and others who thought it disatrous.”

David Gergen, who advised Republican and Democrat White house, said on CNN “you could have knocked me over with a feather.” “John McCain likes to take risks and this is one of the biggest gambles I’ve seen in a long, long time.”

{OK John, you can take gambles with your campaign - but do you think the voters will take gambles with their future? Will they agree to have as alternate commander in chief to a 72 year old gentleman a kid conservative social-warrior when the country may indeed face not the issue of birth but the issues of death? Climate change, poverty and diseases in developing countries, the competition with the new powers of China, India and Russia? Reorganizing Alaska’s oil money is no credible experience when it comes to this sort of issues.

What about the following news:

“In the wake of the apparent retreat of ice in the Arctic Circle, the U.S. Coast Guard called for the need for vessels capable of breaking through the arctic ice. The U.S. fleet currently has three ships capable of performing such duties; one is currently under repair. Meanwhile, in search of new resources in the frozen north, Russia is expanding the size of its icebreaking fleet to 14.” Does the young lady have any idea how to respond to this problem brewing in her backyard?

or - “A defense deal was signed by Russia and Syria, which may lead to Russian defense missiles on Syrian soil. Some observers fear this may lead to a Middle East “Cold War,” with the West supporting Israel and Russia, Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said, “We are ready to co-operate with Russia in any project that can strengthen its security,”

or - “The US turned down a request by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to purchase the Boeing 767 aircraft, which can be used for mid-air refueling, amid fears that the sale would appear to support an Israeli strike on Iran” }

—-

The Japan Times online has no word yet on Palin, their US article is still “Obama Takes The Party.”

***

After above introduction, let us see what US reporters, with more access to sources, and with the benefit of another 6 hours of time, could come up regarding the big McCain (McPathetic) willing gamble. If he is successful, and god forbids something happens to him, heshowed he is willing to gamble with the future of all of us. This might indeed be a sign he himself is already beyond the age of becoming a solid leader of his country.

One Last Word To The Conservative Social Bunch that Is Trying To Run Away With America;

GOD IS SPELLED WITH A “D” - CLEARLY NOT WITH A “P”

==============

ANALYSIS: With His VP Pick, McCain Reclaims His Maverick Image.

Advisers say John McCain had hoped to shake up the race. In choosing as his running mate Sarah Palin — a virtually unknown Washington outsider — he succeeded.

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 30, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 29 — John McCain’s advisers predicted weeks ago that the presumptive Republican nominee would use his national convention week to try to recapture his image as a maverick reformer and shake up the presidential race. He did just that Friday with his surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

McCain’s selection of the nationally untested Palin is the most unlikely choice of a running mate since George H.W. Bush tapped then-Sen. Dan Quayle in 1988, a move as risky as it was bold. The decision brings the senator from Arizona immediate dividends with his base and eventually, perhaps, with swing voters. But it comes at potentially significant cost to his effort to discredit Democratic nominee Barack Obama as unprepared for the presidency.

The choice of Palin, the first woman named to a Republican presidential ticket, adds another chapter to a campaign that, mostly on the Democratic side, has been about breaking down racial and gender barriers in America. McCain’s hope is that, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) now on the sidelines, Palin can help close a sizable gap with Obama among female voters that threatens to block his path to the White House.

***

Picking Palin also helps McCain consolidate his party’s conservative base, which has been at best lukewarm toward his candidacy. The governor’s conservative credentials are not in doubt, whether on {opposing even in cases of rape or incest} abortion or {promoting} gun rights or {standing up against} gay rights. The announcement of her elevation to the Republican ticket brought an outpouring of enthusiasm from the right flank of the GOP and will assure a more energized convention next week in St. Paul, Minn.


But what tipped the balance toward Palin was that she gives McCain a partner with a record of challenging the establishment in her own party and in Anchorage, reinforcing the case that he would be more fearless and effective than Obama in taking on special interests in Washington.

