This isn’t the best place to post this, but I’m stunned that more people haven’t commented on the fact the Cindy McCain was probably decked out in tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothes and jewelry to make a plea for every-day Americans to give money to those affected by a hurricane. Am I the only one feels this is an issue that undermines their attempted appeal with so called ‘real’ Americans. Who dresses up like this to do charity work? It’d be interesting to know how much was spent on the dress, make-up, hair, jewelry; it’d be more interesting to see if she has personally donated that much to a hurricane relief fund?

Governor Palin herself had premarital sex and pregnancy before marriage.

NY Times buried the Lead:

Forget the daughter.

Governor Palin herself, who supports “abstinence only� as government policy, was having premarital sex and got pregnant before marriage back in 1988, according to the NY Times:

"The Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and their first son, Track, was born eight months later ..."

See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/us/politics/02palin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&hp&oref=slogin

“Abstinence only, for thee and not for me.�

But she attends fundamentalist Churches and assures everybody else that she is pro-abstinence only (now, but for herself in 1988).

The hypocrisy boggles the mind.

Good point: I noticed this when I saw a headline that read “Cindy McCain appeals for Gulf Coast Aid�, next to a picture of her looking unbelievably decked-out and made-up.

Side note: didn’t she look like a celebrity, or something out of the matrix.

While Barack Obama was making a speach bout Gustav and families yesterday, John McCain was in Philadelphia fund raising.

He attended a private fund raiser at a hotel and then went to visit the cardinal of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Coverage of this was on the local news at 6:00PM. There was no comment from McCain only long range footage of him getting in and out of cars. I do not believe that McCain's visit yesterday made the national news.

It must have been arranged pretty quietly because I ususally get an email to protest his visits to the area and I did not get one this time.

Maybe he was asking the cardinal to pray for the hurricaine victims? For him? Maybe he had something to confess? You have to guess that he was not fundraising for the huricaine victims.

"The Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and their first son, Track, was born eight months later ..."

This is nothing. A complete non-issue. This is standard operating procedure for fundamentalist evangelicals of a certain stripe. The fact that they "did the right thing" and got married - and that they've stayed married - more than makes up for the fact that they might have dallied a bit outside the bonds of "holy matrimony".

Calling them on this won't matter one damn whit to anyone who supports abstinence-only or a fundie worldview - in fact, it will only reinforce the idea that the Palins are "good people" - because everyone in those mega-churches knows at least one couple who got into a "bit of trouble" and had to get married at a young age.

Talk of Alaska, our NPR call in show is on at 10 (AK time) today. Everyone should tune, it promises to be hilarious. Could provide a good lesson of Alaskan thought for the nation.

Actually, the only coverage of McCain yesterday I saw was pictures of him, very clumsily and awkwardly, packing relief supplies in a center in Ohio.

That's quite the jump for McCain in one month. I understand that he's now limited by accepting public financing, but still, if we take it as an expression of conservative support, it's a sign he's becoming a better option for them, even absent the late push due to Palin. I held myself back from donating as much as I would have liked to Obama, but still, I gave $50-150 in the last two weeks. I hope others continued to give, as I will do in the next week or so, but I wonder if the constant e-mails I received from the Obama campaign last week were an indication of weak fund raising or something to simply increase an already huge total. Or perhaps that's just how they operate. I didn't start donating to the campaign until May or June, I think, so I am not sure. Whatever the case, I hope, worst case scenario, he retains a lead over McCain on the order of $10-20 million, for a total of $60-70 million. Best case scenario, he amasses an insane total, something like $90 million-plus.

I wonder whose job it is to wake Fred Thompson up and tell him he is supposed to speak tonight?

Do you think the same person will tell him he didn't win the nomination and he was speaking in support of McCain?

"...I wonder if the constant e-mails I received from the Obama campaign last week were an indication of weak fund-raising.

More indicative of riding the momentum of the convention.

wow, the Obama speech in Milwaukee was amazing. He sure seemed to be connecting to working people, but then again, what do I know? I'm just a voter, i'm not in the media...

Steve (12:14 pm),

Sarah is OK. She has repented and been forgiven by God. No harm, no foul.

This is pretty stunning. Sarah Palin, book banner?

She's George W., small-town.

So, Fred Thompson is "channeling" Arnold tonight?

According to Fox News, Thompson will be speaking in the slot previously reserved for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), who is no longer attending the convention. Schwarzenegger’s original speech has been “amended and edited in Fred Thompson’s voice.�

The GOP is now the gang that can't speak straight, either.

Wow, the Obama speech was really something. Is Sam Seaborn there hidden somewhere?

