McCain V.P will withdraw by the end of the week

[Sir X]

citing family responsibilities, why ? when the press doesnt stop asking ((negative)) questions it halts a campaign and drives undecideds into the other camp.It takes alot out of a campaign to be defensive and not offensive, thats how you basically can tell a winner.

The press wont stop ! McCcain cannot afford to loose ground , if she withdraws next week , the damage would be irrepearable .If it isnt already.

Listening to CNN and the defence note ((defence)) these guys are putting up ever sec , says it all.


Sickening.

[Islandman]

I can't see that happening unless there is something really explosive that is yet to be revealed.

If that happens McCain would not just lose ground, the ground would have been pulled from under him and the race would be effectively over.

She will fight on as long as the conservative base is behind her.

[Sir X]

They are loosing the conservative base , they are up in arms that a lady with a child with special needs , is parenting a teenager about to have another baby and this is whom you select to be your number 2 . Too much baby mada drama.

BTW trooper gate buss, an attorney has filed suit against her in Alaska.

[Assasin]

I personally think they are digging in the woman's personal life too much. Just as how we didn't want them to dig inna Obama's family, Just as how I defended Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky issue, there are certain things which we should leave alone. I just heard a radio show I listen too often and the amount of nasty thing they are talking about the woman is unreal.

We must also remember there is a backlash and if we dish out certain things expect them in return.

[Gamma]

i tend to agree 'sass but my point is mccain should KNOW and try to avoid these things being a distraction.....obama is a muslim, obama is not patriotic, obama went to a muslim extremist school ...... jeremiah wright.....

i think in this case mccain courted this kind of attention by not paying attention.....and here it is...

[Sir X]

Its the media , Obama must stay far from it and he wisely issued said statement, Families must be left alone.

Its too negative for the republicans , its all over the place.These guys are jokers .They bussed it over labor day weekend and 1st thing tuesday morning the media gloves are off.

Keep in mind its the 1st working day of the week, post 3 day holiday weekend the media gone at lightning bolt pace.

[Assasin]

It maybe true but there is a point wher it doesn't benefit Obama. Same thing with been a muslin and all a that. not a once a truth so no traction. The fact is if this was a white male there would be no problem.

I don't support this woman but digging so deep in the trash will help no one

[Sir X]

If you want the news go to the U.K ..lol


Fresh revelations about Sarah Palin delight Democrats




Sarah Palin apparently repeatedly laughed on air as one of her political opponents, who is a cancer survivor, was described as a ’cancer’ and a ’bitch’






Tim Reid in St Paul


div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;}A stream of fresh revelations about Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential choice, continued to unnerve her party and delight Democrats today, including allegations that she once belonged to a fringe Alaskan political party that want independence from America.
As a dozen Republican operatives and lawyers flew to the state to limit the fallout of what US voters are learning about John McCain’s new running mate — the day after her teenage daughter’s pregnancy was revealed — it also emerged that in January the Alaskan governor repeatedly laughed on air as a talk radio host described one of her political opponents as a “cancer” and a “bitch”.
The opponent in question, the Alaskan state senate president Lyda Green, is a cancer survivor. An audio recording of the interview with the Alaskan “shock jock” Bob Lester had received over a quarter of a million hits on YouTube by this morning.
Meanwhile officials of the Alaskan Independence Party — a fringe group that has been pushing for a referendum on whether Alaskans can secede from the US — said Mrs Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, and even attended the 1994 convention.
Related Links

• Republicans fearful over McCain's gamble on Palin

• 250 arrested in convention riots

• Investigation: the real Sarah Palin

Multimedia

• Republican Convention

• Palin teen pregnancy: a campaign issue?

