By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 05:25 PM
 No surprises here.
Here’s a finding from Gallup: Among Democratic women — including those who may be disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination — 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely.
From Rasmussen: Some 38% of men said they were more likely to vote for McCain now, but only 32% of women. By a narrow 41% to 35% margin, men said she was not ready to be president — but women soundly rejected her, 48% to 25%.
Only 9% of Obama supporters said they might be more likely to vote for McCain.
As for voters not affiliated with either major party, 37% are more likely to vote for McCain and 28% less likely to do so.
There is wide uncertainty about whether she’s qualified to be president. In the poll, taken Friday, 39% say she is ready to serve as president if needed, 33% say she isn’t and 29% have no opinion.
That’s the lowest vote of confidence in a running mate since the elder George Bush chose then-Indiana senator Dan Quayle to join his ticket in 1988. In comparison, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was seen as qualified by 57%-18% after Democrat Barack Obama chose him as a running mate last week.
Among all those surveyed, 35% call Obama’s speech at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium Thursday night excellent, 23% good, 15% “just OK,” 3% poor and 4% “terrible.” Sixteen percent say they didn’t see it and 14% have no opinion.
Asked about the Democratic convention’s impact, 43% say it makes them more likely to vote for Obama, 29% less likely. Nineteen percent say it won’t make a difference.
This is emphatically not good for McCain. It looks like, overall, the choice of Palin actually hurt his chances of picking up some of those PUMAs. I guess that’s the lesson, Senator: Democratic women aren’t idiots. Your Hail Mary pass was a stupid idea and within two days it’s kicked you in the balls.
Obama also got a net increase overall thanks to his speech, a massive 7% with bad things to say on it, and a great review of his presidential pick.
By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 05:10 PM
 The internets have been abuzz lately with the incoming Republican convention. Oh, not the RNC convention, but the “renegade convention” that’s being staged by one Ron Paul. Set to compete with the RNCC, you can bank on Paul and his supporters doing all they can to make headaches for the GOP.
Called the Rally for the Republic, they’ve sold almost 10,000 tickets so far and I’m wondering if they’ll get any more right before the convention starts. Frankly, I hope so.
See, while I used to mock the hell out of Paul, I admired him for two reasons. One, he’s purely ideological. There’s no screwing around with him, he’s not pandering or playing politics like McMoron is. Secondly, his followers don’t talk about “heroism” or “strength”, they talk policy. Try it out, argue with a Paulite. Chances are it’ll be centered around his ideals, not what kind of a guy he is.
The other thing I love is that he’s definitely capable of making things annoying for the GOP. A 10,000 man unofficial convention is going to be a big draw, and that means not quite so much attention for poor MehCain. He played the Palin card, seemingly, to make sure the news cycle ignored Obama’s speech*, now the Paul card’s gonna steal at least some of his thunder.
*I realize, of course, that I’m wholly guilty of this as well. What was there to say? Obama was an inspiration.
By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 02:08 PM
 A commenter pointed out that the article with Governor Palin praising Obama’s energy plan technically is still on the site, it’s just been buried and relocated. However, nothing can really defend the fact that “someone” has done some massive edits.
Even better, the person doing the edits is one “Young Trigg”. For those keeping score, Sarah Palin’s youngest child is named Trig. So, is it possible that Palin, or perhaps Mr Palin, decided to fire up a Wikipedia account and make a whole bunch of positive edits?
You can look at the pre-edited article and compare it to the current one, and there’s quite a few rather suspect edits, such as that the entire section “Abuse of Power Investigation” has been renamed and the section “Concerns about the 2008 Presidential Campaign” is gone. However, when you look at specifically what “Young Trigg” did, it becomes more obvious. A few I liked:
- In talking about the commissioner dismissal, for no good reason a detail was added about Palin’s ex brother in law being remarried and divorced again.
- Palin was given credit for “killing” the “bridge to nowhere”, despite other evidence indicating she supported it initially.
- Threw in some random details about playing in a championship game with a sprained ankle during school.
- Claimed she’s “noted for her willingness to take on oil companies.”
The list goes on. The topper, though, is that “Young Trigg” asked to have the page protected. It seems after YT put all the pro-Palin crap (notice nothing’s cited, or even relevant), he/she decided it would be best if no one could do anything crazy like change things back.
Someone clearly has no idea how the internets work if they thought no one would pick up on this. You can’t go and edit out negative stuff and add blatant propaganda without getting caught. Sorry.
By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 12:10 PM
 I found myself in a bit of a conundrum this morning.
I’d put my name and phone number on Obama’s site, saying I’d be at a local get-together type event. I’m a sucker for rallies. As it turns out, though, it was a “canvassing”. I got a call, since I was running late, from a woman in the campaign asking me about going around town, handing out pamphlets and talking to voters. I said I’d think about it, then decided not to.
