Current Political Scene

CNN, Rasmussen Polls Confirm “No Bounce” For Obama

From http://americassentinel.com/2008/09/01/cnn-rasmussen-polls-confirm-no-bounce-for-obama/

"Today’s Rasmussen Tracking poll reports a three-point margin for Barack Obama, the same as yesterday and the same as the day before the Democratic convention began. A new stand-alone poll from CNN has the race at Obama-Biden 49, McCain-Palin 48, a one-point difference. The pre-Democratic National Convention poll taken by CNN had the race tied. The CNN result provides corroboration for a Zogby poll released on Friday which reported a two-point lead for McCain-Palin, 47% to 45%.

From the CNN report:

“The convention — and particularly Obama’s speech — seems to be well-received. And the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP running mate, also seems to be well-received. So why is the race still a virtual tie? Probably because the two events created equal and opposite bounces — assuming that either one created a bounce at all,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

From the Zogby report:

The interactive survey shows that 22% of those voters who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in their primary elections or caucus earlier this year are now supporting John McCain.

Among those who said they shop regularly at Wal-Mart - a demographic group that Zogby has found to be both “value” and “values” voters - Obama is getting walloped by McCain. Winning 62% support from weekly Wal-Mart shoppers, McCain wins these voters at a rate similar to what President Bush won in 2004. Obama wins 24% support from these voters.

Other demographic details are fairly predictable, showing that the McCain/Palin ticket heads into its convention on Monday with numbers that may fuel an optimism they may not have expected, and that many would not have predicted, especially after Obama’s speech Thursday night.

Today Gallup Tracking poll has not been published as of this writing. Gallup uses a different demographic, registered voters as opposed to likely voters, and its results may continue to show wider swings than Rasmussen until after the Republican National Convention."

 

Electoral College Update: Obama Lead Narrows to 10 Votes

From www.rasmussenreports.com

"The latest wave of state-by-state polling, market data and national trends have pushed the Rasmussen Reports' Electoral College projections as close as our daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

The latest numbers from the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator show Obama leading in states with 193 Electoral College votes and McCain ahead in states with 183 Electoral College votes. Previously, Obama had enjoyed a 210–165 advantage.

Currently, states with 135 Electoral College votes are leaning slightly in one way or the other, and three states with a total of 27 votes -- Colorado, Nevada and Virginia -- are pure toss-ups.
...

The biggest changes came in Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Colorado and Oregon.

Ohio—with 20 Electoral College votes--moved from Toss-up to Leans Republican following the second straight Rasmussen Reports telephone survey that showed McCain with a modest lead over Obama.

North Carolina—with 15 Electoral College votes—moved from Leans Republican to Likely Republican. This change was based on the latest Rasmussen Reports polling and changes in the RasmussenMarkets.com data.

Wisconsin—with 10 Electoral College votes—moved from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. That move was prompted by the latest Rasmussen Reports polling which shows McCain closing to within four percentage points of Obama.

Colorado—with 9 Electoral College votes--moved from Leans Democratic to Toss-Up, based primarily upon the latest Rasmussen Reports poll in which McCain holds a statistically insignificant two-point lead over Obama.

Oregon—with 7 Electoral College votes—moved from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. While the latest Rasmussen Reports polling shows Obama with a 10-point lead, the average of other polls and a national trends adjustment places the state in the leaner category.

South Dakota—with 3 Electoral College votes--shifted from Leans Republican to Likely Republican based upon Rasmussen Markets data and a national trends adjustment.

Other states had more minor changes: Connecticut from Safely Democratic to Likely Democratic, Louisiana from Likely Republican to Safely Republican, Maine from Safely Democratic to Likely Democratic, and Tennessee from Likely Republican to Safely Republican.

This Balance of Power Calculator aggregates data from a variety of sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state-by-state race for the White House. Data inputs include the latest Rasmussen Reports poll in a state, an average of the latest polling from other firms (the “538 Average”), Rasmussen Markets data, Intrade market data, the aggregated rankings of selected analysts, the state’s voting history and national trends.

