When he made the announcement, he had to look down at his notes to be sure he said her name right.

If you guys want more info on Palin, we have several posts concerning her.

http://tpzoo.wordpress.com

The only word I can use to describe her is TERRIFYING. That she could (literally) be a heartbeat away from being POTUS should scare the living shit out of everyone.

Putting. Country. Last.

1) She doesn't know what the VP's job is.
2) McCain thinks it is just to check on the President's health each morning.

That would constitute a match on Match,com, right?

So you're saying this decision came purely from the gut - or perhaps some region just south of there?

I awoke today deeply disturbed by McCain’s dumbfoundingly reckless choice for VP. Given his age & health issues his choice makes me question not only his judgment & responsibility to the American people but his mental soundness as well.

McCain isn't a maverick, he’s a gambler of the worst kind.

And the thing we need to remeber is that McCain might be elected by hook or by crook (with emphasis on the crook part).

This makes a President Palin a very real possibility.

I don't know about you but this choice has me beyond freaked out. Since she is unbelievably unqualified, who will actually be running the government?

We need to follow www.bradblog.com and www.blackboxvoting.org closely over the next couple of months. and have a serious grassroots oversight action at all polling places nationwide (as was done in 2006).

One has to hope that the national press will do its job and ask this woman real, tough questions. Assuming the McCain folks don't keep her in a total bubble until the debate, this should become a laughingstock pick within a couple of weeks. "Should" being the operative word.

She is ethically tainted. She happily has used the Powers of Her Office to take revenge against her brother-in-law.

Of course, Republicans today specialize in corruption. Apparently, John McCain has looked over the country and found one of the most corrupt politicians out there, and selected her.

I have never heard of a party where you HAD to be corrupt before being considered.

There's now clearly a risky and uncertain choice for President and his name's not Obama.

There is one way to reconcile McCain need to get to know someone before he can trust them: He realizes that she's just window dressing and has no intent to let her do anything as VP. But what will we do if he can't finish his term?

Obama and Biden can't sit back on this one. They've got to clearly and quickly differentiate themselves from the weak-tea McCain/Palin version of'Change'. The republicans will try to steal this message this week.

Leading up to the Democratic convention, Obama supporters urged his campaign to be more agressive in defending himself against the relentless attacks in August. His speech was a dramatic and commanding step in neutralizing a lot of those attacks.

But McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is not something that the Obama/Biden campaign can afford to be passive about. Obama and Biden can stay classy, but over the next week there will be a race to define what she brings to this campaign. Most of us are appalled at the cynicism in thinking that Hillary dead enders would embrace her, but the media REALLY wants to make Palin a hero, a breath of fresh air, and a maverick.

Remember that they always want to attack the strength of their opponents. Obama's speech was the most inspiring call for change from a politician that most voters can remember since the early 1960's. This is the time in the campaign when people will start paying attention. Watch the McCain/Palin ticket appropriate everything Obama said in a superficial version of 'change'.

Obama/Biden can't afford to sit back and let their message be ripped off by McCain's thug-riddled campaign team.

Since she is unbelievably unqualified, who will actually be running the government?

The same jackals who have wrecked the country the past 8 years, that's who.

I have idea where this came from. My response was "Whaa? Huh? Who?" As I told a friend last night, I figure she's either Harriet Miers, worst choice ever, or Bobby Jindal, pol savant. Given that, here's my thoughts.

1. She is the only one of the 4 on the ticket who actually has government executive experience. Her experience matches Obama's head to head. We just don't know her yet.

2. She doesn't need to know what the Veep does today, she needs to know what a Governor and now a #2 on the ticket does today. She'll easily figure out what a Veep does, because it ain't that hard.

3. And what the Veep *should* do is next to nothing. Preside over the Senate, attend state funerals and ribbon cuttings, and wait for that terrible phone call.

4. McCain going big or going home.

5. Obama said change needs to come from outside Washington. She's the only one of the four coming from outside Washington.

5. Best Election Ever. We're getting a black man as Prez or a Woman as Vice Prez one way or another.

Lucy, EXACTLY!

I guess I don't believe John McCain actively selected Sarah Palin. I'm not sure who did. And, then there is this from Slate:

Sarah Palin, Web Invention
How a college sophomore put Alaska's governor on the map.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, at 1:52 PM ET

Some were speculating yesterday that she was chosen because Romney, Jindal, and Pawlenty had already turned it down. But the WaPo interview with the member of Romney's team disputes that, indicating that Romney and Pawlenty were both pissed at being passed over for the newbie.

