Piyush "Bobby" Jindal
55th Governor of Louisiana
Assumed office January 14, 2008
Lieutenant governor
Mitch Landrieu
Preceded by
Kathleen Blanco
Member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom Louisiana's 1st district
In office January 3, 2005 – January 14, 2008
Preceded by
David Vitter
Succeeded by
Steve Scalise
Born June 10, 1971 (1971-06-10) (age 37)Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Political party
Republican
Spouse
Supriya Jolly Jindal
Children
Selia Elizabeth
Shaan Robert
Slade Ryan
Residence
Kenner, Louisiana
Alma Mater
Brown University,
Oxford University
Profession
Consultant (business)
Religion
Roman Catholic
Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is the current Republican governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana.
Prior to his election as governor, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana's 1st congressional district, to which he was elected in 2004 to succeed current U.S. Senator David Vitter. Jindal was re-elected to Congress in the 2006 election with 88 percent of the vote.
On October 20, 2007, Jindal was elected governor of Louisiana, winning a four-way race with 54% of the vote. At age 36, Jindal became the youngest current governor in the United States. He also became the first non-white to serve as governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction, and the first elected Indian American governor in U.S. history.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Presidential Election System needs to be overhauled
First of all, we need to get rid of the Electoral College system, we would not have had the nightmare of the 2000 election
Second, we have to overhaul this whole campaign mess, we need to create a system where every candidate has an exual chance, like having all candidates campaign equally.
All candidates should be given equal time in the media, onee way would be to use public television.
Third, No more donations to a single candidate, all election money should
go to a fund to be divided equally.
Second, we have to overhaul this whole campaign mess, we need to create a system where every candidate has an exual chance, like having all candidates campaign equally.
All candidates should be given equal time in the media, onee way would be to use public television.
Third, No more donations to a single candidate, all election money should
go to a fund to be divided equally.
It's Finally Over!
Although I'm disappointed about John McCain's loss to Barack Obama. I am happy that it's over, now the GOP has to start working on a new candidate for 2012.
May I make a suggestion?
I think Robert Jindal would be a perfect choice
Bobby Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican Congressman, won the Louisiana gubernatorial election in 2007, becoming the nation's first governor of Indian-American descent and the youngest chief executive of any state.
Jindal, one of the few young rising stars in the G.O.P. ran on a strong reform platform. "Don't let anyone talk badly about Louisana," "Those days [of corruption and incompetence] are officially over. There has never been a clearer mandate for our state."
Folks, keep an eye open for this guy, he's for real, unlike President Elect Barack Obama.
You'll all see how wrong liberals were last night after electing a fraud, you'll get all the answers that were not answered during his campaign.
God Help Us All
May I make a suggestion?
I think Robert Jindal would be a perfect choice
Bobby Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican Congressman, won the Louisiana gubernatorial election in 2007, becoming the nation's first governor of Indian-American descent and the youngest chief executive of any state.
Jindal, one of the few young rising stars in the G.O.P. ran on a strong reform platform. "Don't let anyone talk badly about Louisana," "Those days [of corruption and incompetence] are officially over. There has never been a clearer mandate for our state."
Folks, keep an eye open for this guy, he's for real, unlike President Elect Barack Obama.
You'll all see how wrong liberals were last night after electing a fraud, you'll get all the answers that were not answered during his campaign.
