My older son Max called and woke me up to tell me the news.  Talk of the town.   I called up younger son Ben saying he should get his butt over to Dayton (he’s at Kent State this semester).  He already had his “Alaskan Grown” t-shirt on.  http://www.alaskagrown.org/store/index.html Very popular with young Alaskans.    His girlfriend at Pacific U had already called him with the news.  Too late to get to Dayton though.  Fascinating for him being in a swing state during the campaign.

McCain’s is a maverick choice, some might say risky, others desperate.    An example of how he might behave as Pres.   I think he’s been Palinized.   Supposed to help him with electorate in the west.

Palin has strong pro-life creds, just had a known Downes Syndrome baby, but back to work 3 days later.   She hired a nanny to take care of it. Does this qualify as family values?

Her pick also deflates the argument that Obama is not experienced to lead.  Perhaps McCain thought that was a lost cause in the long run, that Obama has proven himself or will by election time.  However, Palin is not even debatably ready to be president.  Obama at least had 18 months of campaigning to get ready, as much trial by fire as anything.  And McCain is 72 today “happy birthday, John”.

Palin pluses: stood up to Big Oil in gas line debate (still open to question, it’s far from built), called on no more earmarks.  You’ll hear she cancelled the ‘bridge to nowhere’, but what isn’t reported is that the money for the bridge(s) to nowhere stayed in Alaska for other transportation uses.

Stood up to Repubs in Alaska on corruption (google Corrupt Bastards Club  http://corruptbastards.blogspot.com/ ) including pushing her Lt. Gov to run against Don Young.  Results of primary last Tues too close to call.  Also called on Stevens to come clean.  Of course, the Lt. Gov is in charge of the Office of Elections, but has delegated the authority.  He’s a decent, mild, Right to Lifer, lightweight, near as I can tell from personal interactions.  His dad Pat Parnell, a D, ran against Don Young some years back and lost.  Also mild manners, but less conservative.

Palin’s an okay speaker, generally good political instincts.  I didn’t vote for her, but apparently a plurality (not a majority) of Alaskans did and she has a high approval rating.  By comparison to our last Gov. Frank ‘disaster’ Murkowski, she’s a breath of fresh air, but that’s a pretty low bar. And she hasn’t had to make any tough choices. No major budget cuts required with a massive surplus from oil revenues. Just succeeded in giving an extra $1200 to each Alaskan as a Resource Rebate, unequally helping those who really needed help on energy costs and rewarding those who have lots of kids (she has 4).

Speech:  pandering to Clinton voters.  As a friend told me, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton.

Has zippo foreign policy.   I figured she’ll just go over and charm/Palinize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (had to look up the spelling) or Putin.   Right.

Palin in DC – kind of reminds me of Alaskan huskies mushing down Pennsylvania Ave.  Or more apropos snowmachines. Her hubby Todd is a very competitive long distance snowmachine racer. Very out of place.

One mini-scandal is about her sister’s ex-husband, a state trooper.  Trooper-gate.   She and her hubby Todd complaining about this guy with a messy divorce with her sister.  Todd meets with the Commissioner of Public Safety about getting rid of this guy, other exec. admin pressure the Commissioner to get rid of him.  Sarah said she didn’t ask for it.   Commissioner of Public Safety fired, ostensibly for other reasons.   My take is that he wasn’t a team player in cutting the dept. budget, in defense of the critical needs public safety has; the lack of cooperation in dealing with the ex-bro-in-law didn’t help.  You can find some stuff on the web there too. www.adn.com – okay to set up a log in.

Now the real question is who is minding the shop with Gov running for VP and Lt. Gov running for US Congress.  Are Alaskans well served with both executives gone.  Is Alaska so easy to govern, we don’t need them?  I have to lookup and see if our Speaker of the House becomes governor.  Remember that when Frank Murkowski became governor, he was able to appoint his daughter Lisa to his Senate seat.   She again has been much better than him as Senator too, still a low bar.

I keep waiting for Sarah to tell those she swore to serve about her decision to run as V.P., but no word. I guess she is captive to the national campaign, out of her control, and may not be given the time to talk to Alaskans about her choice. That’s commitment for you.

http://www.gop.com/news/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=fb9a1519-c996-4b40-b622-2a9ba596c36b – how petty.   And this from a campaign whose candidate doesn’t know how many houses he owns.

Such interesting times.