Sarah Palin

Impalin' Palin

SNL's Tina Fey skewered GOP vice-presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin again this week. This time, Fey focuses on Palin's disastrous, neigh-catastrophic interview with Katie Couric. Palin's performance in the interview sparked a mix of disbelief and disgust among newscasters who usually keep their feelings to themselves: CNN's Jack Cafferty said that if the thought of Palin becoming president "doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should," and calls the interview "one of the most pathetic pieces of tape I have ever seen from someone aspiring to one of the highest offices in this country."

Here is a clip from the original interview, followed by SNL's send-up - what's scary is, it's hard to tell which one is the joke.


Update: According to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post,

"...the worst may be yet to come for Palin; sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing."

Given what already aired of this interview, it's difficult to imagine what the blooper reel contains - let's hope it sees the light of day.

All About Sarah

Governor Palin's big week starts with a powerful call for her to step aside from an unexpected source - Fareed Zakaria.

Governor Palin Is No Millennial

Republicans were rightfully excited by the enthusiastic response that the nomination by John McCain of Sarah Palin received from a significant portion of the electorate. However after the initial euphoria wore off, a pattern emerged that suggested the nomination was not going to be the ten strike it first appeared to be.

There is no question that her nomination energized the conservative base of the Republican Party who was suspicious of McCain’s commitment to their positions on the social issues dealing with “God, guns and gays.” Beyond those Republican stalwarts, however, the nomination has done little to gain McCain additional support from groups such as disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters and independents and moderates that the campaign had hoped would be won over by Governor Palin. Since the conventions, recent CBS polls, among others, show that Barack Obama’s support among white women, for instance, has actually gone up and that of McCain has declined. McCain has also lost support among moderates and independents since his selection of Palin. 

Much of the lost ground for the GOP has come from the Millennial Generation, those 26 and younger. Millennials reject the confrontational or risk-taking style that Palin--a classic Gen Xer--exhibits. Just as they have a hard time getting along with their Gen X bosses at work, Millennials of both genders and all races have turned away from the McCain ticket at least partially in response to the choice of Sarah Palin.  Obama now enjoys more than a 2:1 advantage among Millennials and this largest American generation  might provide him with up to a 10 million-vote margin over McCain IF it  votes on Election Day in equal numbers to older generations. Even if Millennials vote at only the low level that young voters did in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Obama's margin over John McCain among this generation is likely to be two or three times the margin young voters gave Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.   Whether Palin’s nomination produces a great enough turnout among Republican base voters than what it loses among Millennials may well determine the wisdom of Senator McCain’s vice-presidential choice.

 

The Palin Bubble Has Burst

In this powerful post, Kos shows how Governor Palin's numbers have tanked in the past 10 days.  

On September 11, her favorable/unfavorable rating was 52/35.  Today it is 41/46.  In this time, she has gone from the most popular of the four candidates to the least.  Palin's surge breathed life into an anemic McCain campaign.  Her collapse has brought McCain back to about the same place he was before the GOP Convention, in the low 40s, and a stumbling, bumbling candidate.  

For John McCain, Palin has become a double-edged sword.  A must-have at his events.  She brings in the GOP crowds he, the maverick, never had.  But for the rest of the electorate, she has become a drag on the already struggling McCain ticket.  

The bursting of the Palin bubble - while she maintains her rock star appeal with the GOP base - spells a great deal of trouble for Senator McCain.

"Play Stump the Candidate", Says Sarah Palin

Right on the heels of Senator McCain's latest foreign policy gaffe, his side-kick/Vice Presidential running mate decided to take a crack at dispelling these "attacks" about her lack of foreign policy experience. Just to put this in context: in the past week a bomb was detonated at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, two U.S. ambassadors were expelled from Latin American countries, and the ambassadors from those nations were similarly recalled from the U.S. (not to mention the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, of course). The importance of the actual knowledge - not just "experience" travelling - and understanding of these complex international relationships by Presidential candidates cannot be understated. It is anything but unfair to demand that the persons running for the highest seat in the land possess higher than average knowledge and understanding of the different regions in the world and our interest in each.

In this town hall meeting Gov. Palin basically says that we shouldn't fear because she and her running mate might not be ready now, but they will be ready "on January 20", "God willing". And she explains her credentials in the area of foreign policy: she'll be ready because she "has that readiness"...she's "ready to serve". "You can even play stump the candidate if you want to" by asking her "specifics, with specific policy or countries."

 

Polls Showing Renewed Obama Momentum, Palin Dropping

DemFromCT over at DailyKos has an excellent overview of the current polling trends.  

New Obama Ad Woos Women Voters

In a new television spot released today, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign attacks U.S. Sen. John McCain's record on women's issues:

So McCain is not exactly a natural pick for women voters (see his recent performance on "The View" - he looks like he'd rather be just about anywhere else). However, poll data shows that some women have been swayed by McCain's pick of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running-mate. This is frankly surprising, given that she wants to make abortion illegal even for rape victims, and in fact charged rape victims between $300 and $1200 for evidence collection as the Governor of Alaska (contrast this with Obama's VP, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, who authored the Violence Against Women Act).

The New York Times editorial board recently took McCain to task for his pick of the incredibly underqualified Palin:

"If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two
years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such
a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If
the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly
irresponsible."

Picking Palin may have been a cynical bid for women's votes. However, as voters have become more familiar with Sarah Palin, her poll numbers have begun to drop drastically. Perhaps McCain's impulsive decision may still come back to haunt him.

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Will the Real Sarah Palin Please Stand Up?

Tina Fey has got it down. From the hokey accent to the weird thing she does with her mouth... I'm not even sure who is the real one.

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