God Help Us All
Friday, September 26, 2008
Media Covering For Obama
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly and even half way honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press. The image of Barack Obama that the press has presented is not a fair approximation of the real man. They have consciously ignored whole years in his life, and showed a lack of curiosity about such gaps that bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct. Thus, the public image of Mr. Obama is of a "Man who never was." I take that phrase from a 1956 movie about a real life WWII British intelligence operation to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies were going to invade Greece, rather than Italy, in 1943. Operation "Mincemeat" involved the acquisition of a human corpse dressed as a Maj. William Martin, R.M. and put into the sea near Spain. Attached to the corpse was a brief-case containing fake letters suggesting that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece. To make the operation credible, British intelligence created a fictional life for the corpse — a letter from a lover, tickets to a London theater, all the details of a life — but not the actual life of the dead young man whose corpse was being used. So, too, the man the media has presented to the nation as Mr. Obama is not the real man. The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeats any McCain gaffes, while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Internet sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Mr. Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventual one or two clear sentences from Mr. Obama. Nor do you see Mr. Obama's ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the United Nations. Nor his whining and puerile "come on" when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples, not Cronkite's. More appalling, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" suggested that Gov. Sarah Palin's husband had sex with his own daughters. That scene was written with the assistance of Al Franken, Democratic Party candidate for Senate in Minnesota. Talk about incest. Democratic presidential candidate Sen.Barack Obama, D-Ill., greets supporters before his speech in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina on September 21, 2008. (UPI Photo/Nell Redmond) But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting, is the shocking gaps in Mr. Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply has not reported on Mr. Obama's two years at Columbia University in New York, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers— after which they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Mr. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Mr. Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks the media has focused on all the colleges Mrs. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago and the close criticism of Mrs. Palin's mayoral political opponents. But in two years they haven't bothered to see how close Mr. Obama was with the terrorist Ayers. Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Mr. Obama's rise in Chicago politics — how did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley? Despite the great — and unflattering details on Mr. Obama's Chicago years presented in David Freddoso's new book, the mainstream media continues to ignore both the facts and the book. It took a British publication, the Economist, to give Mr. Freddoso's book a review with fair comment. The public image of Mr. Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Mr. Obama, his publicist David Axelrod and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media. Perhaps that is why the National Journal's respected correspondent Stuart Taylor has written that "the media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis." That conspiracy has not only photo-shopped out all of Mr. Obama's imperfections (and dirtied up his opponent Mr. McCain's image), but it has put most of his questionable history down the memory hole. The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Mr. Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings.
Tony Blankley is a syndicated columnist. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/24/media-chronicles/
Tony Blankley is a syndicated columnist. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/24/media-chronicles/
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Puzzling through another McCain surprise
By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain jolted the 2008 race Wednesday by saying he’d suspend his campaign and come to the Capitol to help pass a bill to rescue the nation’s financial sector.
He also called for a postponement of the debate with his Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama, set for Friday night.
McCain said, “No consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time."
Was it a masterstroke by McCain, a lunge out of desperation, or a puzzling improvisation?
McCain ran the risk that he would arrive Thursday just in time to find the rug being pulled out from under him — if there’s an announcement of a deal having been reached between the Bush administration and Democrats in Congress.
Dramatically setting the stage for an arrival at the Capitol can backfire: in 2006 Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., flew back from skiing in Davos, Switzerland to say he'd lead a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito — but then suddenly seemed to lose interest and scurried away from reporters who tried to question him about the filibuster.
McCain and Obama issued a joint statement Wednesday saying "This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe."
President Bush invited both candidates, along with congressional leaders, to confer at the White House Thursday afternoon on the financial markets crisis.
Immediate reaction in the Capitol to McCain’s sudden move to suspend his campaign was scathing from Democrats, and ranged from cool to supportive from Republicans. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat who is an ardent McCain ally, took part in a Wednesday night meeting of Democratic senators with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at the Capitol.
McCain to spur bipartisan solution?Emerging from that meeting, Lieberman said, “I think Sen. McCain would serve a very useful purpose because it’s clear that this won’t pass without Republican support and Sen. McCain — just as Sen. Obama — is the nominee of his party and has become the titular leader of his party. I think if anybody can make this a bipartisan solution, which we need, it's Sen. McCain. I’m glad he’s coming back.”
McCain would “hopefully be a constructive force in mediating with the Democrats,” Lieberman said.
“This is not the time for debates — this is the for everybody to be here in Washington acting to solve this economic crisis in a sensible and smart way.”
Obama “could play a constructive role here. There’s no substitute for being here.”
But Obama supporter Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said McCain's sudden visit to the Capitol Thursday “feels like a stunt.”
She said, “All they (Obama and McCain) need to do is to send a signal as to what they’re for. It’s important that they debate. We don’t need photo ops. Their physical presence here is a distraction.”
