More and more the US Election is being energized by Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin.....there's a lot of interest by myself and others as she comes across as a breath of fresh air in normally staid, boring US Politics.....
Articles found September 8, 2008
Sarah Palin to be energy independence chief in John McCain's government
John McCain wants to put Sarah Palin in charge of US oil and energy policy if he becomes president, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
By Tim Shipman in St Paul, Minnesota Last Updated: 5:21PM BST 06 Sep 2008
Article Link
The Republican presidential candidate will make his running mate the public face of the country's drive for energy independence, according to a McCain campaign official.
Mr McCain, whose selection of Mrs Palin has electrified Republican supporters, wants to capitalise on her expertise in the oil and gas sector while governor of Alaska. He believes that her record of taking on oil company chiefs will help convince the public that his government would not be in the pocket of energy fat cats, a perception that has damaged George W.Bush's poll ratings.
The move would give Mr McCain political cover to resume widespread domestic drilling for oil, even in areas of environmental fragility.
Mrs Palin backs drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Mr McCain has previously opposed. Should he decide to reverse that position he will use Mrs Palin to make the case that it is necessary.
The campaign official said: "The Democrats say that Governor Palin is inexperienced, but she has vast experience in the energy sector. She will be at the forefront of the push for energy independence. She's popular and she's very persuasive." A Republican Party official, who has discussed Mrs Palin's role with members of Mr McCain's team, added: "She can say: 'I'm from Alaska. I know all about this and I support drilling, even in ANWR."
Mr McCain discussed the role Mrs Palin would play in government as well as the election campaign when he held a three-hour getting-to-know-you session two weeks ago.
To assuage angry green activists, the prospective vice president will also be charged with overseeing a dramatic increase in federal support for the development of clean coal and electric car technology, as well as the spread of wind and solar power.
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Sarah Palin brings the Hillary Clinton era to an end
Whether or not Sarah Palin wins, for American women, politics will never be the same again, says Anne Applebaum.
Last Updated: 1:09AM BST 07 Sep 2008
Article Link
She wasn’t going to “stay home and bake cookies”, she was going to reform the health-care system: if we elected her husband, we were thus going to get “two for the price of one”. With those words, Hillary Clinton launched herself into America’s national consciousness, and began a political career that very nearly brought her the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year. Though she lost that contest, along the way she succeeded in making herself into something more than an ordinary woman in politics. She became an archetype, the Female American Politician.
More than that: she became the archetype of the Powerful American Woman. She herself once explained the hostility she inspires as the misdirected fury of men who were angry at a “female boss” or other female authority figure. They felt bad about being subordinate to a woman at work, so they took it out on her.
This was not entirely accurate: some people disliked Hillary just because she was Hillary. But it’s true that her personal style – frequently chilly, determinedly frumpy, visibly calculating, pointedly humourless – did come to seem like a kind of norm. That’s why, when she lost the Democratic nomination, it wasn’t hard for some to see it as a defeat for all women. If Hillary couldn’t make it in national politics, her disappointed supporters declared, then no woman could.
As anybody who has been watching the news for the past week will already know, that statement turned out to be dead wrong. As it turns out, there are numerous ways for women to be politically powerful in America, and they don’t all involve wearing shapeless trouser suits and looking frosty: Sarah Palin, enter stage right.
More on link
Sarah Palin's Alaska aides will be forced to reveal her office secrets in Troopergate inquiry
Senior aides to Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to be compelled to reveal the inner workings of her state office in an ethics probe that could be highly embarrassing for the new Republican vice-presidential candidate.
By Philip Sherwell in Wasilla, Alaska Last Updated: 10:26PM BST 06 Sep
Article Link
Alaskan legislators have raised the stakes in their investigation of John McCain's newly anointed running mate by declaring their intention to subpoena key members of her staff, obliging them to give evidence.
Mrs Palin, 44, who has electrified the race for the White House, denies claims that she abused her powers by dismissing an official who refused to fire her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, as a state trooper.
The cross-party judiciary committee also said it was bringing forward the date for its report into the woman who has electrified the by three weeks, to October 10. That is seen as a rebuff to attempts by the governor's newly-hired legal team to stall an inquiry which she had said she welcomed before her surprise nomination to the Republican ticket.
