Just Can't Leave it Alone

I received this foolishness in my inbox this morning:

"I'll keep my guns, freedom, and money. You can keep "the change!" Vote Sarah Palin for President in 2012! The Liberal Media wants you to think that Sarah Palin held John McCain back. We all know that John McCain's campaign surged ahead because of Sarah. She's a rising star in the GOP and could easily defeat Barack Obama in 2012! The Palin Revolution is about to break out and you can be on the cutting edge with this clever new bumper sticker! This 2-PACK includes one for each of your vehicles, whether it's your gas guzzlin' SUV, pick-up truck, or "hockey mom" minivan!

My response:

No, it's not a joke. They are actually serious. SMH....

Gov. Palin to Obama: This Isn't Over Yet

Lakeland, FL: "Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had a pointed message Sunday for Barack Obama: This thing isn't over yet."

Palin said the Democratic presidential nominee was acting as if he's already won the election and had already written his inaugural address.

"Barack Obama and I both have spent quite some time on the basketball court," Palin told a raucous crowd of more than 5,000 at the Tampa Convention enter. "But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the net."

Nine days before the election, Palin was making another push to sway voters in the battleground state of Florida, where polls show Republican nominee John McCain trails Obama in the fight for the state's 27 electoral votes. The Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, where Palin was concentrating her efforts Sunday, is where most of the state's undecided voters live. It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

"You kinda get the feeling that the Obama campaign thinks this whole election process is just a formality," she said. "They've overlooked, though, the minor detail of earning your confidence and your trust and winning your vote.

"And judging from the media coverage, it does seem the coronation is already set," Palin said.
Obama's campaign said the claim that he has written an inaugural address is "completely false." Spokesman Bill Burton said the reference to an address came from a New York Times report Saturday that former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta had written a draft inaugural speech for Obama and included it in a recent book. Burton said Podesta wrote it as a sample address, not for Obama but for whoever became the nominee.

Palin also addressed recent reports that the Republican Party spent $150,000 on clothes and accessories on her for the campaign.

"This whole thing with the wardrobe, I try to just ignore it because it's so ridiculous," Palin said.
"Those clothes, they are not my property, just like the lighting and the staging and everything else the RNC purchased," she said. "I'm not taking them with me. I'm back to wearing my old clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska."

Palin talked about her accessories Sunday: earrings that were a gift from her husband's Yup'ik Eskimo mother, and "a $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself. Because with my ring, I always thought, it's not what it's made of, it's what it represents."

Palin continued her criticism of an Obama economic plan that she says amounts to socialism, characterizing him as "Barack the wealth-spreader." She vowed that McCain would allow people to keep more of their money, and accused Obama of not telling the whole truth about what she said are his plans to redistribute wealth.

Later at a rally in Kissimmee, Palin said: "Florida, you have a choice between a politician who puts his faith in government and a leader who puts his faith in you. There's only one man in this race who's always fought for you, and that's John McCain."

Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says

Well, looky, looky...

With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

Um huh...who's the Maverick now?

Hold The Hallelujahs

Thoough they state different reasons, this Time article discusses how well Evangelical Christians will really receive Sarah Palin.

McCain and his aides may not want to say hallelujah just yet. While Palin is inspiring rhapsodies from the lions of the Christian right, her appeal to more moderate and younger Evangelicals — as well as independent swing voters — may be limited.

There is no doubt that Palin will help calm the doubts of that core Evangelical base and leadership. While many pundits have wondered whether social conservatives will recoil from the news that Palin's 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant, they're clearly not grasping the mores of that community. If Bristol Palin were the daughter of Democratic parents, she would undoubtedly be held up as an example of the failures of a liberal, permissive culture. Instead, she is viewed — as are the majority of teenage mothers in Evangelical churches — as a Christian who sinned, is forgiven, and needs to be embraced and supported.

The revelation about her daughter's pregnancy, and the fact that Palin herself chose to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome, are just another part of the compelling picture Palin can paint of her faith. She was baptized in the Catholic Church and for most of her life belonged to an Assemblies of God congregation — a Pentecostal denomination. In high school, Palin was the local leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and most recently she moved her family to a nondenominational Evangelical church in her hometown.

That move away from the Pentecostal Church, which took place in 2002 when Palin first ran for lieutenant governor in Alaska, is the only potential sign she has given that her religious beliefs might be a political liability. Her spokeswoman now says that Palin does not identify herself as a Pentecostal. Historically Pentecostals and other Evangelical Protestants haven't always gotten along, largely because of theological differences. Pentecostal theology elevates the role of the Holy Spirit and includes belief in spiritual gifts, such as healing and speaking in tongues. But the groups have often been able to set aside their doctrinal disagreements for political purposes. Pat Robertson, a Pentecostal, and the late Jerry Falwell, a Fundamentalist, famously had bitter theological disputes but still joined forces as leading figures of the Christian right. (See photos of Jerry Falwell here.)

Palin's red-meat conservatism and Evangelicalism will almost certainly play well with those party faithful who attended the Republican National Convention this week. But with fewer than 60 days until Election Day (and a month before the start of early voting in many states), the McCain campaign's continued courting of the more traditional base spells trouble for any efforts to expand his appeal to independent voters and less conservative Evangelicals. If so, McCain may find himself quoting a bowdlerized verse of Scripture in November: What does it profit a man to gain the Christian right and lose the White House?

Read more of the article.

Sherraye Speaks: On Sarah Palin...Barack Is In Trouble

You know, I hate to admit this but I’m listening to Sarah Palin – and I’m impressed. She is ticking me off because she is taking pot shots at Barack but I gotta tell you, if Barack wasn’t my candidate, I’d be a McCain supporter right now. I don’t want to, but I like her. She’s tough, she’s confident, she’s articulate – she’s a threat.

So what I am counting on are the Evangelicals because I know them. And what I know is that despite this feigned enthusiasm for the first female Republican VP candidate, the Evangelicals don’t like it and they will stay home. Because what I know about them is that they are more sexist than racist and, yes, they would rather see a black man in office than a white woman. And they hate her husband. That picture of him sitting there holding the baby and sitting with the kids while she is giving her grand speech ticks them off.

“Weakling!” they’re thinking.

I guarantee you, they think he’s a wimp. They won’t vote for Barack, but they won’t vote for McCain either.

Ut oh, she wants to fight the oil companies. McCain just lost.

Now, she’s talking about Barack again. I guess I shouldn’t get mad with her because I know she didn’t write this speech.

I’m looking at these white men…they have phony smiles plastered on their face. They don’t like her either. For once, the men get to fake it.