'An American first'McCain is “an American first and a Republican second. This clearly shows the kind of leader that he is,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, leader of the House GOP conservative caucus.
Hensarling opposes the bill which was being revised in bargaining between Paulson and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., and other Democratic leaders.
“I assure you that if he and Sen. Obama sat down at the table with congressional leadership, something might get done that just might get sufficient support on both sides of the aisle,” Hensarling said.
But Frank called McCain’s move “the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football, and of Marys.”
What could McCain do in person?Perhaps the most baffling aspect of McCain’s move was that, at first blush, it was hard to see how the Arizona senator, in person, could help make the Paulson-Frank financial rescue bill any more palatable to congressional Republicans who are opposed to it.
McCain seems ill-cast in the role of whip for House Republican members who are at the heart of the opposition to the bill.
House Democratic leaders have made it clear that Republicans will be expected to supply a significant number of their members to vote for the bill, and that it would unacceptable for Democrats to supply 180 House members and Republicans only about 40 or 50.
“McCain and his buddies created this (financial distress) with their deregulation fever and all of us are of the opinion that they (Republicans) should put up the majority of votes” to pass the financial rescue plan, said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D- N.Y., the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Charles Rangel, D- N.Y., laughingly said McCain was trying to put off Friday’s debate because his campaign was in such a parlous position.
“I could understand if I was in McCain’s position and had to go to a debate and saw the direction the campaign was going and took a hard look at my vice presidential running mate, I would say, ‘Can we talk?’
Rangel added, chortling sarcastically “Based on his experience with finances in the Senate, I think he can make a contribution. In the 26 years he has been here he’s been very close to the (financial services industry). Put the election on hold and let his ‘great work’ in the Senate speak for itself.”
Third-ranking House Republican Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida said moments after the McCain announcement that “as of now the Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction to complete this process by the end of the week.”
Putnam said it was important for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP Leader John Boehner to agree on a consensus plan “that can pass and pass quickly to restore confidence in the markets.”
So will McCain help do that? If so, how? None of that was clear.
Will McCain propose an alternative to the Paulson-Frank financial rescue bill?
And if so, how will he get not only Republicans in Congress but Democrats, who spent the afternoon mocking him, to back it?
Asked if he wanted McCain to be a part in the nitty-gritty negotiation between Congress and the Bush administration, Putnam indicated he didn’t think this was a good idea by remaining silent for 10 seconds.
Asked what specific role McCain could play in revising the Paulson/Frank plan, Putnam answered carefully, “The most productive role Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama could play would be for them to each acknowledge the need for a congressional intervention to avert a financial disaster. By doing so, they would detoxify this process and bless a bipartisan proposal moving forward by taking it out of the presidential politics mix.”
He added, “That would be the post-partisan, maverick statesman move that they need to make. They are each the senior statesmen of their parties. The two candidates — who will have to deal with whatever outcome Congress passes here — have a responsibility in this process.”
One reason that process has become “toxified” is that many Democrats don’t want to pass a Wall Street bailout bill, and rank-and-file House Republicans are balking at their leaders' call for them to rally around the plan.
And as Frank modifies the Paulson plan, it will grow ever more unacceptable to GOP conservatives.
National affairs writer
MSNBC
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain jolted the 2008 race Wednesday by saying he’d suspend his campaign and come to the Capitol to help pass a bill to rescue the nation’s financial sector.
He also called for a postponement of the debate with his Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama, set for Friday night.
McCain said, “No consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time."
Was it a masterstroke by McCain, a lunge out of desperation, or a puzzling improvisation?
McCain ran the risk that he would arrive Thursday just in time to find the rug being pulled out from under him — if there’s an announcement of a deal having been reached between the Bush administration and Democrats in Congress.
Dramatically setting the stage for an arrival at the Capitol can backfire: in 2006 Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., flew back from skiing in Davos, Switzerland to say he'd lead a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito — but then suddenly seemed to lose interest and scurried away from reporters who tried to question him about the filibuster.
McCain and Obama issued a joint statement Wednesday saying "This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe."
President Bush invited both candidates, along with congressional leaders, to confer at the White House Thursday afternoon on the financial markets crisis.