That makes it pretty much inexplicable...unless the main thing McCain was looking for was someone who wouldn't outshine him, as Romney surely would. Romney is dumb, sure, but he's photogenic and something like a foot taller than McCain. Also, he wears magic underwear and the fundie crowd is a bit suspicious of Mormonism (as are we all). Jindal would leave the racist Republican base with nowhere to go. Pawlenty - well, I honestly don't know enough about him to comment.

My other initial thought was that Palin was chosen in the shit-your-pants moment the campaign must have experienced immediately following Obama's acceptance speech, in which he owned not only McCain but the entire Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel. But your reporting here makes clear that the decision was made Thursday morning.

That leaves only a few possibilities - the first I mentioned: Palin won't outshine McCain. Beyond that, she's a loony-tunes rightwinger who approves of "creation science" being taught in public schools and has backed up her pro-life cred by giving birth to a Down Syndrome child rather than aborting him. She definitely will help shore up the evangelical base. But at the same time, I have to wonder if there aren't those, even among the evangelicals (who generally are gung-ho for getting children into the world and apathetic about them once they're here) who will find it unseemly for a woman to abandon a 4-month-old special needs child to the loving care of nannies in order to seek the vice presidency. I'm not knocking her for giving birth to the child...but I can't square that with her accepting this nomination. I'm sure that a lot of parents of special needs children will be asking themselves the same question.

The only other thing I can figure is that it was an attempt to de-fang Biden in the VP debate. But if you really think about it, that probably helps us more than it does them, since Biden has a well-known tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. Having a more cautious Biden in the debate is on balance probably more of a plus for the Democrats, since from what I've seen of and learned about Palin since the announcement yesterday indicates that she's more than capable of defeating herself in a debate setting.

And that's not even getting into the absurdity of her obvious unpreparedness to step into the shoes of the president should the ticket get elected.

Truly this was an Admiral Stockdale moment.

one 'meme' point i believe we need to be extremely sensitive toward is referring to palin as 'the republican vp candidate' and not gender-specific (e.g. 'she, her' etc.) so as not to polarize women voters when the 'rigorous vetting process' (read: attacks on palin's credentials) come.

The difference, it seems, is with women. The story of the romance leading to his marriage to Cindy is pretty whirlwind -- saw her at a party and pursued her with laser-like intensity.

By the way, go back and read the threads here since the news came out. They *reek* of misogyny. Pushing away the Hillary supporters with electric cattle prods now, are we?

Eight years of governing by the viscera. Country gutted.

Four years of governing by the heart? I am disheartened already.

Do we really need someone who makes such critical calls from such weak evidence with such impulsiveness? How does this represent change?

If it just began to dawn on you yesterday morning that there's something wrong with McCain's decision making, who's been writing your blog?

OK, tin-foil alert.

Palin seems vapid, a lot like George W. Bush. This may be a deliberate choice. I think this pick is far more cynical than we realize. I wouldn't be surprised if the same GOP oligarch decision-makers that brought in McCain's new campaign team in August know something we don't. S'pose McCain/Palin win the election in November, and McCain drops dead for any number of reasons shortly thereafter.

I think a lot of financial and military/industrial fatcats have actually LOVED the last eight years. Having a dipshit president who just takes orders is actually not a bad arrangement for them.

In this scenario, Palin is a perfect president. Energize the fundamentalist base, but let grown-ups make the big decisions.

First the press will build her up big as this Governor Supermom, then tear her down as an incompetent, way-out-of-her league petty tyrant from Alaska. A face as pretty as that generates intense hysterical responses in the press both ways, positive and negative. The negative will win out.

Jennifer, your post is offensive on several levels. YOU may fear Mormonism; *I* fear Romney.

The choice to have that child was hers alone - and that you think aborting it for that reason alone is absolutely disgusting. I am a rabidly pro-chice woman and your post made me want to puke.

Way to make bus look like a bunch of assholes.

The sad thing is that I agree with a good part of what you said. Honestly, girl. Did you rad what you wrote?

