Here's a wacky idea: maybe the McCain campaign can clarify.

I can say, a hint of sarcasm or irony, that such questioning would immediately be labeled "gotcha" journalism.

Palin probably hasn't read the platform and therefore doesn't know what is in it.

She's 'been doing this for what, like eight weeks?' She is on record that she doesn't answer question they way, I'd like to talk about energy - because this is important, also...

A Republican I'm very close to, from NY, insists that Roe v. Wade is perfectly safe, partly on stare decisis grounds, but partly on her belief that nobody really wants it overturned except a few Southern nutjobs. Palin has shown us that Alaska is actually a Southern state, with plenty of nutjobs, but McCain probably does really support Roe.

I vote for Steve's first option.

you left out a fourth possibility: mcsame doesn't know what mcsame's real positions are.

If she says those things hard enough and often enough and with sufficient fervor, God will reward her with victory this November.

Steve's first option MAY be correct; however, we have no way of know which of McCain's many conflicting positions are his real ones.

I personally believe that the moderate, maverick McCain was the phony one. The current incarnation rings true to me.

As with your previous post about McCain saying on the Imus radio show that Palin is "the most qualified of anyone recently who has run for vice president", both McCain and Palin are confident that they can say whatever they want, to whomever they want, no matter how brazenly, preposterously false it is, and no one is going to call them on it.

And the fact is that, comments on liberal blogs notwithstanding, the corporate-owned mass media is pretty much proving them correct by not calling them out on any of their blatant lies and preposterous BS -- except perhaps in brief, buried "fact checks" which suggest that "both sides stretch the truth."

Steve,

The new AP poll shows things tightening significantly in the presidential race. The difference in the spread with likely voters is only 1%. Has the race suddenly tightened that much or do you think the AP poll is an outlier? TIA.

Which plank is the Missionary Position?

"To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder," she told the influential Christian leader, whose radio show reaches tens of millions of listeners daily. "And it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God's hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4."

----So, I guess it means that on November 5th she and her friends will wholeheartedly support Obama------

Outlier poll. Look at the state-by-state race and tell me how McCain gets to 270 electoral votes. Look at a few key Red states: Indiana (McCain has a tiny lead), Virginia (Obama has a small lead), North Carolina (Obama has a tiny lead). This would be like Obama still struggling to hold on to California, New York and Massachusetts. If you're in that position two weeks before the election, your campaign is in trouble.

This is the party of message discipline?

That raises a few possibilities:
* McCain's real positions are different from his stated positions.
* Palin doesn't know what McCain's real positions are.
* Palin was deliberately misleading Dobson.

All of the above.

Does Dobson not realize what a stroke job is ?

It's getting fairly obvious that Palin will say anything, and I mean anything to get whomever she is speaking with or at to love Sarah Palin.

"Clarity" on these issues is the last thing McCain wants. He needs to be able to say one thing to one group, and another to a different group. He just hopes that the media won't call him on it, which is a pretty reasonable hope.

At TPM in the comments about that AP poll, it says that 1/3 of the respondents were from the South. Also that Obama had a 10 point lead among registered voters, 1 point lead among likely voters.

I think it's unlikely that 1/3 of the voters will be from the South.

An aside: I think it's weird that Palin regularly refers to her running mate as "McCain."

So, should the woman who has an abortion be charged with a capital crime? Should she be executed, or given life in prison? Is this mentioned on one of those planks? How come they're planks and not tablets, like what Moses got? Does God like Moses better than she likes the GOP?

@ SecularAnimist You said it "My Friend" Like that powder puff special on CNN. Anyone who lets that bitch say one more time "well they found I didn't do anything illeagle in troopergate " pass one more time without "Oh really? why are you lying to my face?" does not not get to call themselves a journalist. There is no news anymore with the exception of a few (Stewart, Colbert , Letterman ) who are not afraid to speak truth to power

Here's an even wackier idea... maybe some reporter could ask John McCain to clarify where he stands today with respect to the GOP platform in light of Sarah Palin's comments to Dr. Dobson...

Why freakin' wait for the McCain campaign to clarify? Why not just freakin' ask them while the tape is rolling?

That raises a few possibilities:

* McCain's real positions are different from his stated positions.

* Palin doesn't know what McCain's real positions are.

* Palin was deliberately misleading Dobson.

Another possibility: Palin and Dobson are jointly misleading the fundamentalist Christian base to get them to fall in line one more time. Dobson for all intents and purposes is a part of the GOP leadership team, and no doubt knew what Palin was going to say before she said it; indeed, Dobson and his people may be among those writing her scripts.

Palin may or may not know John McCain's positions, but sometimes I think that she knows more Leo Strauss than she lets on. The Republicans have perfected the art of playing stupid as a Machiavellian tactic. Sarah Palin is next in line.

John R--you can also tune into MSNBC and watch Maddow and Olbermann.

John McCain has a platform?

Reluctant as I am to give conservative columnist Peggy Noonan any credit, I must confess she said it best. Her column a few days ago infers that Palin "just....says things".

Further to S9 above, why (AFAIK) has it taken until now for someone to press the Republican candidates on whether they support the party's extremist loony nutjob platform? And why did that someone have to be James Dobson?

Jim Lehrer didn't do it. Nor Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer. And why not any of the Democrats?