Immediate reaction in the Capitol to McCain’s sudden move to suspend his campaign was scathing from Democrats, and ranged from cool to supportive from Republicans. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat who is an ardent McCain ally, took part in a Wednesday night meeting of Democratic senators with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at the Capitol.
McCain to spur bipartisan solution?Emerging from that meeting, Lieberman said, “I think Sen. McCain would serve a very useful purpose because it’s clear that this won’t pass without Republican support and Sen. McCain — just as Sen. Obama — is the nominee of his party and has become the titular leader of his party. I think if anybody can make this a bipartisan solution, which we need, it's Sen. McCain. I’m glad he’s coming back.”
McCain would “hopefully be a constructive force in mediating with the Democrats,” Lieberman said.
“This is not the time for debates — this is the for everybody to be here in Washington acting to solve this economic crisis in a sensible and smart way.”
Obama “could play a constructive role here. There’s no substitute for being here.”
But Obama supporter Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said McCain's sudden visit to the Capitol Thursday “feels like a stunt.”
She said, “All they (Obama and McCain) need to do is to send a signal as to what they’re for. It’s important that they debate. We don’t need photo ops. Their physical presence here is a distraction.”
'An American first'McCain is “an American first and a Republican second. This clearly shows the kind of leader that he is,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, leader of the House GOP conservative caucus.
Hensarling opposes the bill which was being revised in bargaining between Paulson and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., and other Democratic leaders.
“I assure you that if he and Sen. Obama sat down at the table with congressional leadership, something might get done that just might get sufficient support on both sides of the aisle,” Hensarling said.
But Frank called McCain’s move “the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football, and of Marys.”
What could McCain do in person?Perhaps the most baffling aspect of McCain’s move was that, at first blush, it was hard to see how the Arizona senator, in person, could help make the Paulson-Frank financial rescue bill any more palatable to congressional Republicans who are opposed to it.
McCain seems ill-cast in the role of whip for House Republican members who are at the heart of the opposition to the bill.
House Democratic leaders have made it clear that Republicans will be expected to supply a significant number of their members to vote for the bill, and that it would unacceptable for Democrats to supply 180 House members and Republicans only about 40 or 50.
“McCain and his buddies created this (financial distress) with their deregulation fever and all of us are of the opinion that they (Republicans) should put up the majority of votes” to pass the financial rescue plan, said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D- N.Y., the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Charles Rangel, D- N.Y., laughingly said McCain was trying to put off Friday’s debate because his campaign was in such a parlous position.
“I could understand if I was in McCain’s position and had to go to a debate and saw the direction the campaign was going and took a hard look at my vice presidential running mate, I would say, ‘Can we talk?’
Rangel added, chortling sarcastically “Based on his experience with finances in the Senate, I think he can make a contribution. In the 26 years he has been here he’s been very close to the (financial services industry). Put the election on hold and let his ‘great work’ in the Senate speak for itself.”
Third-ranking House Republican Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida said moments after the McCain announcement that “as of now the Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction to complete this process by the end of the week.”
Putnam said it was important for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP Leader John Boehner to agree on a consensus plan “that can pass and pass quickly to restore confidence in the markets.”
So will McCain help do that? If so, how? None of that was clear.
Will McCain propose an alternative to the Paulson-Frank financial rescue bill?
And if so, how will he get not only Republicans in Congress but Democrats, who spent the afternoon mocking him, to back it?
Asked if he wanted McCain to be a part in the nitty-gritty negotiation between Congress and the Bush administration, Putnam indicated he didn’t think this was a good idea by remaining silent for 10 seconds.
Asked what specific role McCain could play in revising the Paulson/Frank plan, Putnam answered carefully, “The most productive role Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama could play would be for them to each acknowledge the need for a congressional intervention to avert a financial disaster. By doing so, they would detoxify this process and bless a bipartisan proposal moving forward by taking it out of the presidential politics mix.”
He added, “That would be the post-partisan, maverick statesman move that they need to make. They are each the senior statesmen of their parties. The two candidates — who will have to deal with whatever outcome Congress passes here — have a responsibility in this process.”