Separately, Mr Wooten's police union has filed an ethics complaint against Mrs Palin and her administration, claiming that his personnel files were viewed unlawfully.
"Troopergate" has its roots in a long-standing and bitter feud between the Palin family and Mr Wooten, who underwent a messy divorce and custody battle with Mrs Palin's sister. In his first public comments on Friday night, Mr Wooten denied allegations that he threatened to shoot his then father-in-law during the acrimonious split.
The controversy is among many elements of Mrs Palin's life in Wasilla that is now under the political and media microscope after her stunning debut on the national stage.
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Sarah Palin: Nemesis of Barack Obama
By Amando Doronila Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 06:44:00 09/08/2008
Article Link
MANILA, Philippines—Less than a week after the Republican Party nominated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as its vice presidential candidate for the November elections, the rejuvenated Republicans have found a new star who has stolen the thunder from their presidential standard-bearer, Sen. John McCain, as well as from the Democratic Party presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama.
New polls taken on Friday showed that the presidential race had tightened since Palin delivered her vice presidential acceptance speech on Wednesday. Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls reported at the weekend that McCain was narrowly trailing Obama.
Gallup reported that the surveys conducted before the Palin speech showed Obama with a 49 to 42 percent advantage over McCain. Friday’s survey showed that lead reduced 48 to 44 percent. On Tuesday, the poll reported Obama ahead, 50 to 42 percent. According to Yahoo News, while the Gallup shift from Friday was not statistically significant, other surveys also reported public opinion was moving toward the Republicans following their party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ramussen reported that when “leaners” were included, Obama was ahead of McCain, 48 to 46 percent. The day before, Obama was ahead by 5 percentage points.
These results show that McCain, who was neck-and-neck with Obama for a week, has been chipping away on the advantage gained by Obama after the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in Denver, Colorado, more than two weeks ago.
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Confessions of a Secret Sarah AdmirerMaybe I'm a sucker for a frontier myth, the narrative of a person who rises up in a frozen, faraway place by making her own rules.
Published Sep 6, 2008
Article Link
I have a dirty little secret.
I really like Sarah Palin. It's kind of embarrassing, because I was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and because I live in a liberal bubble in Brooklyn, N.Y. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but the more my friends and media colleagues attack Palin for being a lightweight or a hick or a lunatic, the more I like her.
I liked her the first time I saw a picture of her, nearly a year ago in this magazine. It illustrated a story about how women leaders like Palin and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano were gaining power at the state level. Palin, BlackBerry in one hand, Red Bull in the other, checked her messages as she crossed the street, seemingly oblivious to her youngest daughter, Piper, who trailed along behind her, jumping rope in the crosswalk. Now that's my kind of working mom, I thought.
I liked her even more after her speech at the Republican convention, and not just because she gave a masterful performance. I am riveted by her family and struck by what appears to be her complete confidence in the choices she's made. Women both liberal and conservative may be locked in combat about whether she went back to work too soon after Trig's birth or whether she should be making a run for national office when her teenage daughter is pregnant. But if Palin is agonizing about her decisions, it doesn't show.
Which does not mean that I would do what she did—or that I will vote for the McCain-Palin ticket, because like many former Hillary supporters, I would not step over Roe v. Wade to vote for anyone. I took a six-month maternity leave and I doubt I would run for national office if my daughter were pregnant. But as I watched Palin and her family on that stage, the way she embraced daughter Bristol and called Trig a perfectly beautiful boy, I liked what I saw. I found her lack of defensiveness admirable. And if I were nominated for the vice presidency, I would probably let my kids stay up way past their bedtimes, too.
More on link
Rumors of Sarah Palin-Scott Richter Affair Denied
Posted on September 6th, 2008 12:07 PM by Free Britney
Article Link
The ex-wife of a man said to have had an affair with Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin tells it's "absolutely, completely false."
"I can tell you this with 1,000 percent certainty, Sarah Palin never had an affair," said Debbie Richter when reached on Friday afternoon.