As a practical matter, all of the state-by-state changes are driven by the changes seen nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. In early and mid-June, Obama consistently enjoyed a lead in the five-percentage point range. That has disappeared, with the two contenders now generally within a point or two of each other. The state polls are not conducted as frequently but typically follow the national trend."

 

PALIN DESIGNATION NULLIFIES OBAMA BOUNCE

By DICK MORRIS

"It is incredible, but the designation of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate seems to have totally obliterated Obama's bounce from his convention and after his magnificent speech. Zogby actually has McCain two ahead and Rasmussen's Friday only data shows Obama only three up! This confirms what we have suspected -- that the linkage of McCain and Bush was the weak link in Obama's convention. By showing how different he is and by taking the step of choosing an independent, outspoken, gutsy, reformist candidate like Palin as vice president, McCain has shown how much he is the un-Bush. Bush chose Cheney. McCain chose Palin. That, apparently, says it all."

 

CONVENTION WEATHERING THE STORM

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

"Republicans shouldn’t mourn the loss of the first night (at least) of their convention. Sarah Palin’s warm reception by the American people and the relative success of preparations to contain the damage of Hurricane Gustav seem to have given the GOP far more bounce than it would’ve gotten from a “conventional” first night in St. Paul.

We’ll never know just how much Barack Obama gained in the polls from his magnificent acceptance speech. He spoke too late on Thursday for any post-speech polling to be effective - and John McCain announced his selection of Palin the next morning. So the Friday night polls reflected both the bounce from Obama’s speech and from McCain’s surprise - which seems to have neutralized the Democrat’s gains. (That night, Zogby gave McCain a two-point lead; Rasmussen found Obama three ahead.)

Our guess is that Obama’s speech had a huge impact - counteracted by a huge plus for McCain from his surprise pick of Palin.

Meanwhile, making up for the loss of the first night of the convention is the contrast between the chaos that greeted Katrina’s landfall in 2005 and this year’s smooth preparations. McCain, the administration and the GOP Gulf-state governors should all gain. At the very least, they’ve all shown that they’ve learned from the mistakes of three years ago.

Palin is a godsend to McCain. She injects charisma and novelty into what would otherwise have been a deadly dull ticket. She has a compelling record of battling corruption in Alaska - uncovering misconduct by fellow Republicans and beating a GOP pork-king governor in a primary.

And his choice of her suggests that the old John McCain - the bold, fighting Senate maverick - is back. (News that Palin’s daughter is pregnant should make no difference. The governor had disclosed the fact to McCain - and he, like the tolerant and wise person he is, accepted it.)

The Palin pick also aims straight at Obama’s biggest problem: his difficulty in attracting the votes of women over 40. To win in November, a Democrat needs to win this group by a wide margin - yet Obama now trails by four points.

Palin also makes it far harder to paint a McCain administration as a third term for Bush - yet the “Bush-McCain” charge lies at the core of Obama’s campaign.

What will be the next surprise of this remarkable political year?"

 

Bush 7, Terrorists 0
by Ann Coulter

"Morose that there hasn't been another terrorist attack on American soil for seven long years, liberals were ecstatic when Hurricane Gustav was headed toward New Orleans during the Republican National Convention last week. The networks gave the hurricane plenty of breaking-news coverage -- but unfortunately it was Hurricane Katrina from 2005 they were covering.

On Keith Olbermann's Aug. 29 show on MSNBC, Michael Moore said the possibility of a Category 3 hurricane hitting the United States "is proof that there is a God in heaven." Olbermann responded: "A supremely good point."

Actually, Olbermann said that a few minutes later to some other idiotic point Moore had made, but that's how Moore would have edited the interview for one of his "documentaries," so I will, too. I would only add that Michael Moore's morbid obesity is proof that there is a Buddha.

Hurricane Gustav came and went without a hitch. What a difference a Republican governor makes!

As many have pointed out, the reason elected officials tend to neglect infrastructure project issues, like reinforcing levees in New Orleans and bridges in Minneapolis, is that there's no glory when a bridge doesn't collapse. There are no round-the-clock news specials when the levees hold. You can't even name an overpass retrofitting project after yourself -- it just looks too silly. But everyone's taxes go up to pay for the reinforcements.

