This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”
A Republican source confirms that John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Campaign officials, however, remain mum this morning.
McCain is expected to announce his choice at a rally in Dayton later.
Palin is the first woman governor of Alaska, elected in 2006. She was also the youngest ever elected at the age of 42. She is the mother of five children, the youngest of whom was born in April and has Down's Syndrome. She ran on a clean government platform in '06 to defeat the incumbent Republican Governor Frank Murkowski.
McCain reportedly considered Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, among others.
Palin is a social conservative who is strongly opposed to abortion and same sex marriage. In addition, she is pro-gun and wildly popular in Alaska.
"I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years, but every day now I learn something new about Candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let’s compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain.
Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.
Are you kidding me, folks?
Before he ever debates Barack Obama, he should finish the debate with himself.”
Hoo Rah to Hillary! The pundits were saying she had to deliver her flock to Obama in this speech and, to quote Olbermann, she hit it out of the park!
Political_Guy is blogging from Denver. He had this to say:
Nobody would call me a Hillary fan But that was a perfect speech. Beautifully done. Competely overshadowed Mark the Warner, but in a good way.
The pundits are gushing, and I'm gonna grab the transcript and dissect the text. She had four or five speeches worth of great material stuffed into one package -- and that Harriet Tubman bit at the end was inspired.
According to Roll Call at the Washington Post, McCain has not shown up for tough votes, or ANY votes, since April. McCain has not voted in the Senate since April 8.Harry Reid said, "I should mention how glad my fellow Democrats and I were to have our nominee for president here to vote on these important bills. Senator Obama has come to work and taken tough stands. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Senator McCain," Reid groused. "Perhaps taking tough stands on important issues is not part of Senator McCain's campaign strategy. Perhaps he's just too busy on the campaign trail to do his day job."
McCain avoided controversy (and did not have to leave the campaign trail) by failing to vote on either cuts in Medicare reimbursement for physicians or warrantless wiretapping. McCain is now the No. 1 absentee in the Senate, and No. 2 (Tim Johnson of South Dakota) has the excuse of recovering from a brain hemorrhage. How would you like to have to be an Arizona taxpayer and pay this guy for nothing? Imagine what kind of President he'd be!
