For me.

I've priced it.  I'm renting an RV for 10 days and traveling the Southwest US.  Not sure exactly when, but before Dec 31 2009.

political articles

His wife, Martha, added: "Alaska is a state very, very close to Russia. That gives her foreign policy experience."  I disagree.  Does that qualify every governor who borders Canada or Mexico as having "foreign policy experience"?  Does that qualify every governor who borders an ocean as having excellent naval defense strategies?

 

Palin's blue collar lifestyle not so attainable for others, Slate discusses.

 

Timothy Noah of Slate predicts Palin's speech will be great but only because we know nothing else about her. 

 

John Dickerson reacts to Palin's speech.  Can you tell I read a lot on Slate?

 

The NYTimes considers why being Governor of Alaska might actually be different and potentially more qualifying. 

 

The one other thing I disliked about her speech was that I felt as though she spent more time attacking the adversary and not as much time talking about her plans or solutions to problems.  I think the Dems did a little better at focusing more on 'what we're going to do' although they did of course include some 'but the Republicans can't get it right' stuff as well.

Palin's speech

I think she's likeable. I think her speech was good.  I think that her speech could very well have rebounded the McCain campaign.  I think that her speech makes it clear that Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice for Democratic presidential candidate.

 

I disagree with Palin on a fair number of specific issues, assuming that what I've read about her political stances is correct.  The one conflict I couldn't get around was Palin's repeated accusation that Democrats would increase taxes and create bigger government, government that makes decisions for you - and then in another breath, would promise to advocate for special education (generally a government-administered entity), deride people who would question the importance of civil liberties (they aren't important if they're criminals ie terrorists, government is right don't question it).  Plus the decisions that she thinks the government SHOULD be making for you - ie abortion.  I appreciate her small-government stance, but I don't know that what she was saying was very small-government, really. 

 

Giuliani makes my skin crawl.  Ewww.  He is creepy, and I just felt that most of his speech was slimy.  When people started chanting "Drill Baby Drill" it really disturbed me.  I'm not sure who Giuliani was referring to when he said "THEY say Palin won't have enough time to spend with her children."  It wasn't the Democratic party.  That's a weird thing to say. 

 

I wondered what the hell McCain was thinking when he selected Palin, but I respect his decision, and I respect him for standing by it. 

 

I can't wait to hear what everyone else is saying.