OBSERVATION: Time to muddy up this campaign

Hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen. The 2008 Presidential Campaign Roller Coaster is about to get wild.

As we head into the last weeks of this historic and close election, you can bet that both campaigns will play pretty rough – while pointing the finger of blame at the other side. Self-serving claims to the contrary, both candidates have slung some mud and volleyed a few hand grenades at the opponent. Still, that was mild stuff compared to the bombardment of negative campaign ads about to pop up on your television screen – not to mention inundating radio and the Internet.

Personally, I like negative ads. They are among the most cleaver, the funniest and in many ways, the most revealing of underlying truths. Oh! I know. We’re not supposed to like them. We’re supposed to be offended. Folks … that’s all pretense. We all love them. If so many of you were truly repulsed by those ads, they would not be effective.

The best of them will not come from the campaigns directly – in order preserve their official “above it” claims. They will come from the various and sundry issue committees and independent political operations. But … it is still all part of the campaign strategies.

While Barack Obama will be respectful of you will see an unusual negative attention focused on John McCain’s pick for veep. McCain’s age, health and mental stability will be distorted to scare the hell out of the electorate. He will be portrayed in Halloween-esque ads as either feeble or deranged – or both.

If you think Obama’s friends, such as William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Franklin Raines, Tony Rezko, are old news, just wait. I expect to hear a lot more about Obama’s family ties – his America loathing mother, his impoverished brother, and his Muslim dad.

Those negative ads in the past were just test sample, we are about to get on to the real thing. And just remember, while the pseudo sophisticated are feigning chagrin, I will be loving ever one of them.

BRING ON THE MUD, AND LET THE PRESIDENTIAL WRESTLING BEGIN!!!

REACT: Biden wins debate ... Palin wins the voters.

Who won? That is the ubiquitous question. I guess a lot depends on your criteria of success.

If you go by strict rules of debate, Joe Biden’s formal style and handling of the issues would probably get him more points. If you question who gained the most personally from the debate, Sarah Palin had a huge victory. If you want to know who touched the audience the most, and perhaps shifted votes in their favor, I would say Palin gets the gold.

I know some post debate poles give Biden the edge as the winner – as they gave Palin the edge as the most likeable. However, that still leaves the question of voting preference. We commonly assume the “winner” of the debate gain votes, but that is not necessarily the case.

By most measures, including polling, Jimmy Carter bested Ronald Reagan in their debate. He was smoother, more articulate and had a stronger command of factual information. The only thing Reagan won was the hearts and minds of a lot of people who decided to give him their vote.

I can agree that Biden was the academic victor, but I think Palin got the net gain in the all important vote count. One sign of that is the likeability victory. People tend to vote for the candidate they like the most.

INSIGHT: Biden his time ... for Hillary

For a moment in time, there was question whether John McCain would replace Sarah Palin as his vice presidential partner. This seems to be mostly generated by the liberal pundits as an indirect way of exaggerating Palin's negatives. Now cometh a more persistent backroom whisper -- that Barack Obama will trade in Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton.

The rumor that is getting increasing volume in the blogosphere and among mainstream pundits is that Old Joe will resign in the few precious weeks before the election due to health reasons. They even specifically say an aneurism will be the stated malady. This would give Obama a woman, to offset the surprise and effective selection of Palin, and a former adversary a la Jack Kennedy's selection of Lyndon Johnson.

It certainly is a most cynical theory -- so cynical that it is politically feasible. (I wonder if this would be matched by Palin dumping the geriatric McCain for Mitt Romney.)

Would Obama and the Democrats go to such an extreme? Why not? The Democrats are the consummate pursuit-of-power party with an anything-to-win core philosophy. I have long suggested that Obama was unelectable. If the Obamacans and Democrat leaders did not see it quite that way over the long haul, they most certainly have come closer to my thinking since the appearance of Palin on the political platform. Maybe they now see it slipping way.

The question is ... Is such a bait-and-switch too cynical for the American public. Will voters be enthralled with the progressive's dream ticket, or revolted by the chicanery of it all. Of course, much depends on the credibility and believability of Biden's health claim. Death would be much more convincing than some last minute infirmity of convenience, but not as easy to accomplish.

