You have not seen the last....of Sarah Palin

I'm not "trolled" by your support of Palin. If you want to keep pumping up an unqualified, semi-coherent candidate who spent the vast majority of her two months in the spotlight embarrassing herself...you go right ahead.

She'd most likely get steamrolled in 2016 as well. She might improve her knowledge and interview skills enough by then to not crater her campaign with a Couric style debacle, but she's never going to be a shining intellect and demographics are working against her. The country is becoming less white and less receptive to christian extremism by the day. Her base is only going to shrink over time.

If I were running the party I'd use Palin to raise funds and campaign for others in places where she has appeal, but I'd never let her anywhere near the national ticket again. That's what you do with politicians who really excite a segment of the base but really scare the bejeebus out of everyone else.

Sheesh.

When is a statement of an absolute fact anything but "I suspect that..." on Wordforge?

a.

From the Van Sustren interview tonight ans an interview with the Anchorage paper...

One of the other things she said was that if it had been her choice she would have done far more interviews and media appearances than the McCain camp scheduled.

Van Sustren said she "grilled" others who were in the room when the Africa and NAFTA remarks supposedly took place and could find no one who would go on source with anything but denial that the incidents happened as Cameron reported them.

I'm sure she would have, and I too wish they would have. In addition to feeding her ego, we would have been able to enjoy a dozen or more additional stumbles, ones that would likely make the borders of Africa or fine microfiber towels pale in comparison.

nicrofiber towels?

In reference to the if-it-even-happened-it-doesn't-really-matter towel-wearing incident .

This poll asked republicans, not moderates / flipfloppers / independents / etc.

So, no, it really doesn't prove anything.

Could we just put this woman on Sportscenter and get it over with already? She has no future in politics. Historical footnote at best.

It does...it demonstrates that she added more votes from the right than she could have potentially lost in the middle.

Corrected.

Why do you want to do that to Sportscenter?

We live in a great country where charismatic but retarded conservatives can make millions on talk radio or on FOX News. Let Alaska's Sean Hannity in a skirt take advantage of that.

hahahahhaha grilling for denial about remarks that "supposedly took place." Shep you devil you... thanks for confirming the story.

I just love how she's implying I had no choice but to wear all those expensive clothes.

Of course she did. She could have refused. She could have even pointed out that it would look bad spending more on her hair and makeup than on policy people.

Does that surprise you, when Republicans have announced their intention to hunt down those people who are responsible for those leaks and to punish whatever candidates they work for in 2012, making them less desireable if not outright unemployable?

Palin in her own remarks, linked upthread I believe, has essentially conceded the Africa/NAFTA remarks happened but that they were taken out of context.

So rather than a question of whether these things happened at all or were being made up entirely, it's a question of whether Palin misspoke and fundamentally knew these things or if she fundamentally did not know these things.

It certainly could be a "57 states" kind of gaffe or it could be ignorance.

It doesn't even demonstrate that, because one can think that she helped the ticket overall and yet not vote for her, or one can think she hurt the ticket overall and yet vote for her.

Nor does it quantify how many people would have voted Republican regardless of her presence on or absence from the ticket.

Nor does it quantify how some prominent Republicans such as Collin Powell endorsed Obama specifically because of the selection of Palin and what they believed it said about McCain's judgment, or how many people were either swayed by their defection or had come to the same conclusion independently.

Nor does it quantify how many people in the middle or the left might have been jumped ship off of the relatively inexperienced black guy with the middle name Hussein who reportedly was not a friend to Israel until confronted with a relatively inexperienced woman whose religious background scared them a little.

It's fine to suspect that Palin was a net gain for the Republicans this time around, but it's unfair to cite this poll as any sort of proof for that in and of itself.

Something Raoul said should be repeated:

Republicans being excited about Palin? How is this news? Getting only Republicans to the polls means your party is going to lose. Same thing goes for Democrats.