Sarah Palin is a cross between Monica Goodling and Dan Quayle. She has extremely little experience; almost no record or other indicators of governing judgment; she's a raving christianist who wants to nationalize all uteri and teach creationism in the public schools if they can't be dismantled in favor of private schools and homeschooling; she's petty and vindictive, and largely doesn't even realize it because the rose to power by not being quite as petty and vindictive as the typical Alaskan Republican; and she's being nominated in large part in the hopes that her pretty face will be a campaign asset for an older and funny looking man.

In the end, once his personal ball polisher Lieberman was nixed by the party, McCain was looking for three things in a veep:

1) shore up the evangelical party base, and Palin is a darling of the nutters;

2) pick off stray Democrats, somethign McCain falsely believes can be done in significantly greater numbers than usual merely by having two X chromosomes join him on the ticket; and

3) choose a candidate who would be happy attending funerals and gazing adoringly at McCain, and who would never ever be a threat to gain any power within a McCain administration.

Palin fit the bill better than any other of the names bandied about. Of course McCain should have been looking for an effective surrogate who could step into the Presidency if need be, but such is not the way of a party that treats government as a game in which the winner is rewarded with arbitrary and capricious power rather than as a tool for making people's lives better.

Interesting comments on the Hillary Clinton forum.

Flipping keyboard on my Palm! Sorry for the spelling errors. I am at the airport (again).

Some enchanted evening,
You will meet a stranger...
Across a crowded room.

I hate to say it, but physical attraction had to be a factor in his decision. There people think with their gonads.

Oh by the way, I live in a cave, I'm short and ugly - a mythical creature. I spend my days offering deep concern and advice to Democratic liberals for their own good.

"Her experience matches Obama's head to head."

Stop it! Don't repeat Republican talking points like this. Being mayor of a town of 7,000 with a police force of 25 for a few years is not the same as being a state senator, or law professor, or community organizer or even president of Harvard Law review.

I grew up in a town of 7000. This is not 'executive experience". The president of any community college in the nation has more "executive experience' than the mayor of a town of 7000 people. Are they all qualified to be President? Of course not.

Obama has thought deeply about the issues which face this country, starting most importantly with the Constitution. So while being in the PTA might represent more 'executive experience' than being a professor of constitutional law, I would argue that the latter is more relevant to being president.

Finally, this mythology of executive experience is complete crap. What executive experience did LBJ have? JFK? Nixon? Truman?

Rush Limbaugh has been sounding the call for Palin for several months.

Nuff sed.

as yesterday went by, i became increasingly convinced that the real problem here (from mccain's perspective, that is) is exactly what steve posted about: the sheer irresponsibility of putting someone one heartbeat from the presidency you barely know.

as the american public absorbs this, it's going to make it so much easier to make the case that mccain is an irresponsible hothead.

i still think there's a 10% chance she drops out by early next week.

SJRSM, i've read (and participated) in the comments threads; no, they do no wreak of misogyny, although your comment wreaks of stupidity.

How much did McCain vet this woman? I think this is going to be a disaster for him. He has seriously miscalculated the Internet for finding information, finding people who know "the real deal," and spreading rumors, real or untrue.

Already, I've read rumors about 1) Palin covering for her 16-year old daughter's pregnancy by claiming the baby as her own (with pictures showing Palin at 7 months looking non-pregnant), 2) Palin's husband being a philanderer, 3) Palin's husband being a shadow governor, showing up to meetings inappropriately, getting people fired, and 4) Palin covering up the husband's involvement in government affairs by claiming "executive privilege" in holding back emails that were CC'd to Todd Palin.

More importantly, we have her statements on the record about not thinking about Iraq, praising Obama, etc. that people are finding within a day of the announcement.

Andrea Mitchell thinks that no one will hit Palin very hard because she's pretty, a woman and a mother, but I think she's mistaken. The news media are vicious animals who steal ideas from blogs anyway and will seize upon the ugliest of rumors, contradictions, and evidence of her unfitness and play them continually. She will get leeway of about 2-5 days and then the shark frenzy will begin. And unlike Obama, Clinton, and Biden, she will not have the benefit of time to let the frenzy die down or for people to forget/forgive.

Gee, Ms. Joanne, it sounds like you need to get over it.