The more serious question ... "Would Hillary actually help?" If not, then the strategy is nothing more than bloggers with more time than knowledge playing head games.

I think the switch is within the realm of possibility because I think the Obamacans could think Hillary would pull them out of a noise dive by checkmating Palin. However, just because they think so, does not make it so.

My own unsolicited opinion is that the Hillary gambit would backfire. Hillary looks good as the also-ran. No reason to think of those pesky Whitewater days, the IRS lists and the stolen White House china. The Clintons are intriguing personalities, but that does not mean that 51 percent of the voting public would like to see them in office again. In some ways, they are political O.J. Simpsons. Their every move generates a celebrity fascination, but behind that, we all know they did it.

If Palin was the "carrot' to motivate the conservative base, Hillary is just the stick that would whip the right wing into a rabid campaign frenzy.

Furthermore, the suddenly more serious and intense vetting of the Clintons (yes, both of them) would likely lead to the exposure of a number of troublesome issues that will lay dormant as long as they are sideliners. In addition to a re-examination of all those Clinton era accusations and findings, there are more contemporary matters. Her senate fundraising activities have not been without controversy. And then there are Bill's post-presidency wheelings and dealings with Middle East potentates and liaisons of a more personal nature.

Hillary would do to Obama, what Palin did for McCain. She would shunt him off to the sidetrack of media attention. While the ham-handed McCain needed the temporary diversion of public attention, the charismatic Obama cannot afford to be taken off message in the all-critical final days of this very long, long campaign.

Also, standing next to the Clintons (yes, both of them), Obama would appear diminished -- less like a president. He would become the Sarah Palin of is own campaign -- a breakthrough novelty who seems a wee bit short of experience. This is a more serious problem for him because he is applying for the boss's position, not the assistant.

Then there is the question of breaking the racial barrier and glass ceiling at the same time. Is that just too much progress for the nation at one time. Could be.

Maybe Obama thinks this is a way to flip a losing campaign into a winning effort. I can also see Hillary buying in on the hope of preventing Palin from shattering through the ceiling many credit Clinton with cracking.

With the American electorate being so closely divided, it is not easy to forecast the results of such a dramatic turn of events -- especially with the potential of other issues, such as Iraq and the economy, to produce their own dramatic surprises.

However, my gut tells me the Hillary maneuver would fail. Instead of boosting Obama's currently rattling rocket, it may cause a complete flame out. There were many good reasons Hillary was not choosen in the first place, and all those good reasons are still lurking beneath the surface just waiting for the chance to be bite Obama in the butt.

LMAO Say What?

I had to break out in that special laughter of disbelief when I read the recent offering by Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice. Okay. I will first tell you what she wrote, and see if you catch the line that produce the guffaws in me – and a number of others with whom I shared the column without any hint of my reaction. Here goes.

“(Sarah) Palin is only attractive to women (and men) who appreciate her conservative views; her life-time membership in the NRA; and her anti-abortion stance. But she’s not fooling women who don’t. Women aren’t just blindly going to vote for a sister. Just like blacks won’t blindly vote for a brother.”

Say what?

I don’t even think I had to add my own emphasis to the last two (almost) sentences for anyone to get it.

According to polls, Barack Obama is getting close to 95 percent of the black vote. This is not issue driven. This is racism in action. They ARE voting “blindly” for a brother. The black vote is an extreme example of what Trice claims is not even happening.

As a secondary note, you will see that Trice’s main point is her belief that those supporting Palin are only those who agree with her. Duh! Now there’s a startling piece of insight.

OBSERVATION: Obama shifts from pre-emptive winner to panicked underdog

Here we are in the post convention season, and the tide has taken a dramatic turn. While most media observers lavished praise on the tightly controlled and well executed Democrat convention, and reported the Republican convention as a bit of a disaster – rescheduling around a hurricane (the ghost of Katrina haunting the GOP), lackluster speeches, the Palin blunder, etc.

The only problem in this media-driven imagery was public reaction. Seems like more folks actually watched the Republicans. Left-wing pundits spent a week noting with awe that 38 million people tuned into Obama’s fascist-background acceptance speech, but grew silent when the numbers came in on Sarah Palin. She topped 40 million views, -- WITHOUT the black stations that carried only Barack Obama.

