McCAIN-PALIN 2008

Now, here are some key points worth remembering:

* The Obama camp is comparing their number 1 to our number 2. That speaks volumes.

* Palin had been in elected office for 5 years before Obama ever got elected.

* Palin resigned her office to protest corruption. Obama has never met corruption he did not embrace.

* Palin has balanced family, municipal, and state budgets. Obama, at best, has balanced a family budget, but he needed Tony Rezko's help.

* Palin runs the largest state in the nation. Barack Obama runs for President (and his mouth).

* Sarah Palin did not run for President on her resume. Barack Obama did. -Barack Obama talks about reform. Sarah Palin reforms.

And again, the most important point is that the Obama campaign wants to compare Obama to Palin. Doing so is an admission that Obama should be their number 2 pick and Biden should be their number 1 pick.

Red State Coverage on Sarah Palin

Here are some of the good things about Governor Sarah Palin:

As John McCain has shocked pretty much everybody with his pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, it's important to prepare for the attacks on her that will be launched, starting this afternoon, by the Democrats and the media. For attack they will, relentlessly. And they'll start with these three things:

First - "Palin has no experience". That's an easy one to dismiss. Sarah Palin has had more executive experience, meaning experience in running either a business or a government, than either Barack Obama or his running mate, Joe Biden. She has more executive experience than even her running mate, John McCain. Governor Palin served as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1999 to 2002. She was elected as President of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. She was elected as Governor of Alaska in 2006. And she has quite a few concrete achievements, considering the amount of time she's been in office.

Second - "Palin's part of the corrupt GOP establishment in Alaska (Stevens, Young, etc.)". That's an even easier one to dismiss. Governor Palin has always run as the anti-corruption candidate. She served as Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004, when she resigned in protest over the actions of her fellow Alaskan GOP leaders, including then-Alaskan Governor Frank Murkowski. She was furious over the fact that they ignored her reports of rampant GOP corruption. When she chose to run for Governor, the GOP establishment ignored her and supported the incumbent Murkowski. Palin beat him, and went on to beat former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles with no support from Alaskan GOP leadership. She has actively supported and helped the GOP primary opponents of current indicted Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, and denounced both of them often in public.

Oh, and the forthcoming claim that Palin's in the pocket of big-oil? Her ethics complaints were filed against people who really were in the pocket of big oil - she was on the outside, investigating.

Third - "Palin used her position as Governor to get back at the man whom her sister was divorcing, and fired the man who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband". This is the slimiest attack that the Democrats and the media will launch. It concerns a current investigation into allegations that Governor Palin fired former Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan because he would not bend to her will.

When Palin fired Monegan, her office gave no reason for her decision. As the Commissioner serves at the discretion of the Governor, no reason is needed. In an effort to save his job and get back at the person who fired him, Monegan claimed that he was fired because he would not fire an Alaskan State Trooper, Michael Wooten, who was going through a messy divorce with Palin's sister. Recently, the Associated Press ran an article about some tapes that surfaced regarding phone calls made by some of Palin's staff worried about Wooten - and worried about the safety of the Palin family:

Defending Against the First Attacks on Sarah Palin

With multiple media outlets confirming now that Governor Sarah Palin will indeed join the Republican ticket as John McCain’s running mate, McCain has clearly chosen to play offense rather than defense. Instead of a safe choice, such as closest runner-up Mitt Romney or genial Everyman Tim Pawlenty, McCain took some risk with a relative newcomer to national politics. Palin will inject risk, excitement, controversy, and an unexpected historic note to the Republican convention.

First, though, let’s assess the risk. Palin has served less than two years as Governor of Alaska, which tends to eat into the experience message on which McCain has relied thus far. At 44, she’s younger than Barack Obama by three years. She has served as a mayor and as the Ethics Commissioner on the state board regulating oil and natural gas, for a total of eight years political experience before her election as governor. That’s also less than Obama has, with seven years in the Illinois legislature and three in the US Senate.

However, the nature of the experience couldn’t be more different. Palin spent her entire political career crusading against the political machine that rules Alaska — which exists in her own Republican party. She blew the whistle on the state GOP chair, who had abused his power on the same commission to conduct party business. Obama, in contrast, talked a great deal about reform in Chicago but never challenged the party machine, preferring to take an easy ride as a protegé of Richard Daley instead.

What Palin does for McCain, and to Obama

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