“I have found the right partner to help me stand up to those who value their privileges over their responsibilities, who put power over principle, and put their interests before your needs,” McCain said in introducing Palin on Friday. “I found someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies; someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past.”

***

But in turning to Palin, who is halfway through her first term as governor and who previously served as mayor of the small town of Wasilla, outside Anchorage, McCain risks ceding the most effective argument he and fellow Republicans have made against Obama. For months, Republicans have attacked the senator from Illinois as not ready to be president. Now McCain has put someone who Democrats argue has even less experience one election and a heartbeat away from the presidency.

He also has gambled that the governor of a geographically large but sparsely populated state can make the transition to the national stage, with no opportunity for an off-Broadway tryout. Unlike some of the established politicians who were believed to be under consideration, Palin is a total newcomer to the national spotlight and thus vulnerable to making the kind of mistakes that would raise questions about McCain’s judgment.

But Mark Salter, one of McCain’s closest confidants, said Friday that the campaign will argue that Palin’s experience actually exceeds Obama’s, both as an executive and as a hard-charging reformer willing to take on not just special interests but her own party as well. “Obama has no such record,” Salter said.

McCain’s campaign has exuded confidence of late after a month in which it pounded Obama as an elitist and a lightweight celebrity. But the choice of Palin hints at the underlying anxiety within its inner circle that the fundamentals of this election year still favor Obama and the Democrats. McCain was looking for ways to counter the Democrats’ argument that he is merely an extension of President Bush and concluded that he needed a game-changing decision, with all the risks that entailed.

He had safer and more conventional options, although those perhaps became less attractive as he watched the Democrats celebrate Obama’s historic nomination in Denver.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was one of those alternatives, although the uproar over the many homes McCain owns perhaps made the wealthy businessman a problematic choice. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was another, a conservative with blue-collar roots. But the more Minnesota looks like an uphill climb for McCain, the less Pawlenty might have been able to do for the GOP ticket.

cCain’s heart may have been with two supporters of abortion rights: former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, a fellow Vietnam War veteran and an old McCain pal from their days in the House, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut who has been a regular traveling companion of McCain’s on the campaign trail.

The choice of either, however, could have blown apart the Republican convention over the abortion issue. Lieberman, in particular, would have been a problematic pick. He and McCain agree on little beyond the Iraq war and foreign policy, but his selection would have reinforced the closeness between McCain and Bush.

For all the enthusiasm Palin’s selection generated among conservative constituencies, many GOP strategists were privately bewildered by McCain’s decision.

***

One Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid view, said in an e-mail, “I would rather be arguing with conservatives about abortion than with the Democrats about a lack of experience on our own ticket.”

“She really destroys the ‘not ready’ mantra,” another strategist noted.

But other Republicans believe Palin could help the ticket in the industrial states of the Midwest if she is seen as they believe she will be: a working mother of strong character and convictions, and a fresh voice from outside Washington calling for an end to business as usual.

Her Western conservatism, they said, could also provide the ticket an added boost in the Rocky Mountain states, which Democrats have targeted this year. Obama is competing hard in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana. The presence of an Alaskan and an Arizonan on the Republican ticket may be reassuring to undecided Western voters.

The harsh Democratic reaction to her underscored the stakes for Palin. For all her attractive attributes, she is so little known that the first side that succeeds in defining her nationally may win the battle. Democratic leaders and Obama spokesman Bill Burton attacked her as an inexperienced right-winger who should not be trusted with the second-highest office in the land.

Republicans believe the fierceness of the Democratic attacks could backfire.

Obama, however, declined to join such attacks and even distanced himself from his campaign’s rhetoric. Clinton offered congratulations to Palin and only mild criticism.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, described Palin as a politician “with a compelling story” who is likely to be an effective campaigner. But, he said, she will be campaigning on McCain’s agenda, which he argued is a continuation of Bush’s. “Our view is that Obama’s and McCain’s agendas are on the ballot,” he said.

