SubscribeBrickley’s family, once evangelical Christians, now practice what he calls “Messianic Judaism.” They believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but they also observe the Jewish holidays and attend synagogue; as Brickley puts it, “Jesus was Jewish, so to be like Him you need to be Jewish, too.” Brickley said that “the hand of God” played a role in choosing Palin: “The longer I worked on it the less I felt I was driving it. Something else was at work.”Something else indeed was at work, Adam, but I imagine it had more to do with a "cold, calculated political decision" then the hand of the Almighty, you cynical, self-righteous lunatic.
OK MeFi smart-asses. If Lieberman is a no-go 'cause he's not crazy enough or too Jewish or something and Palin, is, well, Palin, then who should have McCain chosen? Who would be out there stumping and McAngry's poll numbers up? Who would have crushed Biden in the VP debate? Huh? Who?Putting on my maverick hat...
Ed Rogers, the chairman of B.G.R., a well-connected, largely Republican lobbying firm, said, “Her criteria kept popping out. She was a governor—that’s good. The shorter the Washington résumé the better. A female is better still. And then there was her story.” He admitted, “There was concern that she was a novice.”You who think she's unqualified are just sexist, like that guy who's head of the Republican lobbying firm that helped pick her.
In 1980, George H.W. Bush was the Republican VP pick after having lost the nomination to Ronald Reagan.I suppose Romney would be a good choice, but has anyone every chose a loser from the primaries to run as VP?John Kerry chose John Edwards in 2004 after beating him in the primaries. I'm sad that McCain didn't get his first choice, but I don't think he would have done better with Lieberman.
I look forward to the day (maybe in 2040?) when the two major-party nominees pick each other as running-mates, and the only choice for the voters is who they want at the top of the ticket. Imagine the bickering in the white house.
If McCain had picked the REAL Tina Fey, he might be winning now.
One name: Liddy Dole.Liddy Dole is a month older than John McCain.
But can you imagine the sheer panic with the George Wills of the GOP if Palin ends up president?Far less than mine, I would wager.
Looking at this dynamic personality now, it mystifies me that I wouldn't remember her," said Jim Fisher, Palin's journalism instructor at the University of Idaho, where she graduated with a bachelor of science degree in journalism in 1987.Maybe among all the other college girls her Hawtness wasn't so signifigant?
Palin, he said, took his public affairs reporting class, an upper-division course limited to 15 students. "It's the funniest damn thing," Fisher said. "No one can recall her."
"I don't remember her," said Roy Atwood, Palin's academic advisor at the university.
UV: ...Listen.
"Since her selection as John McCain's running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening.
That entertaining scoop -- which came by way of Politico -- sent almost immediate reverberations through the presidential race.
...Several hours after Politico posted its findings, the topic remained nearly untouched by the major right outlets. Though as Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic opined:'Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures. ... The heat for this story will come from Republicans who cannot understand how their party would do something this stupid ... particularly (and, it must be said, viewed retroactively) during the collapse of the financial system and the probable beginning of a recession.'"
"Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.Geesh, doncha' know? Sarah Palin is quite the ethical reformer! And a maverick at that!
The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.
...State Finance Director Kim Garnero told The Associated Press she has not reviewed the Palins’ travel expense forms, so she could not say whether the daughters’ travel with their mother would meet the definition of official business.
On Aug. 6, three weeks before Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose Palin his running mate, and after Alaska reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters’ travel.
In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as 'First Family attending' and 'First Family invited' to explain the girls’ attendance.
...In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women’s leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.
...In July, the governor charged the state $2,741.26 to take Bristol and Piper to Philadelphia for a meeting of the National Governors Association. The girls had their own room for five nights at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for $215.46 a night, expense records show.
In addition to the commercial flights, the children have traveled dozens of times with Palin on a state plane. For these flights, the total cost of operating the plane, at $971 an hour, was about $55,000, according to state flight logs.
...The organizer of an American Heart Association luncheon on Feb. 15 in Fairbanks said Palin asked to bring daughter Piper to the event, and the organizer said she was surprised when Palin showed up with daughters Willow and Bristol as well.
The three Palin daughters shared a room separate from their mother at the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks for two nights, at a cost to the state of $129 per night.
The luncheon took place before Palin’s husband, Todd, finished fourth in the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race, also in Fairbanks. The family greeted him at the finish line.
...In February 2007, the three girls flew from Juneau to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines. Palin charged the state for the $519.30 round-trip ticket for each girl, and noted on the expense form that the daughters accompanied her to 'open the start of the Iron Dog race.'
The children and their mother then watched as Todd Palin and other racers started the competition, which Todd won that year. Palin later had the relevant expense forms changed to describe the girls’ business as 'First Family official starter for the start of the Iron Dog race.'"
"Following up on that Politico story about the RNC apparently spending more than $150,000 on clothes for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin...
I wonder if the governor knows that she's going to have to pay taxes on those clothes, even if she ultimately gives them away?