Despite the panicked predictions from Democrat liberal feminists that “women will not be fooled by Palin,” her post convention numbers soared. It appears that as many as 12 percent of women voters switched allegiance to Sarah – and 23 percent of the Hillary voters are going for McCain despite what was described as the most enthusiastic support from both the Clintons.

All of this pushed McCain into a narrow, but sustainable, lead.

Now here is where I get a little self-serving. I have recently read a number of columns and blogs that talk about the unexpected turn around. They say Obama has blown an all but certain victory.

For those of you who read this blog, you know that the recent events are totally consistent with my past writings. Obama never had the numbers to win. Right after the South Caroline primary, I proffered his defeat. More recently, I even suggested that this campaign was essentially over.

Well folks … hang on to your remotes. This campaign is about to get really ugly and very racial. I have said in the past that David Axelrod (right), Obama’s senior guru, is one of the toughest and most ruthless political consultants on the scene. He makes a Pit Bull look like a Poodle. (I mean, take alook at his photo and tell me he doesn't look like a guy who would drown puppies).

As long as nice-nice was working, Axelrod will behave. Now that the bloody sweat of fear and desperation is permeating the Obama camp, you can expect Axelrod to unleash the rabid dogs of political warfare. He suddenly is representing the underdog. (What’s with all this “dog” stuff? If Palin had made it a Piranha instead of a Pit Bull, would I be locked on fish analogies?)

For the next few weeks, you will be able to judge the desperation of the Democrats by the viciousness of their campaign tactics. The above-it-all, agent of change, Obama, is about to start fighting like the Chicago machine politician he is.

OBSERVATION: Obama sucker punched by a lady

It is an ancient saying that "whomsoever the gods would destroy, they first make insane." I prefer to think the gods just make them stupid. Apparently, the imminent implosion of the Barack Obama campaign is preceeded by sudden stupidity.

To fully appreciate this, one has to appreciate the excellence and percision of the campaign to date. They have taken brilliant strategies and executed the flawlessly. They crossed the finish line in the preliminaries with the "dark horse' candidate (<-- For all you paranoid leftists, who see racism in every utterance, "dark horse" is a political term in use long before African American presidential candidates were even possible.)

John McCain is using Sarah Palin to set up the sucker punch, and Obama is falling for it. Suddenly the campaign is a contest between Obama and Palin. In taking on Palin directly, the Democrat nominee has now lowered himself to the vice presidential level, he his basically neutered Joe Biden, his own vice presidential pit bull, and has taken all the pressure off of McCain. For the time being, McCain and Biden are in the audience in the match of the oratorical Titans.

For the past two days, the top newsmakers in the presidential race have been Obama and Palin -- and it appears this will be the case for some days to come. I have said before, in our culture a male candidate cannot beat up on a female candidate. It rubs the electorate the wrong way. NOW ... make that a black male beating up on a white female, and the negative response is significanly more intense. I am not saying it's right, just recognizing the reality of it.

By what leave of their senses the Obamacans have allowed this stupidity to happen, I do not know. If they do not figure a way out of the obvious trap they have so willingly entered, the poll numbers will tip to McCain even more.

READT: Post-convention polling? I told you so!

John McCain goes over the magical 50 percent mark in a major national pool, and leads Barack Obama by anywhere from 4 to 10 points. The top story on AOL declared Obama now to be the "under dog."

For those who have been tracking my unwavering prediction -- a McCain win (even when few believed that possible) -- this is precisely the trajectory I outlined. The only chance Obama has is the success of a massive registration effort and a very, very lopsided turnout.

For sure, there is massive registration going on on the Democrat side at the moment, and the GOP is lagging. However, expect the Republicans to close the registration gap before November (with Sarah Palin being part of the stimulus), and the pachyderm party holds an edge historically in being able to get their folks to the polls.

The hard line progressives are NOW claiming that these polls do not mean much. There basic position is that these are national polls and you reall have to look at state-by-state polling to see what happens in the Electoral College. The irony that they would be hoping for an electoral victory even if not a popular vote victory should not be overlooked. However, most independent polls show McCain with a win at the electoral level too, if, as the say, "the election were held today."