That is always the case in presidential campaigns. In the end, vice presidential candidates generally make little difference. But Friday’s uproar over Palin — positive and negative — says this is one pick that, at least in the short term, might make a difference.

The Washington Post online has much information on Sarah Palin, the Wasilla Warriors basketball star nicknamed “Sarah Barracuda” - a fme that stuck with her in her political life that spanned from the mayoralty of this small town of 7,000 to the Governorship of the 600,000 people, oil rich, State of Alaska. Please see:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…

The moniker - “Sarah Barracuda” - was revived once again in 2003, when Alaska’s governor, whom she would later unseat, appointed her to a state oil-and-gas commission. As a brand-new member, she challenged the ethics of the panel’s leader, the chairman of state’s Republican Party, forcing him ultimately to resign. {In effect the whole political class of this oil greased State is under suspicion of misconduct. Its Senior US Senator and its only Representative to the House in the US Congress are now under indictment that relates to money and oil favors. So, coming in as a novice and speaking up against some individual superiors, while continuing to safeguard the interests of big oil is rather a sign of rear guard work to save the oil interests when such exagerated misdeeds - like the famous bridge to nowhere - got disclosed to the US population at large - by others.}

Since long before she became Alaska’s youngest — and first female — governor 20 months ago, Sarah Louise Heath Palin has been making her mark as an unlikely upstart. Yesterday, she did it again, accepting Sen. John McCain’s surprise offer to be his running mate.

McCain, who regards himself as an independent-minded Republican, liked what he heard about her. Her evangelical Christian faith — she believes in creationism and is adamantly opposed to abortion — may help him court skeptical social conservatives. And the fact that her eldest son joined the Army and is leaving soon for Iraq reinforces McCain’s own military heroism. He met her previously only once, and yesterday summoned her to Dayton Ohio to make her his political bride.

***

Born in Idaho, Palin became an Alaskan as an infant when her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, hauled their young family and their belongings up the Alaskan Highway in search of adventure. They settled eventually in Wasilla, about 45 miles north of Anchorage. Palin’s official biography describes it as a place with a “reputation for junky yards and cranky land-owners who didn’t mind using the serious end of a shotgun to run off trespassers.” Ivan Moore, a veteran political pollster in Anchorage, described Wasilla as “the most fearsomely conservative region of the state.”

The family would go on camping trips to hunt moose, bear and sometimes wild sheep, according to Adele Morgan, a friend since childhood. Palin is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, and even today, as governor, she fishes for salmon .

Kaylene Johnson, a journalist whose biography of the governor was published this year. Palin’s father was her track coach, and she played on the softball team, but her real passion was basketball.

“She doesn’t like sitting on the sidelines,” said Kathlene Johnson, a journalist whose biography of the governor was published this year, that is why she joined active sports.

Her mother, meanwhile, made sure that Sundays were for church.

Palin entered the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant and won, playing the flute for her talent. She went on to compete for Miss Alaska and was a runner up.

She began to date Todd Palin, a part Yup’ik Eskimo who grew up in the bush of a native Alaskan village, when he transferred to Wasilla’s high school to play basketball. She went off to college, studying first in Hawaii before transferring to the University of Idaho, where she majored in journalism with a minor in political science.

Not long after she returned to Wasilla, she and Todd Palin eloped at the local courthouse — 20 years ago yesterday — recruiting two strangers from across the street to serve as witnesses.

A commercial fisherman and “World” champion snowmobile racer, Todd Palin has worked as an oilfield worker for BP on Alaska’s North Slope. He now works for a union.

Their first child, Track, was born in 1989. Their youngest, Trig, was born just four months ago; consistent with her opposition to abortion, she continued the pregnancy after learning early on that her baby had Down syndrome.

She was 28 when she set her sights on the Wasilla City Council. A social conservative in tune with the town, Palin easily won a seat, and the issues tended to revolve around garbage collection and the local police force. Along the way, she made an enemy of her political patron. She then ousted the three-term incumbent Republican mayor, winning by 211 votes, according to her biography.