The party’s motto is “Alaska First — Alaska Always.”
The McCain campaign denied that Mrs Palin was a member, but Lynette Clark, the AIP chairman, insists the Palins were members until 1996, when Mrs Plain joined the Republican party. “When she joined the [independence] party, our platform was right under her nose,” Mrs Clark said.
Both Republicans and Democrats said it was clear that Mrs Palin, 44, had not been properly vetted before being chosen last week by Mr McCain, who had only met her once before he picked her. Yet the Republican nominee said: “The vetting process was completely thorough and I’m grateful for the results.”
Arthur Culvahouse, a veteran Washington lawyer who headed the vetting process, said when she was interviewed Mrs Palin volunteered information about her 17-year-old daughter Bristol’s pregnancy, and her husband’s 1986 drink-driving charge.
Details emerged about the father of Bristol Palin’s child. He is Levi Johnston, 18, the high school ice-hockey hunk. He describes himself on his MySpace page as a “f****** redneck.” He says he has a girlfriend, but “I don’t want kids”.
More potential problems arose for Mr McCain’s running mate. A central plank of his campaign is his fight against federal, “pork barrel” spending, when politicians seek millions of dollars for local pet projects. Mrs Palin, when she was unveiled as the Republican running mate on Friday, said she too was an anti-pork crusader. Yet in Wasilla, an Alaskan town of 6,700 where she was mayor less than two years ago, she employed a lobbying firm that secured almost $27 million in federal earmarks, for such items as a youth shelter and new rail line.
Her daughter’s five-month pregnancy brought an unexpected spotlight on her views — and those of Mr McCain — over teenage pregnancy. Both oppose sex education, and believe in teaching an abstinence only approach in schools. In November 2006 Mrs Palin, who is pro-life, said she would oppose an abortion for her daughter even if she had been raped. She also opposes contraception for married couples.
Democrat operatives — and teams of investigative reporters now in Alaska — said they were also turning their attention to her husband Todd, a champion snowmobiler, to see what they could find.
Julian Epstein, a Democratic strategist, said: “We will see this story go on for weeks. Reporters are competing with each other to see what shoe will drop next.”

[Sir X]

Sarah Palin: a loveable woman, but an appalling candidate

Her zest for life gives her an appeal even to those who oppose her views. But is she really White House material?

Alice Miles


div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;}Call that a woman? A gun-toting, vehement anti-abortionist with the hide of a grizzly bear draped over her sofa, who was so aggressive on the basketball court that she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda? She makes Barack Obama look like a girl.
Call her inspirational? A former winner of beauty contests and runner-up in Miss Alaska, whose kids are named after a suburb (Willow), a salmon fishery (Bristol) and a high-school track?
Call her a “mom”? The mother of a pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter, presumably going through one of the tougher periods of her life, who decides at that point to run for president and make the teenager vulnerable to the scrutiny of the entire world? Gee, mom, thanks.
Yes, she is running for president, Sarah Palin. Any deputy to a 72-year-old man with four bouts of cancer behind him has to be seen as doing just that. If politics is soap opera, here is the Hollywood movie: she's tough, she's beautiful, she's a “mom”, and she's headed for the White House.
Background

• Palin: my teenage daughter is pregnant

• Investigation: the real Sarah Palin

• Conservatives find the girl of their dreams

• Pure genius or McCain’s mad gamble?

Mrs Palin may be a feminist (you can hear, by their silence, old leftie feminists grappling with the concept of a “Feminist for Life” anti-abortionist, the group that Mrs Palin belongs to) but there is little feminine about her. She may be the supermum who can “just put down the BlackBerry and pick up the breast pump”, as she put it - but there's nothing maternal in flinging a vulnerable teenage daughter at the flashlights of the world. It's the sort of self-interested decision a softer “mom” would not make.
If someone is to present womankind on the international stage, please let it not be Mrs Palin. Please not her, I think.
Or part of me thinks. For even as I think it, another part of me cheers.
There was that cool observation when her nomination was first suggested: “What is it exactly that the vice-president does all day?” There speaks, gloriously, a working mother.
Somewhere inside me is another person who glories in this woman. I hate her beliefs, but I love that she has the guts to hold them. I hate her campaigning against abortion, but I love her personal decision to have the baby with Down's syndrome. I hate her steering her pregnant teenage daughter on to the world stage, and apparently giving her no choice about having the child and marrying the father, but I love that thing she said after her son Trig was born with Down's: “I'm looking at him right now and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking: ‘In our world, what is normal and what is perfect?'.” (And Trig came in handy too for hiding Bristol's bump when the family posed for pictures at the announcement of Mrs Palin's run.)
Strange hybrid of a woman. I love her beehive hairdo and glasses, the sexy librarian look. I hate that her daughter is a cheerleader - but I love the way that Mrs Palin took John McCain shopping for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter on the day that her candidacy was announced. What zest.
She is such a mass of contradictions, that alone may qualify Mrs Palin as all woman after all.
While I revel in her as a character, an extraordinary creation scripted uniquely in the US, still I would hate to see her in the White House. And that's the problem. What Mrs Palin represents is mesmerising this side of the Atlantic for its very political incorrectness.
So sick are we in Britain, with our centre left-centre right politicians of the centre, not one daring to have a view out of line with the very thin consensus that passes for acceptable opinion here, that we stand stunned by a woman who opposes abortion and shoots moose; who believes in creationism and drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge; who supports the aerial shooting of wolves and opposes same-sex marriage; who says to hell with the kids and just get back to work; who even campaigned against saving polar bears!
Could you be less politically correct than suing the Federal Government to prevent it making polar bears an endangered species because the move would restrict oil drilling?
Nothing like Mrs Palin has, could ever, be seen in the British political system. She turns liberals into conservatives and conservatives into feminists. Stand back, Mr Obama, a new character is storming the ratings.
How Hillary Clinton, all safe lines and patronising empathy, must be hating it. How fast Michelle Obama must be recalibrating her soft little tales about baking cookies and enjoying The Brady Bunch. Mrs Palin would eat Carol Brady for breakfast, and still have space for some moose stew. Hell, yes.
But the Sarah Palin Story is not just a show and in America, they are equally agog but not aghast - they are adoring. The American Right loves this woman. They would have her in charge of the country.
Seriously. And that is where the trouble starts. A far-right fundamentalist creationist in charge of the United States? No. Not even for the fun and the glory and the sheer spectacle of it all. Not even for the joy of seeing that beehive and specs sex appeal on our television screens every day. Not even, sadly, for the triumph of seeing a woman, a working mother of young children, in the White House, magical though that would be.
And no, not even for the magnificent scene where Mrs Palin squares up to puny President Putin with his guns and his tiger hunts and his laughably macho outfits.
They call it feminism, but the Republicans have done women a disservice. They have selected a female candidate who is a cartoon - the joker in the pack who will end up just a joke.

