What Sarah Palin apprently believes - 'Iraqi victory' iran war, + fundamentalism

then there's the comments about Putin rasing his head into American airspace and having forgien policy experiance because Russia is Alasca's nextdoor neighbour

lol I know and did you know Canada is too? By her reasoning, I can see the senior center from my house, I must be a senior citizen lol.

Great post and good for your daughter! Talk about being out of touch and condescending. Palin either says something totally illiterate and idiotic or insulting and condescending. Annie

That sounds fascinating! Good for her - you must be very proud of her. Annie

Thanks, Annie. For the record, my daughter's company is a non-profit enterprise being funded by a private, personal grant from the family that owns one of our major supermarket chains - and their mission is to teach teens how to interpret media spin and hear through the double-talk. They're developing a curriculum to teach kids how to parse the 'left-wing liberal' media messages and make their own decisions about what they're being fed. One of the first lessons: "Find out who owns these ten newspapers". Kids were stunned to find out how many of them were owned by the same man. One of them just shook his head and said, "No wonder they all say the same thing!" Score!

I think McCain chose Palin for very obvious reasons, principally to secure political advantage. The Palin pick was a gamble though, but I understand that McCain likes taking risks. To be fair to McCain, other Presidents have chosen running mates for political reasons as well, so this is nothing new. McCain's problem is that he has to try and show that he is different from Bush, because Bush is so unpopular. But on the other hand, much of the Republican base and the religious right still love Bush. So McCain has to walk a fine line and show voters that he is different from Bush but on the other hand, not antagonise the base whilst he is doing this. McCain also knew that much of the Republican base were not overly exited about him, and he needs the base to be motivated to give donations and do the legwork which is so essential at election time. By picking Palin, McCain therefore re-energised the Republican base in that though many of them still don't trust him, they at least now felt they had someone to vote for (ie Palin). At the same time, McCain would continue is strategy of trying to differentiate himself from Bush. So the Palin pick makes perfect sense and in truth, it has worked particularly in the red states. Prior to the Palin pick, there were a number of southern red states and also northern states like the Dakotas / Montana where McCain's support was aneamic and where Obama wasn't very far behind. Since the Palin pick, these states have become much redder and are now no longer in play. But though the Palin pick has helped McCain consolidate his base and the redder states, it had a far lesser effect in the blue and crucially battleground states. So by chosing Palin i think McCain has avoided a blow-out and Palin may well help Republicans lower down the ticket in the red states, but on the other hand, the pick was a gamble and if Palin falters (in interviews and the VP debate), then this could ultimately harm McCain in the key battleground states come November. But that was the gamble McCain made, a understandable gamble as prior to the Palin pick he was slowly losing this election. The gamble might well have worked, except for the October surprise which came early in September (ie the banking crisis) which has blown McCain and the Republicans off course.