Unless you are willing to concede that it is "possible" Obama actually thought there were 57 states or that Biden actually thought FDR was president in 1929, your bias is showing.

You are underestimating how many Republicans were prepared to bail out and stay home if McCain had taken a Ridge or a Lieberman.

And you're underestimating how many moderates were turned off by Palin and her ignorance/extremism. I will agree that she fired up the GOP and got most of them to the polls, which is why McCain held on to several red states that he would have otherwise lost or had razor thin margins in, but picking her also ensured his defeat, as he lost those battleground state voters that candidates need to become President.

^^^
Palin's not, though, an extremest nor is she ignorant - she was simply painted one by the media, in the exact same fashion they tried to paint Reagan as a religious nut and a rube in the 70's.

It's a caricature, a lie.

It has prevailed even to the point that well informed observers like evenflow and Elwood are under the false impression that she's Falwell in a skirt and has not chops when it comes to the reformer label she claimed.

The facts do not support this cartoon fiction:

Interested parties are invited to check the link

http://townhall.com/blog/g/0dec7ac9...mments=true&commentsSortDir ection=Descending

wherein all the above referenced quotes are linked to their original source.

I dare anyone here to find me a similar list of official actions wherein Palin acted to enforce religious social conservatism on Alaska or Wasilla. Not fairy tales about book banning or paranoia about a phrase in a speech....ACTIONS, like the actions taken to reign in spending.

I'll first flip your statement around on you: Unless you are willing to conside that it is possible that Palin actually did not know the NAFTA nations or that Africa is a continent, your bias is showing.

As for the Obama and Biden statements, of course it's possible they reflect actual ignorance.

However, the probability of those things being true is IMO relatively small.

As I said earlier, when one views the YouTube of the Obama "57 states" statement, one can easily understand that he was about to say he's visited all 50 states, then was trying to correct himself to say 47 and it came out in a mash of 57.

Joe Biden has a reputation for being a bright person who puts his foot in his mouth a lot. The FDR on TV is likely an example of that.

With Obama and Biden, one can look at their accomplishments and say "How likely is it that an Ivy League graduate and/or a teacher of law would not know a basic historical fact like how many states there are or when FDR's presidency took place or when TV was invented?" I don't think most people would say those things are likely.

As an aside, I would say the NAFTA question is a little less common-sensical than 50 states and FDR/TV. I would say that if you asked people the trick question of "Which five countries participate in NAFTA?" a good proportion would fail to come back and say, "Actually there are only three: US, Canada and Mexico." I think more people would figure out when asked the trick question "What was the most popular TV program at the beginning of the Great Depression?" that the answer was none, because TV only came into use in the 40s.

One can be swayed by the general opinions of conservative pundits -- who would presumably be ungenerous toward Democrats-- that Obama and Biden are bright people, and come to the conclusion that as bright people it's far more likely that they misspoke than were fundamentally ignorant.

Unfortunately, the events around Palin's Africa/NAFTA questions aren't on YouTube and are unlikely to surface there any time soon. So we have to speculate with no direct evidence on the probability of whether they reflect an actual ignorance of those facts or a slip of the tongue.

So one has to look to the circumstantial evidence.

One can reasonably watch the Sarah Palin clips from Couric and elsewhere and come to one of at least two conclusions. A) She's not very bright or B) she can get extremely nervous in relatively low-pressure situations. After all, prior to that interview, no one would have considered Couric a hard-hitting, bare-knuckles interviewer. And none of the questions that prompted Palin's rambling responses were below-the-belt. Mostly, they were just clarifications or requests for specifics. Things that someone with Palin's alleged "photographic memory" would have little trouble with.

Other circumstantial evidence also tends to support the notion that Palin isn't very bright: The McCain camp's unwillingness to let Palin do many interviews or press conferences. Her performance in the interviews she did do. The opinions of even several respected Republican pundits, who would presumably be favorable to her -- Brooks, Will, Noonan, Parker -- that essentially she isn't very bright or otherwise ready. And then add the anonymous leaks from McCain staffers saying that she's not very bright.