In 2002, Palin narrowly lost a bid for lieutenant governor, running as a supporter of then-Gov. Frank Murkowski. Her reward was an appointment to the powerful Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates the state’s energy industries. Within months of assuming the $115,000-a-year job, Palin castigated her fellow commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, then the chairman of the state Republican Party, saying he was conducting political business on state time. She sparked an investigation that led to his resignation and a $12,000 fine.

“Randy Reudrich served as the very powerful, king-making, top-dog chairman of the Republican Party of Alaska,” Moore said. “This was what forged her reputation.”

In 2006, Palin went after Murkowski, defeating the governor in a GOP primary before winning in November. The election put into the governor’s mansion a pro-life executive who is opposed to stem cell research, favors the teaching of creationism in public schools and is a longtime advocate of hunters’ rights.

As governor, Palin has played down her social views. Instead, she has focused on the powerful oil industry, helping to impose higher taxes on its soaring profits and pushing to construct a massive new natural gas pipeline.

“She’s conservative in ideology, but she’s very practical,” said lobbyist Paul Fuhs, who battled Palin over the gas line and eventually reached a compromise. “What you see is what you get. She’s very upfront.”

One of Palin’s first official acts as governor was to sell on eBay a gubernatorial jet that Murkowski had bought.

But she has angered two of Alaska’s leading Republicans — Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young — by refusing to support their decades-long practice of securing federal money for the state, including Young’s effort to obtain $233 million for a structure dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere” by critics because it would have connected a small town with an island populated with 50 people. In her short time in state office, she has repeatedly thwarted Stevens’s and Young’s interests and, at times, challenged their candidates — including their children. {These are the two Alaskans who were Washington powerhouses and who face now the courts - they were on many people’s eye-bull targets.}

So far, her popularity among her constituents is untarnished. In the most recent state survey, four out of five Alaskans said they support her, according to Moore. How that will translate nationally is not yet clear.

***

In 1984, Walter Mondale’s choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate shattered a glass ceiling as old as the republic, thrilled feminists and helped create a gender gap among voters that has aided Democrats ever since. Now comes John McCain, 24 years later, and picks Sarah Palin for his national ticket, and this time, it is the conservatives who think they have seized the political advantage.

“It’s basically the equivalent of a midnight raid behind enemy lines,” said Juleanna R. Glover, a GOP strategist with ties to the McCain campaign. “Hillary said she made 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. Well, McCain just shattered it.”

Serrin M. Foster, president of Feminists for Life, a nonpartisan group to which Palin has belonged since 2006, said the governor’s sudden political ascent demonstrates how women are making gains, regardless of their ideology. “The early feminists worked for the rights of women to vote and our right to life,” Foster said yesterday. “This is one more step in a long march for women’s history.”

Debbie Dingell, a loyal Clinton backer and the wife of Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), said she had been talking to women all day yesterday who felt “insulted” by the move. “This is just sheer political pandering,” she said. “I don’t think women are going to buy it.”

Polling data suggest that Obama has the Democrats’ traditional advantage among women at the moment. Washington Post-ABC News polling this year indicates that nearly six in 10 women call themselves either Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents, and in the latest Post-ABC poll, 55 percent of female voters supported Sen. Barack Obama, and 37 percent supported McCain.

In 2004, women went for John F. Kerry by a slim 51 percent to 48 percent but were more solidly Democratic in the three previous elections.

The extent of Palin’s appeal will probably be determined by which side — McCain’s or Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s — defines the relatively unknown politician in the weeks to come. Republicans hope to portray her as a down-to-earth reformer and mother of five, who chose to sell off the Alaska governor’s jet and instead drive her family around the state.

————

On TV I saw a woman comentator saying that the Alaska Governor has the “parts” but she has no record of standing for women issues. I also saw other women that were brought in to speak for the Republican side on programs like Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and literally could not be shut up. He was asking a question and they were simply ratling their very conservative views. On the other hand, the Democrats were shy of being agressive. They had to listen to tirades of what great experience this young politician has managed to accumulate under her belt.