Despite Lincoln's admonition, we are a nation divided, so you can expect the lead to go back and forth a bit, and vary from poll to poll. But barring any major screw up by McCain (always a possibility), this election is over except for the official tally on Election Day.

OBSERVATION: Maybe we should be scared

To innoculate against future GOP attacks, the Barack Obama campaign and its minions on the progressive left are forwarning against the use of scare tactics. I suppose, saying that the country will be harmed irreparably, social securty will evaporate, and you will lose you jobs and your homes if John McCain is elected is NOT a scare tactic? Puleeeeez! It is nothing more than a case of the pot calling the kettle black. (<--Some how that expression takes on a little different meaning this season. Maybe is is some of that "code" language the paranoid left hears in evey utterance.) Don't buy into scare tactics, they tell us, but maybe we should be scared. As I got to thinking about the forces that have been the booster rockets of the Obama campaign, there are four -- and they bother me a lot.

First is the corrupt Democrat machine of Chicago. There is nothing in Obama's past that would support his newly created image as a man above partisan politics --- a reformer. In fact, he is a strident partisan with deep loyalty to the political gang who launched his career in the Land of Lincoln. He has been supported and tutored by some of the most ruthless and brittle Democrat partisan in the nation, not the least of which are Mayor Richard Daley (left), Governor Rod Blagojevich, Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Rahm Emanuel, Congresswomen Jan Schankowski and Illinois Senate President Emil Jones.

Second, he comes from the radical left school where racist black liberation theology, as espoused by his friend and pastor, Jeremiah Wright (lower left), is considered a legitimate religion, and his tactical political views are influenced by his admiring friendship with deadly terrorists such as William Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dorhn (left).

Third, the mission to take over the White House by the radical left is being funded by an obsessed billionaire, George Soros (right). This is a man determined, and willing to use billions of dollars of his own money (and billions more of his friend's money) to impose a regime that otherwise would have little popular appeal. Never in the histroy of this nation, has one man had the resources, and the lust, to impose a personal President. Without George Soros, the radical progressive movement in America would exist only on the fringe, where they belong.

Lastly, as the first African American candidate (sort of), Obama benefits from black racism (some say reverse racism). He will carry the votes of more than 90 percent of the self identified black voters, even though his views on guns, abortion and school choice -- just to name a few -- are counter to the cultural values in the community. Issues and what is good for America are beyond any consideration -- trumped by skin color. The plea of Whitney Young, who said people should be judged "not on the color of their skin, but the content of their character," is being ignored. Whether successful or not, Obama will leave America more divided than he found it.

For each of these constitutencies, Obama is the perfect candidate -- a brutally partisan black elitist leftist. But he has an overarching quality that is rare among the extreme left. He is a charmer. Most of his ilk are snarling pit bulls without lipstick. They generally lack the boyish charm and charisma that Obama exudes.

We are always on guard against the wolf in sheep skin. Maybe we have been fooled a bit because we did not anticipate that the disguise would be the skin of a black sheep.

LMAO: Middle America will understand

My friend Bernie is pertty much middle America, and he has his own unique way of putting it. To give you an idea, I am reminded of something he said one time. I had invited him to go out for dinner, and he said,"Okay, but I want a real meal. No place that serves "dabbles" "dollops" and "drizzles." Bernie understands Sarah Palin, but more importantly, Palin undersands the Bernies of America.

OBSERVATION: McCain/Palin capture middle America

The elite liberal establishment disparagingly refers to it as “fly over America” – that portion of our nation that exits between Martha’s Vineyard on the east and Tinsel Town on the west. Former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferrraro once snobbishly posed the rhetorical question, “What is this country without the east and west coasts?” For most of us, the answer is simple -- America.

The political value of this meat and potatoes region is reflected in John McCain’s naming Sarah Palin as his running mate. She exudes middle America values, and connects with the heartland constituency like no one since Ronald Reagan.

Granted, Bill Clinton has a bit of the common touch. However, he would never have been elected President had the GOP put up a populist candidate. George Bush and Bob Dole were the consumate elite D.C. insiders. Whenever an elitist is up against a populist in the quadrennial presidential election, it is the populist who usually wins.