Of course, one can dismiss all that. The McCain camp didn't want her to do interviews or press conferences because they were bumblers. Palin's performance in those interviews was bad because she was nervous or because the questions were unfair or because she wasn't ready, not because she was clueless. The Republican pundits who called her anti-intellectual and a cancer on the Republican Party are clueless or jealous or had other problems. And the McCain staffers leaks after the fact are either not true or distortions of the truth designed to CYA for their mishandling of the brilliant Sarah Palin.

But I would say Occam's Razor applies.

I'm kind of amazed by this thread. Y'all do realize the Republicans lost this election, right?
Barack Obama is President elect.

I just want to clarify. There was an election. He won the popular vote and the electoral college.

But in your minds a socialist, terrorist affiliated, inexperienced Black man won the election and yet you are convinced the nation is center right and Sarah Palin is the savior of your party. ....

ummmm, ok. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Conversely, if the meme is "Obama won, let's move on" then why are folks on your side of the aisle still so obsessed with tearing down the losing VP?

Where was the lingering obsession with how unprepared John Edwards was in 2004 after the election?

On virtually every board I visit, there are threads and potshots from left-wingers keeping us up to date on the latest evils of Sarah Palin.

Can't see why I can't fire back.

Palin is not, BTW, the savior of the GOP by herself....but governors (and a few others) like her ARE. Sanford and Jindal for instance, Pence and Cantor and Flake in the House, Couburn and DeMint in the Senate....

Hey! Here's a thought! Tired of Palin conversations? Then why did you click on this thread?

^One could argue that the election was not so much about the McCain ticket or the Obama ticket... but more about passing a final verdict on the Bush administration.

Bush, two wars, and a failed economy would have made it extremely hard for any Republican. And even then the popular vote was not a landslide. It was only 53% to 46% or something like that.

A solid win but not necessarily indicative of some fundamental shift.

That's the highest percentage of the vote won by any non-incumbent President since Eisenhower and, under modern electoral conditions where the parties are well sorted by ideology and crossover voting is much less common than it's ever been, Obama's 53% is pretty close to the ceiling for any non-incumbent. Unless you define landslides such that a landslide was completely impossible in this election absent a dead hooker or a live boy, this was a landslide.

Obama ran an extremely tight, effective campaign but I don't think the majority of America actually voted him in.

Moreso, they voted George Bush OUT.

This campaign was all about Bush. His name is mentioned a staggering number of times during election and everyone, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents tried to get as far away from him as possible.

Y'know everytime McCain and Palin said 'Maverick'? They were indirectly saying, "I'm not George W. Bush."

But they weren't able to hammer it home.

The way I see it the election boils down to a simple statement.

Obama electrified his solid Democratic base and swayed enough moderates to his side; McCain did not electrify his Republican base until late and did not sway moderates to his side.

I think the numbers reflect this... assuming both candidates have the full support of their base, it is the moderate, undecided voters who determine the winner.

You are out of your tiny little mind. 5%, which is what the difference was, is not a landslide. Clinton beat Bush by that amount in 1992, and that's with a major third party candidate who picked up 18.4% of the vote.

Reagan beat Carter by 9.7% in 1980. Who was the incumbent again?

Honestly, man, the quality of your posting has been complete shit since the beginning of this election cycle.

This was a solid win, but only a diehard kool aid drinker would call it a landslide.

Once again, you are unfortunately describing the new President. A man with no experience other than some really well spoken speeches.

Only in America could such an idiot have a potential chance of winning the presidency. Seriously, she comes across as shockingly naive, even for a political novice, I can't imagine her having a successful career in politics in the long term, let alone challenging for the presidency one day.
Bush may be a moron but he's a fucking genius compared to Palin. Maybe Republicans just love having dumb leaders?