We heard a lot about about guts. I was wondering if anyone was going to ask anything about her position on the Russia-Georgian divide, after all Alaska is a fault-line between the US and Russia and Wassila is a name harking back to the days that Russians were in abundance in Alaska. Clearly something to think about these days of Russian efforts to regain terrain in countries where Russians were planted in the past.

========================

McCain’s Choice of Palin Is a Risk.

by: Peter Wallsten, The Los Angeles Times, Saturday 30 August 2008.

She could attract conservative Christians but not necessarily the women who backed Hillary Clinton. And some voters may question McCain’s decision-making style.

Denver - American voters on Friday began learning about Sarah Palin. But the selection of an obscure Alaska governor as the Republican vice presidential nominee also offers clues about the leadership style of the man who placed her on the ticket.

Though John McCain clearly concluded that Palin could attract female voters and grab his campaign some Barack Obama-style media buzz, he also is taking a risk that in elevating a largely unknown figure, he undermines the central theme of his candidacy that he puts “country first,” above political calculations.

For a candidate known to possess a quick temper and an unpredictable political streak, the decision raises questions about how McCain would lead — whether his decisions would flow from careful deliberations or gut checks in which short-term considerations or feelings outweigh the long view.

“Americans like risk-takers, but they also want to know that in times of crisis, you’re going to be calm,” said Matthew Dowd, who was a senior campaign strategist for President Bush but is neutral in the McCain-Obama race.

“Americans don’t necessarily want somebody in a time of crisis to be overly emotional,” Dowd said. “That’s the balance that John McCain’s going to have to show the public.”

The Palin risk also has the potential to reap big rewards.

Her presence on the ticket as a strongly antiabortion mother of five — her infant son has Down syndrome — promises to energize evangelical voters who have been skeptical of McCain.

Already, some top conservative Christian leaders who criticized McCain in the past have proclaimed enthusiasm for the pick.

Moreover, as a hunter, a member of the National Rifle Assn. and an avid snowmobiler, Palin appeals to many facets of the GOP base.

McCain’s choice of Palin strikes a contrast with Obama’s running-mate selection of Joe Biden, a longtime U.S. senator whose foreign policy credentials and working-class roots seemed to fill important gaps in Obama’s resume and political style.

***

That is not to say that voters always want the deliberative approach. McCain’s popularity stems partly from his independent style, whereas Obama has been accused of being too professorial and failing to connect with middle-class voters on a personal level.

Still, for McCain, who turned 72 on Friday and has had bouts with the most serious form of skin cancer, the priority in his running-mate selection was picking someone voters could envision becoming commander in chief should something befall him as president.

Or so it had seemed.

As of midweek, according to GOP sources, Republicans believed that the Arizona senator had narrowed his choices to more-seasoned contenders: Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty, popular with conservatives, was viewed as the safe bet; Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, would have angered the party base but was generally considered qualified.

How McCain settled on Palin, whom he first met six months ago, remains a mystery outside his small inner circle of advisors.

She doesn’t seem an ideal fit for a campaign that has focused intensely on foreign policy expertise and has attacked Obama for his relative lack of experience in that area.

At 44, she is three years younger than Obama and 21 years younger than Biden. She was elected governor in 2006 and formerly was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 7,000 or so.

McCain apparently made his decision after a telephone conversation with Palin last weekend and a face-to-face meeting Thursday at his home in Sedona, Ariz.

“On its face, it looks like a gut decision,” said a Republican strategist who requested anonymity when discussing McCain’s judgment. “But it also speaks to a very hyper-political decision. Obviously, he doesn’t have any history with Sarah Palin. He doesn’t know her. It seems to be a calculated push toward gaining women voters.”