One reason that process has become “toxified” is that many Democrats don’t want to pass a Wall Street bailout bill, and rank-and-file House Republicans are balking at their leaders' call for them to rally around the plan.
And as Frank modifies the Paulson plan, it will grow ever more unacceptable to GOP conservatives.
How Palin changed the game
By Ed RollinsCNN Contributor
NEW YORK (CNN) -- It seems like just yesterday when Sen. Barack Obama impressed our troops in Kuwait by shooting his flawless three-pointer into the basket without hitting the rim.
Two days later, he spoke to 200,000 Berliners. It looked like he could do no wrong and the campaign was only a formality on his way to inauguration day.
But it wasn't yesterday. It was the third week in July, and that's a lifetime ago in presidential politics.
Obama looked unbeatable then. He looked unbeatable the night of his acceptance speech before 85,000 cheering supporters. If victory went to the guy who could make the best speech or could win the schoolyard basketball game of "horse," he was thought to be unstoppable.
Then his world stopped with Sen. John McCain's shocking selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the vice presidential nomination. And over the last two weeks, the governor of Alaska has deflected the arc of Obama's campaign. She can match his pretty words. The outdoor game has changed from "horse" to "moose," and only one candidate in this race has shot "moose."
Obama's campaign diminished itself by challenging her experience. The candidate who ranked 99th in Senate seniority, with one of the thinnest resumes ever when he began his presidential quest, looked foolish challenging a governor who made decisions every day while he was missing votes in the Senate running for president.
The good news for Obama is the Europeans still want him to be our president. Unfortunately for him they don't vote here, and the independent voters who do are shifting to McCain-Palin.
The other good news for Obama is that this race is far from over. But he is not going to win by telling voters McCain is too old and doesn't know how to use the Internet. Many of McCain's supporters are old and could care less about the Internet.
What the country wants to know is do these candidates understand what's going on in their lives and in their neighbors' lives, and are they willing to try and fix it.
They want to get our soldiers home from Iraq as quickly as possible and leave that country as stable as it can be without us being there for another decade. They want someone who understands ordinary Americans are hurting and will try to find solutions to the economic mess we are in.
The leading "mainstream media" including ABC's condescending Charlie Gibson and The New York Times' Maureen Dowd have raced "North to Alaska" to find out what makes this woman tick. But alas, they show again and again that they just don't get it.
Nobody cares if Palin knows the Bush doctrine. I defy anyone to tell you what the Bush-Cheney strategy has been over the last seven years (other than getting re-elected) or what doctrine has been practiced by this "gang that can't shoot straight." And who cares? They are gone in 126 days.
What the media doesn't get is that Palin is one of us. She got to the top of the heap because she could relate to ordinary people, because she is ordinary people and through extraordinary efforts made it.
She's got kids; she worked her way through college (state college like most of us). Her husband is a working stiff.
She started at the bottom and worked her way to the top by being better, not prettier. She did her job at the top by being smarter and tougher than the good old boys who stood in her way.
One thing we do know is Palin is not going to look into the eyes of her neighbor across the Bering Sea and say Vladimir Putin's an honest man.
What she's going to see is a fearless adversary who we need to be wary of. Equally important, if she is elected, she's not going to be one of the boys in D.C. Behind her charm is a certain toughness. And that's a good thing.
The charisma of Palin was even evident on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. There in the opening skit was Sarah Palin (played by her wonderful look-alike Tina Fey) opposite Hillary Clinton (played by "SNL" regular Amy Poehler).
Even though it was a spoof, Palin stood out. Besides anyone who brings Fey back to "SNL" does the country and the show a big favor.
Palin has certainly energized McCain's campaign and drawn record crowds to boot. What Democrats didn't realize is that Palin was not about getting Hillary's voters. It was about energizing the base and getting independent voters. She has done that in spades.
Both Obama and Palin have compelling stories and are great talents. In the end, the margin of victory may be the voters who say I like him, or I trust her.
Of course, the big choice is McCain or Obama. But this is one race where the "veep" choice may really matter. The rise of Palin certainly has made this the most exciting presidential race in my lifetime. And I am one of those old guys who thought he had seen it all.