Preventing another terrorist attack is like that. There is no media coverage when another 9/11 doesn't happen. We can thank God that President George Bush didn't care about doing the safe thing for himself; he cared about keeping Americans safe. And he has, for seven years.

If Bush's only concern were about his approval ratings, like a certain impeached president I could name, he would not have fought for the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. He would not have resisted the howling ninnies demanding that we withdraw from Iraq, year after year. By liberals' own standard, Bush's war on terrorism has been a smashing, unimaginable success.

A year after the 9/11 attack, The New York Times' Frank Rich was carping about Bush's national security plans, saying we could judge Bush's war on terror by whether there was a major al-Qaida attack in 2003, which -- according to Rich -- would have been on al-Qaida's normal schedule.

Rich wrote: "Since major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough." ("Never Forget What?" New York Times, Sept. 14, 2002.)

There wasn't a major al-Qaida attack in 2003. Nor in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007. Manifestly, liberals thought there would be: They announced a standard of success that they expected Bush to fail.

As Bush has said, we have to be right 100 percent of the time, the terrorists only have to be right one time. Bush has been right 100 percent of the time for seven years -- so much so that Americans have completely forgotten about the threat of Islamic terrorism.

For his thanks, President Bush has been the target of almost unimaginable calumnies -- the sort of invective liberals usually reserve for seniors who don't separate their recyclables properly. Compared to liberals' anger at Bush, there has always been something vaguely impersonal about their "anger" toward the terrorists.

By my count, roughly one in four books in print in the world at this very moment have the words "Bush" and "Lie" in their title. Barnes & Noble has been forced to add an "I Hate Bush" section. I don't believe there are as many anti-Hitler books.

Despite the fact that Hitler brought "change," promoted clean, energy-efficient mass transit by making the trains run on time, supported abortion for the non-master races, vastly expanded the power of the national government and was uniformly adored by college students and their professors, I gather that liberals don't like Hitler because they're constantly comparing him to Bush.

The ferocity of the left's attacks on Bush even scared many of his conservative allies into turning on him over the war in Iraq.

George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western "High Noon." The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to.

That's Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to, because someone had to.

OK, there is one, but she's not in Washington yet. Appropriately, at the end of "High Noon," Cooper is surrounded by the last two highwaymen when, suddenly, his wife (Grace Kelly) appears out of nowhere and blows away one of the killers! The aging sheriff is saved by a beautiful, gun-toting woman."

 

ENPR: Palin Stirs the Pot, and Things Get Ugly
by Timothy P. Carney

"Sen. John McCain's post-convention bump is not an ephemeral one, but a permanent gain from his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. That's not to say McCain won't sag in the polls, but the bump is the result of his bringing on board and revving up elements of the conservative base.

The Treasury Department's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buoyed stock markets, but reflected deep panic about the economy among the mandarins on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

The media's and the Left's tone-deaf criticism of Palin continues, only slightly abated from last week's ferocious pace. Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden took the high road for a few days, but this week got personal...

Palin: McCain's bounce is less a "convention bounce" and more of a Palin bounce.

For the first time this campaign, John McCain is receiving more media attention than is Barack Obama--and Sarah Palin is the reason. Is it beneficial for the top of the ticket to play second fiddle to the bottom half?

Palin, for her part, is benefiting from what you might call the Obama effect. Smears and personal attacks have drowned out more recent charges. Because the media led with attacks on Palin's family and experience (sprinkled with occasional falsehoods and open consideration of bizarre smears), more recent criticism of Palin--stemming from a spirited dig into her record as mayor and governor--has been drowned out.

Just as her speech was the most important speech of either convention, her interviews with ABC late this week will be the most important interviews of the election. If she comes across as well-versed and confident, she will set aside doubts from conservatives and moderates--while probably causing the liberal attacks to multiply. It's hard to imagine her not revealing serious holes in her understanding of policy, though.

