Palin could be worse, she could be as bad a John Hagee, Palin is an Assembly of God believer…If she is true to the teaching of that denomination…Then Israel is sacred, and can do no wrong. There is no distinction between spiritual Israel of the bible, and the modern day country of Israel in the minds of Assembly of God believers..The State of Israel today is considered the fufillment of Jehovah’s promise to Abraham, and therefore it is untouchable.

I find it interesting that part of the reason she is well liked in Alaska, if indeed she is, has to do with her ‘acting like a Democrat.’ That is, she kicked out a Republican scumbag, supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies and gave lots of money from that to just plain folks. Because of the weird environment of the Alaskan economy and political scene, Republicans there end up doing things that would be decried as extreme socialism if they were suggested in DC.

I’ll give $50 to the first reporter who asks “Governor Palin, as part of your campaign for offshore drilling, would you suggest the Federal government enact a yearly royalty payout to each citizen, like you have in Alaska?”

Meanwhile, Dubya and Darth bailed on the RNC in St. Paul… fascinating, as to just who is panicking over the last second audible,,,

You have to drop this pregnancy thing. Now. If this gets into circulation, the blowback will be incredible. The blogosphere will be knocked out of the conversation for the duration of the election. Just stop.

And this has no more than a miniscule chance of being true: a woman of Palin’s age is hundreds of times more likely to give birth to a Down Syndrome baby than a woman of her daughter’s age. The photographic ‘evidence’ is really weak against numbers like that.

One powerful indicator is that 40 million people tuned in to watch the Democratic National Convention (primarily to hear Obama?). That represents a staggering amount of participation in the political process that one could assume is receptive to Obama’s message of real change.

On a related note (and I know I’m off topic here), every story I read about the baby’s birth say that she knew it had downs (so she had genetic testing – something you generally do as part of the process of choosing to have the baby at all), then “chose” to have the child anyway. I keep seeing that word, chose, in every one of these stories. She made an informed choice to go ahead with the birth, a choice that she would deny to all other women.

“…Here’s the most interesting thing: my brother in law and his girlfriend, both teachers, card carrying NPR listening, Riverdance loving, Jim Lehrer watching diehard liberals …. quite like the woman. They don’t like her social conservatism, but it’s so prevalent in Alaska that they hardly notice it. What they like is that she took out Frank Murkowski, cancelled his secret backroom deals, sold the Governor’s private jet and told the oil companies to wait in line. They like that she is giving checks from the surplus to every Alaskan to help pay for the astronomically rising costs of heating oil up there. They see her as a down-to-earth, post-partisan problem solver. Others may as well.

“And obviously, she’s a huge hit with the religious right. They know a genuflection when they see one and are very pleased that McCain showed them the proper respect by picking not just a social conservative, but a full blown creationist fundamentalist. They will enthusiastically vote for her and feel good about being “feminists” when they do it. (The media will likely have “learned their lesson” from the trashing they gave Hillary Clinton and will be much more careful this time. Nice how that works for the Republicans.)

“So, I wouldn’t be too smug about Palin. She’s got something about her that the people who know her really like. She has an 85% approval rating up there, which includes quite a few liberals. Her western state appeal is an amalgam of right wing populism and libertarianism, something that shouldn’t be discounted among swing voters who might also find her to be an attractive working mom who manages to run the state while taking care of her snowmobile champion husband (Arctic NASCAR) and their five kids. (A politically incorrect friend of mine in Alaska called the ticket “The Maverick and the MILF” and it may work better than we think.)

“Palin is so unknown that something even more significant than “troopergate” may yet emerge. Alaskan politicians are all just one degree of separation from each other and the big money oil interests that fuel the state. Who knows what could come out? But I would not assume that her inexperience or her small state background will work against the ticket. It could play well in the western states, a couple of which are necessary for the Democrats to win in the fall.

“She’s obviously a disaster from my perspective — her extreme social conservatism is an immediate disqualifier for any office, much less the vice presidency. But I really hope the Obama campaign does not take to heart some of the “advice” it’s getting about going after Palin with snappy slogans over her picture that say “this is what McCain thinks is ready to lead?”