Both sides know this, and that is why the Barack Obama people are trying to hard to avoid having the “elitist” tail pinned on his Democrat ass. (<-- Maybe I should have said "donkey.") Which means, all that effort to make Obama look more presidential, more intelligent, more sophisticated, more cosmopolitan may have been misspent. The efforts to compare him to the quintessential elitest, John Kennedy, is turning out to be a huge miscalculation.

The addition of Palin creates a crisis for Obama. No doubt about it. He and his advisors are back to drawing board, and maybe the dart board, to come up with a new game plan. The fact that they know the problem is reflected in Obama’s almost conciliatory response to the Palin pick. He knows attacking a woman is never good, and he has had the advantage of 18 primary elections to learn, as the song lyrics go, “how to handle a woman.”

Should McCain get a lock on middle America -- and it appears he is now making significant advances toward that objective – a portion of the credit will have to go to his upset-the-applecart selection of Palin. However, most credit goes to the Obama supporters.

Obama’s problem, and McCain’s windfall benefit has been the ham-handed and mean-spirited hysteria emanating from the hard core liberal establishment. While the viciousness of the left wing attack infuriated the fair-minded, the greater effrontery was the mocking of almost everything that represents the culture of middle America – religion, recreation, speech patterns and accents, entertainment, dress, sex, and home life.

In their zeal to capsize the newly launched candidacy, they published and promoted an array of personal, political and professional accusations – and many false accusations, as it turns out. They failed to appreciate that Palin instantaneously became personification of middle America, and an attack on her is an attack on them. This hysterical overreaction is driving voters to McCain.

There are still two more months for this campaign to pitch and yaw. As of today, however, fly over America is McCain land. The Palin selection maybe looked back upon as the beginning of the momentum that carries McCain/Palin to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

NEED TO KNOW: Obama's mud machine targets Palin

For all the sanctimonious rhetoric, you can count on Barack Obama's Chicago style campaign to do their own version mudslinging -- indirectly, of course. The sharks of the liberal media are on a feeding frenzy, and for a while they will churn the waters hoping to produce blood. More likely, they will silently swim away in search of other opportunities, having seen their prey either escape or prove to be to formidable a target.

If you want insight into the campaigns marching orders to the media, you only need to read the Dems 63-page comprehensive attack sheet on Sarah Palin. You can read it here thanks to a screw up in the campaign counterintelligence system. This "anonymous" document surfaced for a moment in time on the Internet -- on one of those Obama-friendly web sites. It has since been removed, but some good guy computer whizzes were able to access an undeleted back-up copy.

Given the amount of research that has gone into this document, and the extent to which they have gone to try to bring Palin down (including distortions, misinformation and outright lies), it is obvious she has rattled the foundation of their campaign strategy.

UPDATE: Hillary's voters.

In a previous blog, I suggest that as much as 15 percent of Hillary Clinton's primary voters could cross over to John McCain. I thought I was being a bit optimistic, but calcualted even five percent as a serioius problem for Barack Obama. Well ... was I wrong. A recent poll indicated that as many as 25 percent of the New York senator's primary support will not vote for Obama. Wow! That is more than a disaster for Obama. That's the ballgame.

Now granted, they may not all be crossing over for McCain. The poll did not identify cross overs and the stay at homes. Regardless, that is an amazing defection.

It should be noted that the poll was taken after the Clintons' -- Mr. and Mrs. -- speeches at the Democratic convention, and before the naming of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate. Can it get much worse?

This all tracks with my unwavering belief that Obama is unelectable without a major ... and I mean major ... blunder on the McCain side.

REACT: Palin panics the progressives

As a political tactic, McCain’s selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is working out better than I could have imagined. The now apoplectic progressive democrats are positively in panic. They are piling on. Frankly, I am stunned with the meanness and viciousness of the first round of attacks. Barack Obama must feel like a general attempting to keep his troop under discipline command as they break ranks – running helter skelter across the political battlefield firing verbal assaults at every shadowy target.