It's a fact that parents sometimes choose to abort special needs children. I don't slam them for that choice, as it's up to them to determine whether or not they are up to the challenge of caring for those kids. Just as I clearly said, I don't knock her for her choice not to do that, though I do find it odd that having made the choice that you're up to the challenge that you would just a few months later make the choice that you can walk away from it. Sorry if stating reality is "offensive" to you; it doesn't change the reality even if no one says it aloud.

And re: Mormonism: it's about the looniest in a field of loons. I don't "fear" it; I think it's nuts. And as nutty as the evangelical base is (and sorry, but they are), even they think it's loony. I'm merely noting the fact that as such, Romney wasn't McCain's best choice for shoring up their support.

Excellent points. It's clear he didn't even consider whether she would make a good President or even Vice-President (we assume he at least doesn't think there is any chance he will ever die and need to be replaced). This was strictly a political calculation, as almost all Republican decisions seem to be. He thinks she gives him the best chance to win. That may be true, but it's a sad reflection on the state of our electorate if it is.

With Hurricane Gustav headed for landfall, would you want Sarah Palin in charge of the response?

Jennifer and MsJoanne, you're BOTH right in all your comments about Sarah Palin.

Good thinking, both of you.

All religion is looney.

And you're right...it's CHOICE. And you apparently don't like hers. YOU get over that. That is what choice is.

For me, the lack of personal contact between McCain and Palin adds more weight to the story that Romney, Hutchinson, Pawlenty and Jindal all turned McCain down.

It explains just about everything. Why the announcement was delayed, why the chosen candidate is so far from the mainstream, why there was no contact between the two camps until last week (if she had been in the frame previously, wouldn't there have been an unending stream on contacts going on?) and why McCain seemed to struggle with name and is unfamiliar with her achievements.

There's a huge background story to this selection. I wish someone would go out and get it.

The selection puts in issue McCain's age, health and judgment in a way that the Democrates could not, or would not, do. I cannot imagine any middle-of-the road Republican or any sane independent supporting this ticket. I would love to know how Collins of Maine, Hutchinson of Texas, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel about it.

I will apologize if I misread your comments, Jennifer. I am boarding my plane but caught Phoebes comment and think perhaps I read it wrong. I will reread later.

There is only one reason Palin was selected for McCain: to mobilize the far right evangelical christians for whom the only thing that matters is abortion. It is clear from the timeline in other new stories that Rove made clear to his protege Schmidt that Lieberman or Ridge wouldn't do. In other words, the independent mavercik McCain was not permitted to pick his own running mate. Thus, Palin, who is already dog whistling to the far religious right and has them high fiving and in raptures. Expect to see her campaign appearances in the next two months limited to those far right evangelical audiences. Its all about abortion and the base.
As for McCain, he thinks this is his ticket to the White House, damned the consequences if he doesn't live. Its clear that if he is elected she will be marginalized by him. All that matters to him is the prize, and if he has to court the votes of those who are hoping for him to win, and then die on day one, then so be it.
Putting Country Last.

And you're right...it's CHOICE. And you apparently don't like hers. YOU get over that. That is what choice is.

You know, you don't have to keep dragging this out just because you overreacted to a misunderstanding you had upon reading my first post.

I clearly stated, twice, the fact that I have no issue with her choice to give birth. But if you are a staunch pro-lifer who is going to point to your own example of selflessness in bringing a child into the world who has needs going even above and beyond the needs of other children, and then 4 months later you decide that it's ok to hand that child over for all intents and purposes to allow others to meet those extraordinary needs, then I'm sorry but you've just underlined the hypocrisy of the entire pro-life movement, which cares more about getting children into the world than it does about caring for them once they are here.

It's not that I don't like her choice to accept the nomination; it's that it points to a glaring hypocrisy.

My bad, MsJoanne. Didn't see your last comment until my last one posted.

Er...Howard, that's 'reeks' not 'wreaks'.

The level of discourse over here is falling fast. Where'd all the new and unimproved trolls come from?

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.�
J. K. Galbraith

I started out thinking that she was chosen on the basis of being a fundie nutcase. But I'm beginning to believe that this was only a fortuitous little extra.

Just suppose that the oil industry wants to be sure that they have someone in the VP slot (as they do now with Cheney.) Why not use the nominee's roving eye to get him to choose their person? She's obviously owned by the oil companies. McCain is a little batty with age and would love to run with a good looking woman. Just show him her picture a few times and talk her up. Mission accomplished.

