Month: September 2008

I ask again. I will ask every day till we get them. Fair’s fair, right?

Nate Silver explains:

You can all stop hyperventilating now … Last night and tonight should be among the best individual nights of polling that the Republicans see all year. If the best they can do is close the race to a tie, or an Obama +1 on those nights, they are not going to win the race based on inertia alone.

One vice-presidential candidate is too fragile to talk to the press. The other is raising the roof. Man, this decision is easy, isn’t it?

Over 17,000 Dish readers have voted by 68 to 32 percent that Palin will still be on the ticket in November. That’s a little better than two-to-one. I’ll post the poll again in a week and see if the result changes.

From the Smoking Gun:

As followers of the Palin feeding frenzy know, the National Enquirer this week reported the "incredible allegation" that Palin had an extramarital affair with an unnamed former "business partner" of her husband.

Once the politician’s husband Todd learned of the purported affair, an Enquirer source claimed, he "quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy." So when the blogosphere discovered today (via an online court docket) that Scott Richter, a Palin associate, personally filed a sealing motion in Alaska Superior Court, well, conclusions were jumped to. Was Sarah Palin named as the other woman in a messy divorce action? Well, since Richter’s September 3 motion, a copy of which you’ll find below, was denied yesterday, his divorce filings remain open to the public. And a TSG review of the 98-page file shows that the Palins are only mentioned in Richter’s sealing request. According to the filing, Richter wanted the documents deemed confidential in a bid to cloak details about his home, workplace, and phone numbers because "reporters and news agencies" were using that information to contact him. Richter, a 39-year-old contractor, noted that he is "friends and land owners in a remote cabin" with the Palins and, as a result, journalists were intruding on the "cabin life and private life" of him and his 11-year-old son.

We have a question and an answer! Over a week after a person who could technically be president next January was introduced on a national stage, the press has been allowed to ask one question and has received one answer. Drum roll:

Ms. Palin did not respond to reporters who shouted questions. But she made a single exception when an Alaskan television reporter posed a concern: Are you going to still be there for Alaska?

“I’m happy to be governor of Alaska,” Ms. Palin said, adding, “couldn’t be more proud, of course, of my position as governor of Alaska.”

This indeed is the level of questioning one expects from a third world dictatorship or a beauty pageant. And with today’s GOP, we seem to be merging the two concepts.

McCain beat Obama (just). The NFL helped.

McCain’s latest ad:

Frum explains why Palin shouldn’t hide from the press. I’m simply staggered that someone who could be president in an instant next January has been in her position for a week and cannot be asked questions by the press corps. Has this ever happened before in American history? Again: unbelievable. And terrifying.

Former U.S. Representative and Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr speaks at the National Press Club September 5, 2008 in Washington, DC. The candidate spoke at a forum on protecting privacy. By Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images.