WAAngel is so right-on that there is little left to say except that Palin left me cold and angry.

As a woman, I'm sick of Palin, Fiorino and their group claiming gender bias...they may where skirts, but when they choose to play in the big leagues they need to buck up and stop whining (which is just what they said about Hillary...).

Palin is "W" in a skirt...cowgirl diplomacy...shoot first, ask questions later.

The really scary part of this is that if the Palin/McCain ticket wins I'll have to pray that McCain DOESN'T drop dead!

Where I am, cities do not pay for hospitals. Many sports auditorum bond referendums fail. We also do not pay for sports auditorums, Boys and Girls clubs, etc. That's what private funds (like United Way) is for. Palin also slashed taxes irresponsibly. If she wanted than sports arena, she should have left the taxes alone to pay for it. I live in a small conservative town, and if they took on debt like that the politicians would be run out of town. I have to disagree...the debt could have been managed better, either by partnerships, grants, etc. She left a 22 million dollar debt that has to be serviced. Her "slash taxes and spend" mentality needs to be attacked.

I remember the Orange County bond crisis. It comes from just such a mentality. You can't finance stuff forever.

Why not take the opportunity to reach out to moms on a real level and tell us how she's going to stand by her daughter through this pregnancy? Here's not only a moment in history to address a truly staggering problem in America today (teen pregnancy), but also an invaluable opportunity to clear up a tumultuous situation. She addresses all her other children and their issues, but just blows right over the one that is the most at hand. What a cop out. And any devout mother knows that if McCain has a heart attack and one of her children are gravely ill at the same time, that child is going to come first. Let's get real, Guiliani. Men don't have the same maternal, nurturing instinct that women have. And if she must bash Obama continuously to uphold her speech, then she must not have any true strategies of her own. This is hippocracy at it's finest and it's what turns people away from their beliefs and their faith.

I watched the speech, and I cracked up through most of it. I loved watching her perform: The hometown girl-cum-beauty queen-cum-superfertile PTA mom-cum-politician; The "commonsense" that is really a thick veneer of anti-intellectualism; the strident patriotism in a bacon-wrapped package of anti-Arab and anti-black racism and xenophobia; the feisty, angry white working-class "Who does he think he is? I'm the real American" attacks were all she could really manage in the face of Obama's and the DNC's polish and poise. When all else fails, call your opponents names, [try to] make fun of them, and try to diminish their achievements. She might as well have said that Barack Obama hadn't really accomplished anything on his own because he tookd advantage of Affirmative Action; and oh, by the way, if he's Christian why didn't he change his name to something that wasn't so..so..Muslim?

This, my dear peoples, is the essence of the GOP. This is why I loved to watch the speech. This is how they fight, and I am glad they stopped pretending and got back to their roots so we can all see who they really are.

Now, I just want Joe Biden to chew her up and spit her out; he can fight on her terms, and he can win. She will cry sexism when she feels like it, don't worry. That woman is really just a white working-class version of Hillary.

NOW we can let the games begin...!

Nice rant. One question, if you'll permit: How is Obama an Affirmative Action candidate, where Palin is not?

See you in tea...

Well, we *tried* to warn our own party but would they listen? Noooo.

Palin never has been the undervetted, inexperienced governor people have made her out to be. She's an aggressive politician with sharp political instincts. Someone probably got a heads up about her a few years ago and started grooming her to take on the Democrats, especially Hillary. But Barack Obama is sooo much tastier. He and the DNC have given Republicans a lot to work with.

As for the Mike Murphy and Nooners "chat", oh please! A complete set up to lower your expectations so Palin would deliver an unexpected sucker punch. It worked brilliantly.

And Biden better watch his ass too. Alaska is an oil state. Palin gave a glimpse of her foreign policy creds last night when she talked about the Caucas Mountain countries.

I no longer have a dog in this fight so I'm just sitting back and mucnhing popcorn, watching how this all plays out. It would be almost funny except for the fact that the Dems are about to lose a 3rd presidential election. That's 12 years of Republican rule. Sucks big time. But that's what you get when you don't listen to your voters and you underestimate your opponents.

Thank you John McCain for being the maverick and the visionary committed to protecting America's children at 3:00 A.M. and the American economy 24/7.

Translations.

Maverick: he waffles.

Visionary: delusions of the glories of conquest.

America's children: not terrorized enough for McSame to win.

American economy: avoiding meltdown until after the election.

How are you pubs on actual issues? Got your excuses lined up yet?

I watched Rudy and Palin last night savage Obama - not for his positions or his campaign promises or his proposed policies, but, to me at least, it kind of seemed personal. Sneering contempt is a good way to describe it (thanks Joan, that why your a writer and I'm not). I was thinking it was snarky and sarcastic and mean-spirited.

While I've already made up my mind in this contest, I was trying to watch this from an independant's point of view. How would an undecided voter take this attack?

I thought it had a nasty edge that wasn't called for. I know, the GOP always plays it that way and it's always worked in the past, but where Biden and Obama called out their stark differences with McCain and portrayed him as out of touch, they weren't condescending or snide in their portrayal of McCain the person. They kept their word to keep it civil. Palin and Rudy took the gloves off and threw sand in Obama's face. The tone of both speeches, for lack of a better term, was uncivil.

I guess Palin thinks she's earned the right to throw some dirt, given some of the stories that have floated about her in the blogs, but I don't think the Obama campaign as forwarded any of them. And since McCain chose not to vet her as a candidate, somebody has to. McCain left it to the press to figure out who she was. And what have we found about about Sarah Palin?

Well, she seems to be a political opportunist, changing her motivations to what will sell to the electorate. When she was running for Mayor, she determined that the evangelical movement was gaining popularity, so she became a fire-breathing Christian Conservative. When she ran for Governor, that role wasn't going to play well state-wide, so she became what would - a reform candidate - taking on the very establishment that helped her get elected Mayor. We will see what she turns into in this election, but it seems she thinks that she can paint herself as a reform candidate again.

In the meantime, she has shown herself to be a demogogue, demanding absolute fealty from her subordinates, and using the power of her office for personal issues. She doesn't seem to be afraid to betray those who have helped her in the past (that's not necessarily a bad thing).

And on the plus side, the hat she puts on in the campaign tends to be the hat she wears in office - even though she may not be sincere in her role as a right wing zealot or a reformer out to gut the establishment, what you see in the campaign seems to be what you will get in office. Which is a good thing, compared to the slight of hand we got with the current administration.