Obama and Biden at first stayed above the fray as their ideological allies unloaded on Palin. Obama's comments about "lipstick on a pig" and Biden's attack on Palin's opposition to federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research both came across as personal assaults on Palin thinly veiled as policy critiques. It's getting ugly.

One part of the Palin bump is the surge among white woman voters. While the Washington Post poll's 20-point surge is likely overblown, McCain has probably at least pulled even with Obama among that demographic. If this "lipstick on a pig" comment gets wide play, regardless of its intention, a large McCain lead among women is possible...

 

An Unnecessary Defeat?
by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Why did John McCain lose?

Let's start with those "headwinds" into which he was flying.

The president of the United States, the leader of his party, was at Nixon-Carter levels of approval, 25 percent, going into Election Day.

Sixty-two percent of the nation thought the economy was the No. 1 issue, and 93 percent thought the economy was bad. Two-thirds of the nation thought the war McCain championed was a mistake, and 80 percent to 90 percent thought the country was on the wrong course.

As a political athlete, measured by charisma and communications skills, McCain is not even in the same league with Barack Obama. He was outspent by vast sums, and his political organization was far inferior.

It is a wonder McCain was even competitive, dealt such a hand.

Yet, by Sept. 10, McCain, thanks to Sarah Palin, whose selection had proven a sensation, had come from eight points behind to take the lead, and Joe Biden was wailing that maybe Hillary would have been a better choice for Obama.

Then came the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the bailout of AIG, McCain's assertion that the economy was fundamentally sound, and his panicked return to Washington to assist Bush and Hank Paulson push through a wildly unpopular bank bailout -- using 700 billion in tax dollars to buy up rubbish paper the idiot bankers had put on their books.

The Establishment's Man had come to save the Establishment.

Suddenly, it was McCain who was down 10 points, as the feline and feral press went on a wilding attack on Sister Sarah. He never recovered, though the McCain-Palin final push left egg on the faces of pollsters who were predicting a double-digit triumph for Obama.

Perhaps no Republican, in these circumstances, could have won, especially with that month-long bloodletting on Wall Street that wiped out $4 trillion to $5 trillion in stock and bond value, ravaging IRAs and 401Ks, portfolios and pensions alike.

Yet, McCain might still have won had he not, like his three fellow establishment Republicans Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, been inhibited by the Mainstream Media and his own Beltway beliefs.

Consider. In California, where a liberal judiciary had ordered the state to recognize homosexual marriages, voters, by 52 to 48, slapped the judges across the face and ordered the ban reimposed and placed in the California constitution. Arizona and Florida also voted to outlaw gay marriage, by landslides.

The New York Times deplored the "ugly outcome" of these three referenda and said voters were "enshrining bigotry," thus calling the majority of Californians, Arizonans and Floridians bigots and their Bible-rooted Christian beliefs nothing but bigotry.

Good to know what they think of us. Yet, McCain, who might have been out front on these moral and cultural issues, paid only lip service -- and lost Florida, and California by a landslide.

In Missouri, where McCain eked out a victory, a proposal to make English the official state language carried six to one. In Nebraska, a proposal to ban affirmative action carried 58 to 42, but lost in a 50-50 tie in Colorado.

Parental notification won 48 percent support in California, a far higher share of the vote than McCain got, while a measure to outlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother got 45 percent in South Dakota. Had McCain made an issue of Obama's support for a Freedom of Choice Act that would eliminate all state restrictions on abortion, he could have forced Obama to defend what yet remains a radical and extreme view in America.

While Barack was locking up black America, McCain failed to hold onto Bush's share of the white working class, though Obama had the most liberal voting record in the Senate and long associations with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and '60s bomber William Ayers.

Perhaps fearful his "good guy" reputation with his old buddies in his media "base" would be imperiled, McCain ruled Wright off limits and seemed hesitant even to go after the Ayers connections. Lee Atwater would not have been so ambivalent. Leo Durocher put it succinctly: "Nice guys finish last."

Ultimately, however, the Beltway Republicans are losing Middle America because they are ideologically incapable of addressing two great concerns: economic insecurity and the perception that we are losing the America that we grew up in.

