palin in the senate...it's hard for me to tell what kind of candidate palin is because in alaska she was "bipartisan" (or that was her governor's reputation)and her vp stint made her partisan to the nth power...

it will be interesting which of these two palins emerges post 2008...and from what I hear the Palin tee-shirts for president in 2012 are selling like hotcakes in wasilla. I received an e-mail today asking me to buy a "keep the change" bumpersticker Palin 2012...I agree with you though that when it comes down to it, she is unlikely to be the nominee in 2012. But I suppose when a guy named Barack Hussein Obama can get elected U.S. president--anything is indeed possible.

cheers. And I have a sincere hope that the Republican party backs off from its divisive public alienating policies like the abstinence only programs in public schools that are really repulsive if you take a close look at them...I read about one today that had students in high school chewing up bits of cheese and spitting them into a a pitcher with some water, and then a second jar filled with clear water, and then students had to go to the front of the room and pour themselves a cup from the pitcher that they wanted to symbolize their marriage partner....

disgusting. It made me choke up to think that this program received half a million dollars from the federal government for this kind of object lesson in shame. I'm so angry about that one, it's hard to explain. I know that in the old days of conservatism you thought you were critics of liberal ideology--but Obama is a pragmatist and liberal "ideology" has become much more flexible than the far more rigid ideology of GWB that made so many people--even people in the middle--angry with Republicans for his actions. In upstate New York parents insisted that federal government be returned for sex education when they found that the federal program had students being shown a dirty tennis shoe to symbolize someone who has sex. Frequently these lessons aren't even about unprotected sex--which would be bad enough--but about sex at all. This is a constitutional error in forcing religion down people's throats. Bush's programs overseas have insisted that people in countries with severe AIDS epidemic be told that "condoms are not 100% effective"--which although it is true--this is a little like telling people that seatbelts are not "100% effective"...while it may be true, it doens't mean you shouldn't wear one.

On the other hand, the abstinence only pledges are showing right now a "failure" rate of 87%...of people who take an abstinence pledge and then still have sex. Which is not a problem (in my view at least) except to consider that 1/3 of the people--mostly adolescents, who have taken the pledge--when they do have sex--it is unprotected sex. Perhaps because they have shame attached to the act at all, they don't bother with adequate preparation or the ability to ask for or to buy a condom first. So the U.S. still the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world, the highest rate of STD's in teen agers.

Bush's ideology got in the way of science and doing what is right for adolescents. He has every right to have religious beliefs of any kind about sex and abstinence...but the way that these programs are being taught makes people angry for a reason. The republican party needs to listen to its critics and to make its own policies at the very least more flexible (say, abstinence plus programs where abstinence is encouraged, but shame is not attached to making different choices provided that people have personal agency and protect their health and their partners...like it is in Europe to far lower rates of teen pregancy or STDs...)

okay...standing down from the soapbox now. I just mean to say that some of the liberal bogeyman talk needs to be put aside for serious solutions to serious programs in this country. on the other hand, if you don't mind more elections like this one, by all means, cover your ears.

thank-you for your comments and your honesty. I agree with you about it needing to be a democratic woman--and I'll say this--most of the people I personally observed at a grassroots level were women. Hillary had mark penn giving her advice to play down her woman-ness (I guess to be fair it was a first...) but should a woman candidate stir the grassroots women...

this would make a woman winning the presidency much more possible. I want it to be a democratic woman. good lord--never bachmann. I'm surprised she kept her seat in the house.

candidate for the G.O.P. in 2012?

Maybe no one else will be willing to run against Obama--but I imagine Palin as the Guiliani of 2012...a lot of noise and maybe a fundraising tool---but I imagine that the g.o.p. will ultimately choose someone else. Possibly Jindal or certainly Romney's hat will be in the ring. I've also heard that Mitt's people are the ones who have been trying to bury Palin with a hatchet lately....