The rumor that her now ex-husband, Scott Richter, had an affair with Sarah Palin gained momentum after the National Enquirer reported she had been romantically involved with one of Todd Palin's former business associates.
The John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign threatened to sue over the story.
More on link
Sarah Palin is extraordinarily ordinary
By Bruce Anderson Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/09/2008
Article Link
It was the most important Convention in American political history.
At the beginning, the Republicans looked weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. Their candidate was old, tainted by an unpopular war, a stricken economy, and an eight-year presidency that the voters were booing off the stage. Barack Obama was young, eloquent and renewing. He had the future and the big momentum.
Now, everything is in flux. Last weekend, I phoned around my Republican friends. Who is Sarah Palin and what do you know about her?
If cliche can be forgiven, there is an easy summary of their answers: gobsmacked.
I was told that she is focused, energetic, able and determined. But in British politics, it would be like meeting a bright girl at a Tory conference, who was fighting a safe Labour seat with ferocious energy and whom it would be easy to imagine as a junior minister, in 10 years' time.
America is different. Despite an increasingly urbanised society, the founding myths still overshadow the political system: virgin soil, the open frontier, log cabin to White House. Even though most recent candidates have been multi-millionaires with a campaign budget the size of a second-world country's GDP, Americans insist on believing that anyone can aspire to the presidency.
More on link
Bringing Up Baby
September 7, 2008
Article Link
Young Bristol Palin threatened to take the spotlight off her mother, Sarah Palin, this past week with the announcement that the teenage daughter of the GOP's vice presidential choice was pregnant but unwed. We asked feminist scholar Gina Barreca and conservative pundit Laurence D. Cohen for their thoughts.
GINA: Can you imagine what the right-wing, ultra-conservative, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou types would be saying if it had been one of the Democratic nominees' daughters who got pregnant by a self-proclaimed redneck who declared in his MySpace page that he never wanted to have children?
Can you just imagine?
Can you imagine the knee-slappin', whoopin' and hollerin' jubilation had, for example, Chelsea Clinton's hockey-playing boyfriend been the one to say, "Oops, sorry, I meant to take it offside"?
More on link
Articles found September 8, 2008
Sarah Palin to be energy independence chief in John McCain's government
John McCain wants to put Sarah Palin in charge of US oil and energy policy if he becomes president, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
By Tim Shipman in St Paul, Minnesota Last Updated: 5:21PM BST 06 Sep 2008
Article Link
The Republican presidential candidate will make his running mate the public face of the country's drive for energy independence, according to a McCain campaign official.
Mr McCain, whose selection of Mrs Palin has electrified Republican supporters, wants to capitalise on her expertise in the oil and gas sector while governor of Alaska. He believes that her record of taking on oil company chiefs will help convince the public that his government would not be in the pocket of energy fat cats, a perception that has damaged George W.Bush's poll ratings.
The move would give Mr McCain political cover to resume widespread domestic drilling for oil, even in areas of environmental fragility.
Mrs Palin backs drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Mr McCain has previously opposed. Should he decide to reverse that position he will use Mrs Palin to make the case that it is necessary.
The campaign official said: "The Democrats say that Governor Palin is inexperienced, but she has vast experience in the energy sector. She will be at the forefront of the push for energy independence. She's popular and she's very persuasive." A Republican Party official, who has discussed Mrs Palin's role with members of Mr McCain's team, added: "She can say: 'I'm from Alaska. I know all about this and I support drilling, even in ANWR."
Mr McCain discussed the role Mrs Palin would play in government as well as the election campaign when he held a three-hour getting-to-know-you session two weeks ago.
To assuage angry green activists, the prospective vice president will also be charged with overseeing a dramatic increase in federal support for the development of clean coal and electric car technology, as well as the spread of wind and solar power.
More on link
Sarah Palin brings the Hillary Clinton era to an end
Whether or not Sarah Palin wins, for American women, politics will never be the same again, says Anne Applebaum.