* The latest national poll from CBS News shows Obama leading McCain by eight, 48% to 40%.

* The latest national poll from USA Today/Gallup shows Obama leading McCain by seven, 50% to 43%.

* The latest national poll from Diageo/Hotline shows Obama leading McCain by nine, 48% to 39%.

Sen. McCain, how's that veep-pick working out for you?

It's funny to see a top-page of Yahoo story today from the McCainico, er, I mean Politico stating that Obama's convention bounce is small and shrinking, juxtaposed with today's new poll results showing it going in the exact opposite direction.

Methinks there's some wishful thinking going on.

Sen. McCain, how's that veep-pick working out for you?

Polling tends to be a trailing indicator, reacting to events some days after they happen. These numbers are Obama's post-convention bounce, and don't yet reflect Palin. By the weekend we'll start to have a sense of how she's impacting the race.

The interesting question is how much of a convention bounce McCain will get with Gustav and Palin dominating coverage, and the convention (which is essentially a long GOP TV ad) one day shorter. I expect he'll get one, but it'll be muffled by other events.

I saw Obama's speech, and I too thought it was one of his best. He should morph that into his new stump speech. Make sure that you watch it, and notice that it's mostly off the cuff.

uh huh; it is all good news for McCain: from politico

"Barack Obama’s post-Democratic National Convention bounce in the polls appears to be slightly smaller than the norm of past conventions, and it's gradually depreciating."

it gets better

"The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the convention, Obama has risen 4 percentage points in the polls, to lead McCain 49 percent to 43 percent today. That's a slightly smaller uptick in the polls than the 5- to 6-point bounce earned by a typical party nominee, by Gallup’s measure, since 1964. Obama and McCain were evenly split at 45 percentage points apiece prior to the Democratic convention, according to Gallup.

That outcome comes despite Obama’s speech before more than 80,000 people at Invesco Field in Denver on Thursday night, a political event that was also seen by about 40 million television viewers."

no shame; no shame

Okay, here's another argument coming from Dick Army about Palin's experience vs. Obama's experience:

Palin as a mayor of a small town and as a 1/2 term governor has worlds of executive experience over Obama because she has to make executive decisions where as Obama as a Senator only debates, speculates and casts one vote out of a hundred.

Well considering John McCain has only had experience as a Senator, isn't it safe to assume that he has ZERO executive experience too? He has plenty of experience as a Senator, in fact 26 years, but as the Dick Army has pointed out, senators never get to make executive decisions.

The next logical step in his argument would be that Sarah Palin is the most qualified person to be president of all the candidates which is simply not the case. His logic is flawed.

GOP talking points are so inane, I don't know how they buy their own BS they shovel on the American people.

Let me get this straight.

They threw out Rudy Giuliani for Fred Thompson?

It's like they don't want anybody to watch their convention this year.

Steve wrote earlier:

"Bristol Palin is not a candidate for public office. Her pregnancy is none of the political world's business."

False. It is, because of consistency issues and Palin saying she was "proud" to become a grandmother in effect. Please, Steve, don't dork out on us so much, try to do better than Kevin.

Republicans revamped their convention plans for a second day, dropping former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as keynote speaker Tuesday night while trying to determine President Bush’s role in the political pageantry celebrating John McCain’s candidacy for president.

They have no idea what's going on at their own convention. "Will Dubya come?" "I don't know, he won't say." "Well, we'd better leave a spot for him or he'll be mad." "But what if he doesn't come?" "Get Lieberman back up there, I don't know!"

All we need are a few sex busts, a McMeltdown and a henious live mike blunder to make GOPCON perfect.

Kinda suspect that the contrast between Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York and 9/11, and Sarah Palin, mayor of Nowheresville, Alaska, was a bit too much for the campaign organizers to bear.

"
* The latest national poll from CBS News shows Obama leading McCain by eight, 48% to 40%.

* The latest national poll from USA Today/Gallup shows Obama leading McCain by seven, 50% to 43%.

* The latest national poll from Diageo/Hotline shows Obama leading McCain by nine, 48% to 39%."
----------

Two months left and McCain is struggling.

What could change things? Obama could really screw up in debates for the whole country to see.

Since that isn't likely I'd suggest Obama stay above the fray, avoid mistakes, rally the voters in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Definitely no funny indian hats in Pontiac or Cleveland and no tricorns in Philly. We don't need Dukakis II.

Humor like Kennedy and Reagan and lots of patriotic red, white & blue ought to do.

On t.v. ads can be focused where they're needed and the news coverage of Obama speeches/events will fill in the gaps.

I really have a hard time seeing how McCain can turn the tide or even slow Obama from gaining more.