Another Republican with close ties to the McCain campaign said Friday that the pick reflected McCain’s penchant for going with his gut — even if such gambles can lead him to the wrong choice. The Republican felt uncomfortable repeating talking points distributed by the McCain campaign, which argued that Palin’s role as commander of the Alaska National Guard and her Army son’s imminent deployment to Iraq makes her “ready to be president” and helps her “understand what it takes to lead our nation.”

“This is a guy who takes big gambles,” said the Republican, who requested anonymity when talking about McCain. “But we’re talking about somebody who is 72 running for president, and I don’t know if you gamble with those decisions, do you? It’s not like he was 20 points behind.”

The surprise pick underscored a go-it-alone style that often has alienated McCain’s Senate colleagues — and left them scratching their heads.

Many Republicans struggled Friday to praise McCain’s choice, simply because they knew little about Palin. In one awkward exchange on CNN, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who had been mentioned as a dark-horse candidate, said she didn’t know the Alaska governor.

Hutchison was one of several Republican women who had been mentioned as possible running mates for McCain, including former business executives Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

Democrats on Friday said McCain had passed over more qualified contenders, such as Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.

Polls show that McCain could improve his standing among women.

Though he is winning 47% of the white female vote, there is room for him to exploit the disaffection of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who have not warmed to Obama. And Palin could win McCain more support from working-class women.

But it is not clear that Palin would pull in voters who had been drawn to Clinton’s advocacy for women’s rights — including abortion rights — and her decades of experience.

Palin began her courtship of that constituency Friday, invoking the legacy of Geraldine Ferraro, who, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984, became the first woman to run on a national major-party ticket. Palin also pledged to finish Clinton’s work and “shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.”

If she succeeds in drawing more female voters and gains acceptance as a potential commander in chief, Palin’s selection will have paid off. But if her image wilts under the most intense scrutiny of her life, McCain’s gut could prove to be his downfall.

—–

Other Points of view:

An Ex-Beauty Queen for VP: Political Risk or Political Genius?
By Heather Gehlert, AlterNet. Posted August 30, 2008.

 http://www.alternet.org/election08/96989…

Sarah Palin and Feminists for Life
By Ruth Rosen, AlterNet. Posted August 30, 2008.

 http://www.alternet.org/election08/96991…

How the Republicans Win
by: Robert Parry, Consortium News . Posted August 29, 2008.http://www.truthout.org/article/how-republicans-win

—

The Wall Stret Journal writes: “Palin Has Long Experience Dealing With Big Oil in Home State.” She gave $500 million to the industry to provide incentives to induce work on a pipeline that the industry was slow to pick up. She also approached ExxonMobil about the Point Thompson oil-and-gas field, one of the largest undeveloped fields in the US, for failing to develop quickly enough. - if you wonder - the company has not drilled a well there - a new well - since 1982. She wants to drill in ANWAR so she had to do this “shake up” of ExxonMobil.” No result yet obviously (for different reasons) in any of this. But WSJ is happy about the attention.

If this is energy policy - I guess Al Gore is wrong, and he said in Denver: “the carbon fuels industry - big oil and coal - have a 60-year lease on the Republican Party.”

OK - there is a lot here that the upcoming two months of campaigning will have to dig into - bui hopefully the voters will not white-wash the findings because they fall in love with an atractive young woman. Yes, elections are about emotions and this has in it the kernel of the undoing of the future of the world - not just the USA.

—

and from Senator McCain:

My Friends,
I am honored to announce that I have chosen Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as my choice for the Republican nominee for Vice President. As a father with three daughters, I can’t express how proud I am to choose the first female Republican Vice-Presidential nominee.

Sarah Palin is a trailblazer and a reformer. As the first female governor of Alaska, she challenged a corrupt system {of old style Republicans we assume} and has been a tireless advocate for reform - passing a landmark bill on ethics reform {we assume in her dealings with the Oil and Gas Conservation Agency of Alaska that she headed thanks to a plum from Governor Murkowsky whom she unseated later on}. She has taken on the old politics in Alaska and reformed the state’s energy industry {we assume the facts will be provided later on}. She rejects wasteful pork barrel spending. She’s fearless - exactly the type of leader I want at my side and the type of leadership we will bring to Washington.