Warning: overinflated ego within.
When I started writing it was December of 2005, the NSA scandal was new. I re-started in January of 06, and later that year I found myself boosting the midterm elections. The Murtha camp got in contact with me after I’d embarrassed, on video, one Larry Bailey who was trying to smear Murtha over the Haditha comments he made. So I did some volunteering and put up an “exclusive” I’d gotten.
Quickly I got some negative emails from readers who didn’t like that I was shilling for Murtha, that I’d gone from commenting as an outsider to using the site to campaign. This might be something I do in my spare time, but they had a point. It’s hard to consider myself an objective commentator when my time is spent handing out propaganda and wearing one of those little weird hats that has tiny flags sticking out of it.
I know “objective” sounds funny given that I’m wholly to the left here, but the point is that everything I write here is from my ideological point of view and not in the interests of a particularly candidate or party. I’m not above calling out my own side or defending the other when it’s the right thing to do. Campaigning runs counter to that since I’m quite literally becoming a part of the propaganda. There’s a place for that, but it ain’t me. I’m a liberal, not a lockstep Democrat.
Don’t get me wrong, I want Obama to win and I’ll certainly continue to write from that perspective, I’ll even go to some rallies and express my support, but the important thing is that what’s here is me, not his campaign. I’m not reproducing campaign literature and pretending it’s news, I’m not spouting Obama’s talking points and acting like it’s my own thoughts. What you get here is me, and dammit I’m just too proud to sacrifice that for any reason, even if it means not “helping the cause”.
Yeah, yeah, I’m too self-important, whatever. My site, I can say what I want.
By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 10:59 AM
 Oh foreign media, you’re so much more interesting than ours…
Israel planning unilateral Iran attack
Ephraim Sneh, an Israeli Labor Party lawmaker, has sent an eight-point document to both US presidential candidates, saying “There is no government in Jerusalem that would ever reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran.”
“When it is clear Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, an Israeli military strike to prevent this will be seriously considered,” the document says.
Not off to a good start. But wait, there’s more. The biggest Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, is reporting that, wait for it, the United States is planning on attacking Iran as well.
“The operation, described as extremely successful, was halted recently in connection with plans for an impending US air attack on Iran. Along with this, targets would also be bombed which were connected with the Dutch espionage action,” writes the Netherlands’ biggest newspaper.
“One of the agents involved, who was able to infiltrate the Iranian industry under the supervision of the AIVD, was recently recalled because the US was thought to be making a decision within weeks to attack Iran with unmanned aircraft.
For what it’s worth, Iran is warning that if anyone attacks Tehran, there’s going to be a “world war”. I’m not really sure they’ve got the resources for that, but it’s an understandable sentiment at the very least.
UPDATE: Commenter woeds points out that this might not be entirely reliable, as Telegraaf has a tendency to go tabloid. Lesson I forgot: look at the source more carefully. So this is something to keep an eye on, but not lose our heads over.
By Hanlon, on August 30th, 2008 at 10:16 AM
 Not to keep harping on things, but hey it’s worth making sure I’ve got everything out of my system so I don’t interrupt actual news by talking about it on a daily basis.
So we know the following about Sarah Palin. She’s a creationist, against gay marriage, she denies global warming, she’s got a bunch of corruption scandals, whatever. That’s a matter of policy and the odds of McCain picking anyone that wasn’t terrifyingly conservative were actually pretty low. It’s not like anyone thought we’d get some flaming liberal who wants out of Iraq pronto and supports diplomatic relations with Iran.
That all misses the real meat of the issue. Barack Obama famously said that he wanted someone who could be president right off the bat. He wanted someone not just to complement his candidacy, but who could take over if something catastrophic happened and Obama died or was otherwise unable to complete his term. Even if you don’t like the guy, there’s no real reason to think he couldn’t take over even if Obama’s motorcade crashed into a wall and exploded on inauguration day.
What we damn sure know is that McCain didn’t think this way. He met Palin twice prior to selecting her, we’ve already pointed out her total lack of experience, and amazingly the McCain campaign is admitting it. Charlie Black recently said, that Palin is “going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long.”
Did we catch that? They’re out and out admitting that she has to learn national security, and are banking on McCain living “at least” four more years. Not to mention, who are these “most” doctors? Are some saying he won’t? Holy crap.
The point is that McCain doesn’t know the woman, she’s got no experience and the campaign isn’t even pretending she does. McCain picked a running mate, someone to help him get elected. Apparently the plan is to have her sit by like an intern and just kinda “learn” until she gets the ins and outs of the job. They’re admitting she’s not ready and needs “on the job training”.
The real shame is that the pundits and talking heads are talking about how this was a great move. It was… for that day. It was a slick PR move, a nice play of the media, but that’s all. Purely political. I wonder what they think is going to happen if McCain wins.
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