• Have your say

As an American. I have never been so afraid of the prospect of someone so incompetent being a heart beat away from the Presidency of the United States.
Is there any way your lovely Queen Elizabeth could give her lessons? You are so lucky to have her.


Laura Jones, Webster Groves, United States of America

[Islandman]

In another day or two they will have to back off unless they uncover something that cannot be ignored. Otherwise the backlash will start.

Its better for Obama if they tackle her on the important issues like experience and her very conservative views.

I still think that on a personal level she should be with her family at this time instead of running though, but thats a decsion she made.

[Mosiah]

This is not about families, or the pregnant teen. Well, it's much more than that. This is about values, the vp nominee's family values. How did she raise her daughter? Yes, it might happen to the very best of families, but the question can be asked.

[Karl]

I personally think they are digging in the woman's personal life too much. Just as how we didn't want them to dig inna Obama's family, Just as how I defended Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky issue, there are certain things which we should leave alone. I just heard a radio show I listen too often and the amount of nasty thing they are talking about the woman is unreal.

We must also remember there is a backlash and if we dish out certain things expect them in return.

A suh man mus consistent!
Iffen suppen wrang, hit wrang!
Can't be wrang wen Jack duh hit, but rite wenna John duh hit!
Respek!

[Karl]

This is not about families, or the pregnant teen. Well, it's much more than that. This is about values, the vp nominee's family values. How did she raise her daughter? Yes, it might happen to the very best of families, but the question can be asked.

Family values?
The set of parents who do constantly question that "What could we have done differently?"...are in the position of "unfortunately being parents"!

It took me a long time to understand why even after I had been married for 40 years and raised kids...watched them go free...my Mom and Dad would still be asking, "Are you A-OK, Junior? ...Is the wife alright? How are your children?"...Yup! They care...and to a certain degree worry!

Now I am in the same boat! We worry every day about the kids. Kids who are making it...yes, in various ways...and no doubt if and when we die, shall continue to make their way! Commonsense tells us, nothing to worry about...but we do! What could we have done to make life better for them', easier for them, make them better able to face its challenges...???

Worry? Second guess ourselves?
Damn right we do!

So ask of Palin the questions...but temper that with coming from the 'real world'.

Aside:
Was it some of those here rejoicing in the unseemly attacks on Palin and her family...not too long ago...questioned the hypocrisy of the Republicans who attacked Bill Clinton...and 'beat chest' on moral issues?
Were those Republicans not being false in and by behaviour, lying...asking us to accept a lie...lying hypocrites?! ...well?

As Sass said: Wrong for the Repuiblicans to behave in such a manner! Wrong for the Democrats!

[Mosiah]

What did you just say?

I'm forced to respond with a YAY!!! cause you must have said something sensible in all of that.

[Lazie]

Karl .. I have no idea what you're saying ... but Mosiah, I think the media and all who been creating excitment about Palin's daughter need to take a step back. Palin may very well have done the right things, but I recall as a teen some stupid things I did.

I think the woman's family must be left alone and focus on her instead.