My friends, together Sarah Palin and I make the strongest presidential ticket. We’re shaking things up in this campaign - and Governor Palin and I are ready to bring real reform to Washington.

The polls indicate this will be a tight race as we head into the fall campaign against Senators Obama and Biden.

———–
and from Governor Sarah Palin:

Dear Friend,

I’m honored and humbled to join this historic campaign as John McCain’s running mate. I feel privileged to join a man I admire and the man I know is ready to lead our country as the next president.

Some of life’s greatest opportunities come unexpectedly, and this is certainly the case for me. I never set out to run for office. But life has taken me on a course that first led to the Alaska Governor’s office and now the country’s first female Republican vice presidential candidate.

I want you to know that John McCain and I will challenge the status quo in Washington. We’re ready to address our nation’s great challenges - from reducing our dependence on foreign oil to cutting wasteful spending and creating good jobs for Americans. I look forward to working with him to achieve every goal he has set out during this campaign to improve the lives of all Americans.

As the mother of a son serving in the U.S. Army and the commander of Alaska’s National Guard, there is no doubt in my mind that John McCain is prepared to serve as our next Commander in Chief.

What I admire most about John McCain is his unwavering ability to put our country first and to ask for nothing in return for his decades of service. He’s shown his resolve, toughness and strength of heart in the darkest of places; all in service to his country. This speaks volumes about the type of selfless leadership John McCain will bring to the White House.

Our team is ready to lead the country as the next President and Vice President of the United States. We’re ready to win in November and we won’t be able to do it without your support. If you want change in Washington, then John McCain and I are asking for your support.
========

The Wall Street Journal was totally unaware of what is coming and please see what their editorial of August 28, 2008 said about Alaska; then compare with what Fred Barnes wrote just two days later, August 30, 2008:

And Gail Collins in The New York Times looks how McCain Baked his Alaska.

Palin around: The eco-rundown on Alaska Guv. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s Veep pick.
Posted by Grist at 8:45 AM on 29 Aug 2008, Last updated 10:29 a.m. PDT

GOP presidential candidate John McCain today announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be his running mate in the race against Barack Obama and Joe Biden. McCain’s official announcement of his veep pick declares, “Governor Palin has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources. She leads a state that matters to every one of us — Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.”

***

Here are some quick snapshots of Palin’s record on issues related to energy and the environment:

Opposed a statewide ballot initiative to prohibit or restrict new mining operations that could affect salmon in the state’s streams and rivers

Has pushed to build a natural-gas pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope

Got the state legislature to pass a bill to provide each Alaskan $1,200 to help with energy costs

Sued the Interior Department over its decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species

Has proposed eliminating Alaska’s gas tax

Has pushed to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling

Has created a committee to forge Alaska’s climate-change strategy, and has made Alaska an observer (but not a member) of the Western Climate Initiative

Opposes a windfall profits tax on oil companies

Was the ethics commissioner of the Alaska Gas and Oil Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004
Lifelong angler and hunter

Husband is an oil production operator for BP on Alaska’s North Slope

Started Alaska’s Petroleum Systems Integrity Office, an oversight and maintenance agency for the state’s oil and gas equipment, facilities, and infrastructure

Chairs the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multistate panel “that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources while protecting health, safety and the environment”

Believes intelligent design should be taught along with evolution in science classes

***

Quotable quotes from Palin:

When I look every day, the big oil company’s building is right out there next to me, and it’s quite a reminder that we should have mutually beneficial relationships with the oil industry.

Alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years to develop.
I believe in protecting Alaska’s environment through fair enforcement of our environmental laws. Having a clean record on environmental regulation is critical to getting ANWR open and maintaining our fisheries, mining, timber, and tourism industries.
I am not only a champion for Alaska’s fishing industry, but a part of it. My family is proud to be a Bristol Bay fishing family. That’s why, as Governor I will do what’s right for Alaska’s fishing communities. I know the resource must come first in our management decisions. If we manage for abundance, we should have enough fish for all our needs.
We believe that the … decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available.
I am encouraged with [John McCain’s] evolved thinking on offshore drilling, and I think he might come along on ANWR if he sees our 2,000 acres for himself.
I get frustrated with folks from outside Alaska who come up and say, “You shouldn’t develop your resources.”
We have so much potential from tapping our resources here in Alaska. And we can do this with minimum environmental impact. We have a very pro-development president in President Bush, and yet he failed to push for opening up parts of Alaska to drilling through Congress — and a Republican-controlled Congress, I might add.

I thought when we hit $100 a barrel for oil it would have been a psychological barrier that would have caused Congress to reconsider, but they didn’t. Now we are approaching $200 a barrel. It’s nonsense not to tap a safe domestic source of oil. I think Americans need to hold Congress accountable on this one.
A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made.
I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem or that more supply won’t ultimately affect prices. Of course it will affect prices.

***

Reactions to the pick.

Obama campaign spokesperson 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.

–

Sierra Club President Carl Pope:

With the pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate, John McCain’s race towards the Bush administration’s failed energy policy is now complete.

John McCain was once willing to stand up to his own party, but now that he is running for President, he supports the same Bush policies and powerful special interests that put us in the grip of the oil companies. One of the last remaining independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding Big Oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts.

…

Senator McCain has lost any chance of having a balanced or moderate ticket with this choice and has instead opted for the same, business-as-usual reliance on the outdated oil companies that has been the hallmark of the Bush-Cheney administration. On the third anniversary of the hurricane that knocked loose oil rigs and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf Coast that is bracing for another hit, McCain is sending a terribly indifferent message by selecting a candidate who only repeats Big Oil’s talking points.

–
Friends of the Earth Action President Brent Blackwelder:

Sarah Palin’s record is not extensive — just two years ago she was the mayor of a city of less than 10,000 people — but what her record indicates is troubling. This spring, she opposed the listing of polar bears as a ‘threatened’ species. She supports the brutal aerial hunting of wolves. And she has been a friend of Big Oil, opposing a windfall profits tax on the oil industry that could fund affordable clean energy for more Americans. Palin’s husband works for BP.

–
League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski:

Unfortunately, with her support for drilling in the Arctic Refuge and off our coasts, Governor Palin will simply continue the failed policies of the Bush-Cheney Administration and their Big Oil friends — policies that could make us even more dependent on foreign oil.

Governor Palin characterizes McCain’s flip-flop on drilling offshore as a positive step in his transformation from maverick to Big Oil’s best friend. She has implored McCain to change his position against drilling in the Arctic — something she will have plenty of opportunities to pursue as his running mate.

In addition to supporting backward-looking energy policies, Governor Palin has also opposed a crucial clean water initiative, sued the federal government for listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and opposed other important wildlife protection measures.

***

For story: Palin around
14 Comments by 2:30pm

Palin family values:

Half (?) the family income is from BP, her husband separates the oil from the water up in the oil fields. A janitorial position? How much more does he make than the average oil worker because he is the governor’s hubby?
Check the ex-brother-in-law scandal in the family woodpile. Still under investigation by the state.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/29/ …

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Can’t wait to see Palin debating foreign policy and national security with Joe Biden.

 http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 9:01 AM on 29 Aug 2008

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Natural Gas Can Save A Planet:

The most significant achievement is the natural gas pipeline.
Fuel cells consuming natural gas can eliminate the burning problems of hydrocarbons and replace them with natural reactions leaving just water and needed energy.

Sarah Palin may have already saved the world, and was looking good while doing it.

by jabailo at 9:02 AM on 29 Aug 2008

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Palin is scared:

She looks to have stage fright. The professional cheering section in the crowd doesn’t match McBushies’ wooden delivery. Go shoot some dice, you anger management challenged gambling addict.