They seem to have settled on a Dan Quayle comparison, referring to the young guy selected by George Bush the Elder to be his new-generation running mate, as their best option. Dan who? Right. The problem is, most of the general public have no real specific recollection of Dan Quayle. So, whether the compassion is justified or not, it is rather ineffective.

I am surprised that they did not find a better comparison in Spiro Agnew, the county exec from Maryland who was the surprise pick of Richard Nixon – making “Spiro who?” a political cliché. The allusion is more negative because Agnew was forced to resign in scandal ahead of Nixon. (I still have my Spiro Agnew watch.)

In irresponsible meanness, left wing bloggers, such as Kos, are floating claims that her Downs Syndrome child is really the offspring of her 16-year-old daughter, Bristol, and is only being raised as her child. First, there appears to be too much evidence that that is not the case – so much that Kos (and others) publishing the rumor can only be describe as scurrilous to the extreme.

But even if it were true, Palin might gain from the story. It is a human story to which most non-elitist families can relate. Consider this. A teenager gets pregnant. The child in the womb is determined to have Downs Syndrome. The family comes together to work out the best solution for all concerned. Most importantly, there is no abortion. Not for the benefit of the young mother. Not for the benefit of the family’s public reputation. Not because the child is less than perfect. Instead, the Palin family lives their pro-life values – as the story would go.

If this were the case, the anti abortion crowd will flock to the polls for this woman. Of course, the story appears to be ugly rumor advanced for misguided political purposes by those who accuse Republicans of cruel tactics. Just how low can they go?

In attacking her status in life, a hockey mom without experience on the world stage, the Democrats reveal their true elitism – one of the more serious chinks in the Obama armor. If they want to challenge the experiential credentials of the GOP vice presidential candidate, they will soon discover that she – point by point – supersedes the credentials of the Democrats PRESIDENIAL nominee. Her executive experience is infinite compared to Obama’s none. Her personal story is every bit as compelling.

As an agent of change, she has an impressive record of courageous and successfully confronting the entrenched corruption in her own state AND in her own party. Conversely, Obama never made any attempt to confront and reform the incredibly corrupt Chicago and Illinois political machines. Far from it. He rose with their support. He took money from the most sleazy of their benefactors. He endorsed the worst of them. He played their crass political game with taxpayer money. His poverty-stricken, crime-ridden Illinois senate district shows no signs of hope or improvement from his stewardship. In terms of reform, Obama cannot hold a candle to Palin.

The Democratic attack team proffers that the Palin pick is cynical. She was not chosen for her intellect, political philosophy, position on issues, experience or good judgment. It was simply broad over brains. If you believe the left wing rhetoric (and how could you?), the progressives and feminists are basically saying that this highly intelligent and successful woman is … well ... a bimbo. That’s the feminist equivalent of and “uncle tom.” Methinks this tactic is going to backfire.

They say the Palin pick was to shore up McCain’s weaknesses. We used to call that balancing the ticket – and it was considered a smart thing to do. However, if that is the measure to be applied, what does the Joe Biden pick tell us. Hmmmm. That Obama knows nothing about Washington … nothing about foreign policy … lacks experience. He needs to fill in much more substantial gaps than McCain.

In picking Biden, Obama may have boo booed. When you look at the two of them standing side-by-side, the very presidential looking Biden diminishes Obama’s political stature. Biden looks like the real thing. He looks presidential. Obama looks like an actor playing a black president in a television mini-series.

Looking at it another way, why did the candidate offering “change you can believe in” pick a good old boy for a running mate? Maybe it is because Obama is more interested in gaming the system than changing it. Maybe his rise in Chicago’s smarming politics is a better indicator of his passion for change than are the eloquent words he spews on the campaign trail.

More and more, the public is beginning to recognize the thinness of the Obama façade. Beyond a spellbinding speaker and a very lucky candidate, he seems to have nothing to offer. His substance is as ethereal as his words. I once referred to him as the “cotton candy” candidate. After you consume the billowy mass and savor the sweet taste, you realize that there never was much there.

REACT: McCain's pick for Veep shows he know something about change.

If the port side progressive pundits are sounding a bit “dizzy” these days, it is due to the exceptional amount of “spinning” they are doing to make it sound like all news vis-a-vis Barack Obama is good news. If John McCain’s continuing good standing in the polls have them stammering, trying to dis his choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President has them totally flummoxed.