Economic insecurity is traceable to NAFTA-GATT globalization, under which it makes economic sense for U.S. companies to close factories here, build plants in China and export back to the United States. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 10 percent of all U.S. jobs.

Social insecurity is traceable to mass immigration, legal and illegal, which has brought in scores of millions who are altering the character of communities and competing with U.S. workers by offering their services for far less pay.

These are the twin causes of death of the Reagan coalition, and as long as the Republican Party is hooked on K Street cash, it will not address either, and thus pass, blissfully addicted, from this earth."

 

OBAMA'S 'CHANGE': BACK TO THE DEMOCRATIC WASHINGTON INSIDERS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

"What's with Obama's choice of old-time Clinton cronies and recycled Washington insiders to run the transition to his new politics of change?

Can't the anti-Washington insiders President-elect find anyone who isn't a Beltway has-been?

Judging by the appointments to his transition committee and leaks about possible top staff and Cabinet choices, Obama appears to be practicing the politics of status quo, not the politics of change.

Obama based his innovative campaign on an emphatic and convincing commitment to change the culture of Washington and bring in new people, new ideas, and new ways of doing business.

But now, Obama has definitely changed his tune. As president-elect, he's brought back the old Washington hacks, party regulars, and Clinton sycophants that he so frequently disparaged. Like Jimmy Carter, the last President who ran as an outsider, Obama has reached out to the same old folks who dominate the Democratic Party and represent the status quo.

His Transition Committee looks like a reunion of the Clinton Administration. No new ideas of how to reform the system there. The Chairman, John Podesta, was Clinton's Chief of Staff. He presided over the outrageous last minute pardons and his style is strictly inside-the-beltway and make-no-waves.

Then there's Carol Browner, Clinton's competent former EPA Administrator who became the consummate Washington insider. She's Madeline Albright's partner and recently married mega-lobbyist and former Congressman Tom Downey. During the uproar over Dubai taking over U.S. ports, Browner brought Downey to meet with Senator Chuck Schumer to plead Dubai's case. Downey was paid half a million dollars to push Dubai's position. He's also a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, paid half a million to try to cover their rears on the subprime mortgage mess. Is his change?

Federico Pena was Clinton's Secretary of Transportation and of Energy. The President felt he was unduly soft on Air Florida after their crash and lost confidence in him. Now he's back as a Transition Committee member.

Bill Daley, Clinton's former Secretary of Commerce and the brother of the Mayor of Chicago, is the epitome of the old Democratic establishment. Clinton appointed him to the Fannie Mae Board and his son worked as a lobbyist for the agency. Aren't these the kind of folks that Obama ran against?

Larry Summers, President of Harvard and former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury is not exactly an outsider either. He's also alienated more than a few with his bizarre suggestion that women may be genetically inferior to men in math and science.

Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State under Clinton advised John Kerry and Mike Dukakis. Does that tell you enough?

Obama has named one of his big bundlers - Michael Froman, an executive at Citigroup. Is this supposed to symbolize change?

Obama's choice of a spokesperson for the transition is also surprising; hers' is definitely not the face of reason and new politics. Stephanie Cutter is the brash and combative former Clinton, Kerry, and Ted Kennedy mouthpiece. The liberal DailyKos.com once described Cutter as "a moron to the nth degree" when she tried unsuccessfully to force the New York Times' Adam Nagourney to treat her unsolicited email criticizing Howard Dean as "background" without mentioning her name.

Speaking of brash, Rahm Emmanuel, the new White House Chief of Staff, makes Cutter look timid. Rahm is also a former Clinton White House staffer - and a very obnoxious one. He spent his White House years leaking to the Washington Post whenever he didn't like what the President was doing. Even Bill Clinton stopped trusting him. Any hopes of Obama keeping his commitment to reach across the aisle would go right out the window with Rahm's appointment. Instead of extending a hand to the opposition, it would be like raising just one finger. And Rahm's strident demeanor laced with the 'f' word in every sentence will do little to elevate the bipartisan dialogue in Washington.

Christopher Edley, another member of the transition team, is Dean of the Berkeley Law School. He's a former member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission under Clinton and his wife, Maria Echaveste was Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff.

