I think you're right in that if I were the GOP, I'd much rather have a debate about whether Palin is a good mother than whether McCain will make a good president.

Seriously, in what freakin planet do you have to live on for that to be in any way a negative for a potential VP or Pres.?

If we want to talk about rumors as if they are valid in this campaign, does that mean its open season on Ayers, Rezko, Muslim-gate, etc.?

The only possible downside is the out of wedlock pregnancy. (The age of consent in Alaska is apparently 16.)

To me it seems this is all huff and puff from the MSM/Obamamedia to gloss over their early stupid remarks on "experience".

If the Republicans suddenly come across as stalwart defenders of working mothers, that in no way hurts them.

I simply find it unbelievable that it was a snap pick for McCain. He's never had a reputation for being sloppy or disorganized, and he would not have survived this long in politics, let alone win the nomination against far better funded opponents, if he were. Despite these perennial reports about McCain campaign self-destructing, he is the nominee and he's giving a heavily favored Democratic superstar nominee a real run for his money. Not bad for a decrepit, senile fool with a self-destructing campaign...

Even if he did not settle on Palin a while ago (because no matter whom Obama picks she is still a very good choice so I doubt the pick of Biden was the trigger0 he likely had a short list of finalists, all cleared weeks, if not months, in advance. Evidently this was done discreetly enough, given how everyone was successfully kept in the dark. For her part, I doubt Gov. Palin would have been anything other than fully forthcoming with Sen. McCain and his representatives, especially on impossible to hide things like her daughter's pregnancy. To deceive McCain would have been politically ruinous to both of them.

On a side note, I find it hilarious to see NPR commentators, of all people, attempting to sound serious as they voice grave concern over whether Palin was "sufficiently vetted". Given how thoroughly they are in the tank for Obama, I have a hard time accepting they are concerned for McCain's political future.

So, the announcement was made on Friday, now it is Wednesday, and she's totally dominated the media coverage. Even Hurricane Gustav only briefly eclipsed her. Obama? Barely mentioned in the news reports of the past few days, only briefly surfacing to discourage people from focusing on Palins' private lives. The fact he was utterly ignored only makes him look weak.

And tonight she's giving her speech. And EVERYONE is going to be watching it. Judging by her poised, confident performance last Friday, ought to be a big success, particularly as it will serve as contrast to all the really ill-advised commentary about her alleged lack of qualifications. Believe me, she'll come across as plenty qualified in that speech. Rarely has a political speech been this well set up.

Jeez, with all this crap about vetting, you'd think Sarah Palin just magically appeared out of nowhere last Friday. She's been floated out there for a couple of months now. This is nonsense to think the Republicans didn't vet her. For all we know, she's been in the works since 2004. Karl leaves nothing to chance. In fact, she might have been meant as a foil for Clinton but she works just as well for Obama anyway.

Come together at The Confluence

but bet your damn bippy the McCain people counted on a lot of snippy morons on the semi-left and a fair number in the media looking down their noses at a redneck hockey mom from the insignificant state of Alaska and grotesquely underestimating her.

I agree with you 100 percent on this post, Mike J.

I am not sure I agree with Ed Koch's take on the situation, for the two reasons.

First, abortion really does not seem to be a very salient issue with the electorate. People really do seem to care more about the economy, the war, things that directly affect them.

Second, neither McCain nor Obama seem eager to talk about it. McCain spoke of it to the extent he needed to solidify his base, but I think the issue would harm him if it really became the defining issue of the campaign. The majority of Americans, after all, favor abortion remaining legal. The Obama campaign seems unwilling to make it a defining issue (either that, or they are unusually slow in rolling it out), possibly because Obama's views on abortion may not be what Ed Koch thinks they are. In any event, Biden does not strike me as a poster child (for lack of a better word) for maintaining reproductive freedom, but then again he doesn't strike me as a poster child for having good judgment and not voting for AUMF. Sometimes I wonder whether it's Biden's vetting that could use a little scrutiny. It's as if Obama has no clue when it comes to Biden's record.

not just abortion.

Abortion/choice is just part of the package.

I don't think he was saying her Down's baby is a negative--actually, it is more of a positive for the religious right, and nobody has ever lost votes due to stories of coping with family hardship. I'm thinking of Gore and Edwards and I am sure there are others. Oh, Kennedys.

Abortion is a litmus test issue for the Christian Right, but not really for folks in the middle, even if they say they're pro-choice. Most pro-choice people don't vote the line if other issues are in the forefront. It's more about an almost passive approval for the idea of choice generally -- a woman should get to choose -- than a passionate belief that the choice occupies a critical place in women's social and economic equalilty.

Although the refrain today has been 'But she's against it even for rape and incest!' -- the new and refined SCOTUS armageddon argument -- Palin's is a much more principled position than the oddball compromises we get out of Congress, which keeps letting the line slip on every other attack on abortion rights (informed consent, waiting periods, parental notification -- the only unsuccessful gambit by the right was spousal notification, and that only because of the freakin' Supreme Court, not Congressional Dems), but carves out an exception for rape and incest. If you believe life begins at conception, then no exceptions for rape and incest aligns with your belief.

Now throw in Palin's baby with Down's, and Bristol's pregnancy. Palin did not, as other anti-choice zealots have done, been anti-choice only up until a pregnancy in the family became inconvenient (we've all heard examples and probably laughed at the hypocrisy, although I suspect a lot of them are apocryphal.) Neither are choices I'd ever want to face and both ar hard regardless of your political position on reproductive rights. Palin's decisions can be read as acting in accordance with her principles and making choices, in some ways the more challenging choices.

I think that will have significant emotional appeal for a lot of voters. It's also why I think horrified shouting about 'even rape and incest' won't get a lot of traction. It's also why the shouting about how Palin wants to impose her choice on all other women (revved up with imposing on 'your daughters and your sisters' etc) is missing the mark. Palin does support denying women choice, but not imposing her choice on women.

In practical reality, denying vs imposing have the same result; it's all semantics, useless to those on the ground. But the 'imposing' argument is starting to sound a bit over the top to me (do I need a disclaimer here that I don't agree with Palin at all on abortion?) and I'm wondering if it is, in a somewhat subtle way, going to help Palin. After all, when we're talking in the abstract, many people admire someone who takes a principled stance, even when it disagrees with their own.