With Ms. Palen as McCain's VP choice, I think we are seeing the new face of the republican party. While they would prefer to win in this cycle, they are grooming for 2012 and beyond. In fact, I think Ms. Palen was chosen for rather than by McCain. To paraphrase, remember: John McCain does not speak for his campaign.

With Ms. Palen as McCain's VP choice, I think we are seeing the new face of the republican party. While they would prefer to win in this cycle, they are grooming for 2012 and beyond. In fact, I think Ms. Palen was chosen for rather than by McCain. To paraphrase, remember: John McCain does not speak for his campaign.

With Ms. Palen as McCain's VP choice, I think we are seeing the new face of the republican party. While they would prefer to win in this cycle, they are grooming for 2012 and beyond. In fact, I think Ms. Palen was chosen for rather than by McCain. To paraphrase, remember: John McCain does not speak for his campaign.

MsNThrope, whoops, i'm on the west coast, it's early in the day, and my brain/finger connection failed! thanks for noting.

It should be noted that there is precious little evidence that anyone Hon. Sen. McCain picked would have had much input. It's not like any of the other potential VP candidates would have been more than campaign props either.

20 minutes. He knew her for 20 minutes before he chose her as VP. Sounds like a good Obama TV ad to me.

Paul Begala said that he wouldn't go to dinner with someone that he has met only once.

He also said that if he was to execute a Will for someone to take care of his children, he would need to know someone better than that, yet McCain is potentially turning over the care of 300 million Americans to someone he has met only once.

Thinking about this pick I was reminded of the old story of the roman emperor Caligula making his horse consul. It's a choice that broadcasts complete contempt for the office and the citizenry, a way of asserting that one's authority is completely unaccountable.

I suspect that part of what's behind this is personal pique. His advisers told McCain that the men he wanted to choose (Lieberman, Pawlenty) were out of the question. Enraged, he made this ridiculous choice carelessly. "Fine! You won't let me have who I want? Gimme whoever that other one was, the alaskan woman, whatever her name is!"

As a window into McCain's decision making, it's terrifying. He really is an ignorant, irresponsible hothead. People saying McCain would be four more years of Bush are being optimistic; if he gets in I think he'll make Dubya look good (much in the way Dubya made Nixon look good).

You write: "John McCain doesn't know Sarah Palin, but he wants the nation to trust her."

John McCain has just proven, beyond a reasonable doubt (hell, beyond any doubt at all), that he is not qualified to be President. He is not ready to lead. He cannot be trusted as Commander in Chief.

By the way, one person I want to hear say this: Hillary Clinton.

my conspiracy theory du jour is that the Palin choice is part of a long list of stupid decisions designd to make Obama apoplectic. Even the Rovers know it's a matter of time before McCain snaps, and it'll probably happen in front of a camera or 12. They also have internal polling that shows the odds for McCain are bleak, BUT the numbers also show that a lot of people thinking about voting for Obama are still unsure. They're loking for a valid reason NOT to vote for Obama, to justify that indefineable unease they have about him (oh, but it's not based on race or rumors he's a secret Muslim, oh, heavens no!), but every day, no valid reason comes.

So if McCain's team can make Obama snap first, and let McCain be allowed to question HIS temperament first, it negates McCain's own questionable temperament. So, make ridiculous decisions, especially if those decisions negate your own previous talking points (like faulting Obama's lack of experience, then pick a running mate with even less) Act as if you're not really taking the campaign seriously. And lie, lie, lie. Get Obama good & pissed until he does something "unpresidential," then ride that to November.

Will it work? It's probably their best bet. It's all one Hail Mary play after another, but they've got 2 months for one Hail Mary play to connect, and it may only take one.

I'm sure that if McCain got elected and died, making Sarah Palin president, that Dick Cheney could be persuaded to bring back his regency from Bush 2's Term 1.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/misreading-amer.html

A reader emails Andrew:
No sooner did my best friend hear about the Sarah Palin pick than I received an e-mail from her. It said simply: "Sarah Palin is a Bad Mother!"

Go read the whole thing. I think this issue (Palin's decision to campaign for VP while having a special needs infant) will resonate with a lot of moms across the country.

I love it. "18 million quacks!"