Last Updated: 1:09AM BST 07 Sep 2008
Article Link
She wasn’t going to “stay home and bake cookies”, she was going to reform the health-care system: if we elected her husband, we were thus going to get “two for the price of one”. With those words, Hillary Clinton launched herself into America’s national consciousness, and began a political career that very nearly brought her the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year. Though she lost that contest, along the way she succeeded in making herself into something more than an ordinary woman in politics. She became an archetype, the Female American Politician.
More than that: she became the archetype of the Powerful American Woman. She herself once explained the hostility she inspires as the misdirected fury of men who were angry at a “female boss” or other female authority figure. They felt bad about being subordinate to a woman at work, so they took it out on her.
This was not entirely accurate: some people disliked Hillary just because she was Hillary. But it’s true that her personal style – frequently chilly, determinedly frumpy, visibly calculating, pointedly humourless – did come to seem like a kind of norm. That’s why, when she lost the Democratic nomination, it wasn’t hard for some to see it as a defeat for all women. If Hillary couldn’t make it in national politics, her disappointed supporters declared, then no woman could.
As anybody who has been watching the news for the past week will already know, that statement turned out to be dead wrong. As it turns out, there are numerous ways for women to be politically powerful in America, and they don’t all involve wearing shapeless trouser suits and looking frosty: Sarah Palin, enter stage right.
More on link
Sarah Palin's Alaska aides will be forced to reveal her office secrets in Troopergate inquiry
Senior aides to Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to be compelled to reveal the inner workings of her state office in an ethics probe that could be highly embarrassing for the new Republican vice-presidential candidate.
By Philip Sherwell in Wasilla, Alaska Last Updated: 10:26PM BST 06 Sep
Article Link
Alaskan legislators have raised the stakes in their investigation of John McCain's newly anointed running mate by declaring their intention to subpoena key members of her staff, obliging them to give evidence.
Mrs Palin, 44, who has electrified the race for the White House, denies claims that she abused her powers by dismissing an official who refused to fire her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, as a state trooper.
The cross-party judiciary committee also said it was bringing forward the date for its report into the woman who has electrified the by three weeks, to October 10. That is seen as a rebuff to attempts by the governor's newly-hired legal team to stall an inquiry which she had said she welcomed before her surprise nomination to the Republican ticket.
Separately, Mr Wooten's police union has filed an ethics complaint against Mrs Palin and her administration, claiming that his personnel files were viewed unlawfully.
"Troopergate" has its roots in a long-standing and bitter feud between the Palin family and Mr Wooten, who underwent a messy divorce and custody battle with Mrs Palin's sister. In his first public comments on Friday night, Mr Wooten denied allegations that he threatened to shoot his then father-in-law during the acrimonious split.
The controversy is among many elements of Mrs Palin's life in Wasilla that is now under the political and media microscope after her stunning debut on the national stage.
More on link
Sarah Palin: Nemesis of Barack Obama
By Amando Doronila Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 06:44:00 09/08/2008
Article Link
MANILA, Philippines—Less than a week after the Republican Party nominated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as its vice presidential candidate for the November elections, the rejuvenated Republicans have found a new star who has stolen the thunder from their presidential standard-bearer, Sen. John McCain, as well as from the Democratic Party presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama.
New polls taken on Friday showed that the presidential race had tightened since Palin delivered her vice presidential acceptance speech on Wednesday. Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls reported at the weekend that McCain was narrowly trailing Obama.
Gallup reported that the surveys conducted before the Palin speech showed Obama with a 49 to 42 percent advantage over McCain. Friday’s survey showed that lead reduced 48 to 44 percent. On Tuesday, the poll reported Obama ahead, 50 to 42 percent. According to Yahoo News, while the Gallup shift from Friday was not statistically significant, other surveys also reported public opinion was moving toward the Republicans following their party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ramussen reported that when “leaners” were included, Obama was ahead of McCain, 48 to 46 percent. The day before, Obama was ahead by 5 percentage points.
These results show that McCain, who was neck-and-neck with Obama for a week, has been chipping away on the advantage gained by Obama after the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in Denver, Colorado, more than two weeks ago.
More on link
Confessions of a Secret Sarah AdmirerMaybe I'm a sucker for a frontier myth, the narrative of a person who rises up in a frozen, faraway place by making her own rules.