After the marathon of the primaries, we are down to a 100-yard dash, and McCain's got a 2-yard lead with Obama close on his tail. There's a lot ahead before the finish line.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- It seems like just yesterday when Sen. Barack Obama impressed our troops in Kuwait by shooting his flawless three-pointer into the basket without hitting the rim.
Two days later, he spoke to 200,000 Berliners. It looked like he could do no wrong and the campaign was only a formality on his way to inauguration day.
But it wasn't yesterday. It was the third week in July, and that's a lifetime ago in presidential politics.
Obama looked unbeatable then. He looked unbeatable the night of his acceptance speech before 85,000 cheering supporters. If victory went to the guy who could make the best speech or could win the schoolyard basketball game of "horse," he was thought to be unstoppable.
Then his world stopped with Sen. John McCain's shocking selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the vice presidential nomination. And over the last two weeks, the governor of Alaska has deflected the arc of Obama's campaign. She can match his pretty words. The outdoor game has changed from "horse" to "moose," and only one candidate in this race has shot "moose."
Obama's campaign diminished itself by challenging her experience. The candidate who ranked 99th in Senate seniority, with one of the thinnest resumes ever when he began his presidential quest, looked foolish challenging a governor who made decisions every day while he was missing votes in the Senate running for president.
The good news for Obama is the Europeans still want him to be our president. Unfortunately for him they don't vote here, and the independent voters who do are shifting to McCain-Palin.
The other good news for Obama is that this race is far from over. But he is not going to win by telling voters McCain is too old and doesn't know how to use the Internet. Many of McCain's supporters are old and could care less about the Internet.
What the country wants to know is do these candidates understand what's going on in their lives and in their neighbors' lives, and are they willing to try and fix it.
They want to get our soldiers home from Iraq as quickly as possible and leave that country as stable as it can be without us being there for another decade. They want someone who understands ordinary Americans are hurting and will try to find solutions to the economic mess we are in.
The leading "mainstream media" including ABC's condescending Charlie Gibson and The New York Times' Maureen Dowd have raced "North to Alaska" to find out what makes this woman tick. But alas, they show again and again that they just don't get it.
Nobody cares if Palin knows the Bush doctrine. I defy anyone to tell you what the Bush-Cheney strategy has been over the last seven years (other than getting re-elected) or what doctrine has been practiced by this "gang that can't shoot straight." And who cares? They are gone in 126 days.
What the media doesn't get is that Palin is one of us. She got to the top of the heap because she could relate to ordinary people, because she is ordinary people and through extraordinary efforts made it.
She's got kids; she worked her way through college (state college like most of us). Her husband is a working stiff.
She started at the bottom and worked her way to the top by being better, not prettier. She did her job at the top by being smarter and tougher than the good old boys who stood in her way.
One thing we do know is Palin is not going to look into the eyes of her neighbor across the Bering Sea and say Vladimir Putin's an honest man.
What she's going to see is a fearless adversary who we need to be wary of. Equally important, if she is elected, she's not going to be one of the boys in D.C. Behind her charm is a certain toughness. And that's a good thing.
The charisma of Palin was even evident on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. There in the opening skit was Sarah Palin (played by her wonderful look-alike Tina Fey) opposite Hillary Clinton (played by "SNL" regular Amy Poehler).
Even though it was a spoof, Palin stood out. Besides anyone who brings Fey back to "SNL" does the country and the show a big favor.
Palin has certainly energized McCain's campaign and drawn record crowds to boot. What Democrats didn't realize is that Palin was not about getting Hillary's voters. It was about energizing the base and getting independent voters. She has done that in spades.
Both Obama and Palin have compelling stories and are great talents. In the end, the margin of victory may be the voters who say I like him, or I trust her.
Of course, the big choice is McCain or Obama. But this is one race where the "veep" choice may really matter. The rise of Palin certainly has made this the most exciting presidential race in my lifetime. And I am one of those old guys who thought he had seen it all.
After the marathon of the primaries, we are down to a 100-yard dash, and McCain's got a 2-yard lead with Obama close on his tail. There's a lot ahead before the finish line.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
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