Hannah, @14:29

I"Bad Mom" sure as heck was *my* first thought. Ours was perfectly normal, even above average, but, for the first 6 months, I made sure that my husband and I never left the house together (I was a stay-at-home mom), unless we took the baby with us. I wasn't going to risk babysitters, unless I absolutely had to, until he was a bit less of a "blob", whose moods you could decipher only if you lived with him 24/7.

Who is *she* going to leave him with? Not her husband, because it's not how ultra-religious homes are structured -- old fashioned. Then who? Her daughters? Two of them are, young enough themselves to need an eye kept on.

Be curious to know though, how she'd arranged the care of the kids while Governor. Small (population-wise) state or not, it still requires tending...

Of course the GOP would break the glass ceiling with an ill-prepared beauty contestant. We said it yesterday, there were dozens of women ho had earned the right for consideration. And he chose the ethics challenged tyro.

This is so insulting. This is a concession that an unseen hand guides the GOP and, by extension, our government.

Of course the GOP would break the glass ceiling with an ill-prepared beauty contestant.

The GOP has broken no kind of glass ceiling. The first woman to be a major party candidate on a presidential ticket was Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

Even the conservatives' tokenism is 24 years behind the times....

My wife recently obtained a faculty position with a small, private college. Her first interview for the position---a telephone interview---lasted about 45 minutes. Her second interview consisted of an interview with the department head, another with the search committee, a third with the human resources director, and finally an in-depth with the president of the college.

for this position---which is very small potatoes when compared to Vice President of the United States---the total time involved in the entire interview process was just under 6 hours.

Now, if the interview process for a faculty position at a small, private college---maybe 1,500 students if you count the part-timers, the weekend-only, and the "professional students" who take one class a semester from the day they leave high school to the day they die of old age---requires a time-investment 18 times the amount required for a vice-presidential candidate, then why in the infernal regions do we have a vice president in the first place?

Actually Palin might not be such a bad pick from the Republican perspective...

We all know, including the Republicans, that Joe Biden can pretty much take on ANYBODY in the debates.
They also know that Joe Biden, at times will stick his foot in his mouth.
Just imagine if that was to happen during the debate... Let's bring out the feigning couch, because Biden did something incredibly rude and crude towards a woman of all creatures.... Poor thing...
The MSM would eat it up...

So... Biden will have to use kid gloves, just to be in the debates. Not fair, but since when would Republicans play fair? Bush was even a more moronic pick than Palin was, look how he fit the bill.

Given all of John McCain's criticisms of Barack Obama, it would be wise to revisit the exact nature of their relationship and the nature of their interactions.

How well does John McCain know Barack Obama?

Can John McCain's criticism of Barack Obama be taken serious?

You have to question a man making such snap decisions, and whether he himself is a good jugde of character.

John McCain has no argument in his bid for the presidency. It is now down to him being a POW last century. I don't think that cuts it.

I have to agree with Jennifer when it comes to her hypocrisy analysis in regards to the 'special needs' children and the way Palin would be going about it.

If you're pro-life, then it doesn't stop at delivery of the baby. You are responsible for that baby until the age of 18-21, and much longer in the event of special needs.

This responsibility is also financial not just loving the child while collecting government funds and expecting society to carry the financial burden of raising such a child.

That is where I have a problem: People that insist on being pro-life, and at the same time want to cut social programs and lower taxes. That is of course until they have a special needs child, and they will insist on getting all the services their baby needs, as long as someone else pays for it. Oh, and don't forget they still don't want their taxes raised either.

That is the hypocrisy within the Republican party and people who vote for Republicans.

In Palin's case it will the the taxpayer footing the bill, through her FREE health care benefits, so it doesn't really affect her financially. Not to mention she'll have a nanny who'll deal with the daily care needed for that child. She'll use her when it's convenient for photo-ops.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, so that people who feel the burden of raising a special needs child would not be feasible for them, they can make the agonizing choice to have an abortion. It is their choice to make, not the religious right's choice.
For the record, I'm also perfectly fine paying more taxes myself, in order to have more funds available to help the less fortunate amongst us.

Jennifer, I owe you an apology. I COMPLETELY misread what you wrote (aside from the "as are we all" vis a vis Mormonism, which I still don't agree with. I understand your point, but I don't find it any more frightening than Romney himself). To me, religion intertwined with politics is scary to me, no matter what flavor it might be.

I apologize for my post. I agree with you completely on the rest of your post.