Published Sep 6, 2008
Article Link
I have a dirty little secret.
I really like Sarah Palin. It's kind of embarrassing, because I was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and because I live in a liberal bubble in Brooklyn, N.Y. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but the more my friends and media colleagues attack Palin for being a lightweight or a hick or a lunatic, the more I like her.
I liked her the first time I saw a picture of her, nearly a year ago in this magazine. It illustrated a story about how women leaders like Palin and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano were gaining power at the state level. Palin, BlackBerry in one hand, Red Bull in the other, checked her messages as she crossed the street, seemingly oblivious to her youngest daughter, Piper, who trailed along behind her, jumping rope in the crosswalk. Now that's my kind of working mom, I thought.
I liked her even more after her speech at the Republican convention, and not just because she gave a masterful performance. I am riveted by her family and struck by what appears to be her complete confidence in the choices she's made. Women both liberal and conservative may be locked in combat about whether she went back to work too soon after Trig's birth or whether she should be making a run for national office when her teenage daughter is pregnant. But if Palin is agonizing about her decisions, it doesn't show.
Which does not mean that I would do what she did—or that I will vote for the McCain-Palin ticket, because like many former Hillary supporters, I would not step over Roe v. Wade to vote for anyone. I took a six-month maternity leave and I doubt I would run for national office if my daughter were pregnant. But as I watched Palin and her family on that stage, the way she embraced daughter Bristol and called Trig a perfectly beautiful boy, I liked what I saw. I found her lack of defensiveness admirable. And if I were nominated for the vice presidency, I would probably let my kids stay up way past their bedtimes, too.
More on link
Rumors of Sarah Palin-Scott Richter Affair Denied
Posted on September 6th, 2008 12:07 PM by Free Britney
Article Link
The ex-wife of a man said to have had an affair with Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin tells it's "absolutely, completely false."
"I can tell you this with 1,000 percent certainty, Sarah Palin never had an affair," said Debbie Richter when reached on Friday afternoon.
The rumor that her now ex-husband, Scott Richter, had an affair with Sarah Palin gained momentum after the National Enquirer reported she had been romantically involved with one of Todd Palin's former business associates.
The John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign threatened to sue over the story.
More on link
Sarah Palin is extraordinarily ordinary
By Bruce Anderson Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/09/2008
Article Link
It was the most important Convention in American political history.
At the beginning, the Republicans looked weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. Their candidate was old, tainted by an unpopular war, a stricken economy, and an eight-year presidency that the voters were booing off the stage. Barack Obama was young, eloquent and renewing. He had the future and the big momentum.
Now, everything is in flux. Last weekend, I phoned around my Republican friends. Who is Sarah Palin and what do you know about her?
If cliche can be forgiven, there is an easy summary of their answers: gobsmacked.
I was told that she is focused, energetic, able and determined. But in British politics, it would be like meeting a bright girl at a Tory conference, who was fighting a safe Labour seat with ferocious energy and whom it would be easy to imagine as a junior minister, in 10 years' time.
America is different. Despite an increasingly urbanised society, the founding myths still overshadow the political system: virgin soil, the open frontier, log cabin to White House. Even though most recent candidates have been multi-millionaires with a campaign budget the size of a second-world country's GDP, Americans insist on believing that anyone can aspire to the presidency.
More on link
Bringing Up Baby
September 7, 2008
Article Link
Young Bristol Palin threatened to take the spotlight off her mother, Sarah Palin, this past week with the announcement that the teenage daughter of the GOP's vice presidential choice was pregnant but unwed. We asked feminist scholar Gina Barreca and conservative pundit Laurence D. Cohen for their thoughts.
GINA: Can you imagine what the right-wing, ultra-conservative, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou types would be saying if it had been one of the Democratic nominees' daughters who got pregnant by a self-proclaimed redneck who declared in his MySpace page that he never wanted to have children?
Can you just imagine?
Can you imagine the knee-slappin', whoopin' and hollerin' jubilation had, for example, Chelsea Clinton's hockey-playing boyfriend been the one to say, "Oops, sorry, I meant to take it offside"?
More on link