Transition committee staffer Christine Varney was a Federal Trade Commissioner under Clinton and worked in the White House.

Throughout the early debates, Obama criticized Hillary as part of the inside-the beltway establishment that needed to go. But now he's reaching out to these exact same folks. Some change."

 

Out With the Old GOP
by Jay D. Homnick

"Classic joke: woman goes to a doctor for a checkup. She fills out her form, giving her height at five-seven and her weight at a hundred and thirty. The doctor measures her and says: “Sorry, I’m only getting five-three.” He weighs and comments: “Oops, I’m actually reading one-seventy here.” Then he checks blood pressure and finds more bad news. “Hey, your pressure is very high!”

“I’m not surprised,” she responds. “I walked in here tall and slender and now I have become short and fat.”

That describes all too well the process of former McCain aides working to discredit Sarah Palin. They are out there in the media -- yes, they have suddenly discovered how to use the media -- bashing Sarah. She brought them down, don’t you see? The woman who was drawing bigger crowds than the man at the top of the ticket is at fault for his loss.

Palin, to her credit, was astonishingly humble when confronted by reporters. She said that if she cost John McCain even one vote, she was truly sorry, because he is a fine man filled with courage and wisdom. That is as gracious a statement as I have seen a politician deliver off the cuff in many a moon.

The actual accusations being leveled against her by these turncoats are provably false. One thing they said was that she did not know who were the signatories to NAFTA, namely the United States, Canada and Mexico. They claimed she did not know Africa was a whole continent, not a single country. This sort of baloney could have been sold twenty years ago, but not in the age of Google. Put NAFTA or Africa into Google and you will know those answers just from the few lines that come up on the first page; you don’t need to click on a link to any website. Anyone who believes a successful Governor can write e-mails but not Google is a candidate to be sold the Brooklyn Bridge.

What we actually have here does not take a political genius to identify. Those same insiders who thought bringing in an outsider might be a cool strategy are now throwing the outsider overboard. Lucky for Sarah Palin, where she comes from you can fall overboard and still land on your feet, although on thin ice.

As for those genius McCain staffers, they ran their own campaign into the ground, not least when they sent their man out in response to the Wall Street meltdown to blame not Chris Dodd, not Barney Frank… but Chris Cox. That was the end of the election in real terms; the polls locked in at 50-44 and stayed that way until the end.

But let’s put aside the policy mistakes and the wrong approaches. Those have been expounded beautifully by Michael Reagan and others. Instead we should focus on the issue of modernization. Assuming the policy gets straightened out next time around, we still need a lot of help in technique. If the media still has the power to wipe out a candidate who is not speaking for himself or herself, then the way to solve that is to speak more, not less -- except not to the media.

For example, Sarah Palin was supposed to address a rally against Ahmadinejad in front of the United Nations. The speech was already written. Then the Jewish groups who organized the rally rescinded the invitation after Hillary Clinton churlishly refused to attend. What happened? Nothing, Palin didn’t go, never gave the speech. What should have happened? A huge announcement should have been made that she would deliver the speech anyway and it would be shown live over the Internet. A Jewish group could have been found to host in a nice synagogue or auditorium and there might have been literally millions of viewers.

Another example is the neglect of blue states. Because Republicans have no hope of winning New York or California, they do not campaign there. This depresses their voter enthusiasm there. As a result, the poll numbers lag and the voter turnout lags. This costs the party significantly, because the low polls impact the race early and the low turnout affects the popular vote later.

The Internet can be utilized to solve this problem. It is possible to create campaign rallies in places like upstate New York or Orange County, California, that could attract huge crowds. I think the Buffalo Bills stadium could have been filled by Sarah Palin as well as the University of California at Irvine football field. These rallies can be well-publicized in advance as Internet events, which means they help the national campaign at the same time they warm up the locals. Seeing a full stadium and hearing them cheer for your candidate can bring even the laziest voter to the polls.

Don’t knock Sarah Palin. Knock your outdated approaches. A conservative ticket can win again in this country, but only if it does not fall behind the times."

 

The New Face Of Change