Even before the stories were filed on Obama’s elaborately staged and well delivered superficial acceptance speech, McCain trumped the junior senator from Illinois with the history making announcement naming Alaska Governor Palin as his running mate – proving that Democrats are not the only ones who can make history. While the Obama folks expected the media and the public to savor the acceptance speech at least through the weekend, McCain held the exposure to less than 24 hours. By noon on Friday, the speech was old news. It was a brilliant tactical move.

Palin will also be a strong draw for those Hillary supporters, who feel that the ladies have been cheated by the slick talking black dude. This is a net gain. And, judging from the Vogue cover, a lot of Democrat guys maybe jumping ship. All things considered, Palin is the hottest vice president candidate in history.

In picking Palin, McCain made it impossible for the Democrats to chew up the Alaskan governor without eating their young. For the party that claims modern day feminism as one of their defining issues, it was interesting to see how they would maintain the integrity of their cause while vilifying the second female candidate for Vice President – and the first with a real chancing of holding the office.

It was sort of easy to predict their tactic. It is one they have used against African Americans who do not stick to the liberal, welfare-is-good party line. They simply declare them to be apostates. In the case of black conservatives, they are “uncle toms.” When the very African American Congressman Gary Franks (R-CN) was elected to Congress, the all liberal -- and hitherto Democrat -- Black Caucus” barred him from membership. He was not black enough for them. When the courts said the Caucus had to admit him since they were really a tax-free not-for-profit public corporation, they disbanded the group. In liberal America, blackness is an opinion, not an ethnic reality.

In the case of Palin, they are saying, “Women, yes, but not THAT GIRL. (I can hear the old Marlo Thomas television theme song playing in my ear). These kinds of reactions are always good reminders that the feminism movement that dominates the headlines and public discourse, is NOT about women. No. No. No. Modern day feminism is limited to the issues and personalities advanced by the liberal ladies of the Democrat party. Glass ceiling shattering is only allowed for those women with liberal credentials and agendas.

With Palin as the candidate, the vice presidential debate suddenly poses a problem for Joe Biden. Obama was figuring on have old Joe be a junkyard dog, sinking his teeth into the hind quarters of any one of the touted white male Republican contenders. As is often the case, the presence of a woman can turn the fiercest hound into a lap dog. If Biden gets too tough on the gentler sex, he will come across as a bully. He might as well go to the debate in a Marlon Brando “wife beater” undershirt. On the other hand, a woman “standing up” to a man wins a chorus of “atta girl”s.

The criticism I enjoy the most is Palin’s alleged “lack of experience.” Every time a leading Democrat cites her relative newness on the larger political stage, the name Barak Obama keeps popping into my head. McCain has laid a trap for the Democrats, and they are jumping into it with both feet.

Arguably, Obama does not have much more experience than she does – even less if you match executive experience against legislative experience. She presides over a major government. Obama has never managed anything larger than a small personal staff. Now if you have inexperience on the ticket, is it better to be lacking in the Vice President or the President. In a less than subtle move, McCain has shown that the Democrats got the experience requirement backward.

Perhaps the most desperate and idiotic criticism I heard came from David Bender, of (hot) Air America. He blasts Palin because, in his opinion, she does not look like a Vice President. (I am not making this up. Sexist, you say? Shallow, you say? Chauvinistic, you say?) As a woman, is she any more or less vice presidential than Geraldine Ferraro? Oh! I get it. Palin is not eastern seaboard. Not a limousine liberal … hell … not even a liberal. And the Dems wonder why they can’t shed their elitist image? This silly argument doesn’t backfire. It ricochets to Obama. He, himself, said that HE doesn’t look like those guys on the money. (Again, thinking about the Vogue cover ... mmmm .... oh yeah ... Bender is right. Palin most certainly does not look like any previous vice presidential candidate. She's more likely to get wolf whistles than cat calls).

The Obama team gets it. They’re not saying anything negative about Palin, even in the instant response advertising. But those self-appointed Obama’s spokespersons blabbering to the press are falling into McCain’s trap en masse – and Obama is tethered to them like the last mountain climber still on the ledge.