Tax experts say that even if she only wears them for professional reasons -- locked away in a special 'candidate'cabinet, say -- Palin will be on the hook for those fancy new duds just as if someone had written her a check for $150,000.
Wonder if she knows that."
"Potential first lady Michelle Obama's fashion has already been praised by critics and voters. But now the simple black-and-white dress Obama wore on 'The View' last week is selling out in stores and on the virtually-unknown designer's Web site. [A tip for Obamaphiles: order it from the designer's Web site. It's $50 cheaper there...]Michelle Obama wore this dress from the Gap to a Fourth of July celebration. The dress retails for $39.99.
...Michelle Obama sported [Donna] Ricco's black-and-white leaf-print shift — sold at the White House Black Market store, where Obama bought it for $148 — on 'The View,' and women across the country went wild for it."
Cindy McCain's RNC Outfit Cost $300,000.So, who are the elitists in this campaign?
"Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé who’s a principal in the robocalling firm of FLS Connect (the 'FLS' stands for Tony Feather, Jeff Larson, and Tom Syndhorst, all veteran Republican political operatives). Larson’s firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. He’s also well known in Minnesota for leasing his basement apartment at a steeply discounted rate to embattled Republican Senator Norm Coleman.
....Under FEC regulations, the RNC must file what is called a 'Schedule F form,' which lists 'expenditures made by political committees or designated agents(s) on behalf of candidates for federal office.'
....What’s so incompetent about this from a political tradecraft perspective is that both parties ordinarily take the easy precaution of making sure such embarrassing material isn’t obvious to reporters, which they do by routing the payment through a law firm or consultant. Here they neglected to do so. Larson may not be able to look forward to a lucrative contract with a McCain administration. But who knows? He may land his own show on Bravo."
“The Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Sarah Palin’s wardrobe has prompted some teeth gnashing among the party’s big donors about its political sensibility and a feisty debate among campaign finance specialists about its legality.
‘As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,’ complained one irate donor on Tuesday.
‘I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,’ he added. ‘I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.’
Another big donor was sympathetic to the effort, but critical of the execution.
The Alaska governor was tapped by Arizona Sen. John McCain to become his vice presidential running mate just days before the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, the donor noted.
Given the short notice and the Palins’ relatively modest means, ‘she could probably not go into her closet at home in Alaska to come up with a wardrobe appropriate for her status as a vice presidential candidate,’ he said.
‘Having said that, $150K is big money,’ he added. ‘It kind of makes it worth running. Even if you lose, you’ve got a whole new closet.’”
“Campaign finance laws prohibit candidates from spending donor cash to their authorized personal campaign committee on costs ‘that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign,’ including clothing, vacations and gym memberships.
But the law does not prohibit such expenditures by party committees, and Congress has killed legislation to expand the personal use ban to those and other types of political committees.
The fuzzy part in the Palin case is that the RNC used money from an account designated for ‘coordinated,’ or shared, expenditures with the McCain-Palin candidate account.
The Federal Election Commission, which interprets federal campaign finance laws, has never been asked to address this issue. And legal experts say the key question is: From which side of the joint account was the money drawn?
Noting that the expenses were reported by the RNC and not the McCain-Obama campaign, Ken Gross, a law partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who advises corporations on campaign finance laws, concluded: ‘The bottom line is that this is party committee money. These are not campaign funds.’
Wiley Rein lawyer Jan Baran, an adviser to several Republican candidates and committees, agreed with Gross, but added that the Palins may still be forced to comply with tax laws.
‘The receipt of goods and services by the taxpayer usually constitutes reportable ‘income’,’ Baran said. Consequently, Palin may have to declare the value of the fashion gifts as income and pay taxes on it.
‘She might be able to offset some of the taxes by donating the items to charity after the campaign, Baran said, ‘although she will only be able to deduct the fair market value at that time.’” *
Gingrich: SNL's Palin skits are 'slander' 'worthy of a lawsuit.'
* More than 100 appointments to state posts -- nearly 1 in 4 -- went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.Sarah Palin: the more you know her the more she stinks. (Can I get a bumper sticker?)
University of Alaska historian Steve Haycox said Palin has been a reformer. But he said she has a penchant for placing supporters, many of them ill-prepared, in high posts. He called it "cronyism" far beyond what previous governors have done and a contradiction of her high-minded philosophy.
Terrence Cole, an Alaska political historian, said Palin had in some cases shown "a disrespect for experience."
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin insisted she is a "frugal" spender as she denied she had a 150,000 dollar Republican Party clothes budget for her and her family for the White House campaign[...]Those are not ours. We give those back, those go to charity or they'll be auctioned off or whatever. That's not even my property. So to be criticized for that, that is not who we are."So there you have it. The clothes are not hers, they just happened to fit her and she wore them for three days and gave them back so they could be given to charity. I am calling this The Case of the Hot Potato Clothes.
"McCain-Palin campaign paid out $13,200 in September to an Emmy-nominated makeup artist who traveled with vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin.
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posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:01 PM on October 20, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]