This is worth watching (below). It is quite a mind-blowing thing to say:
No one knows what war is like other than my family. Period.
-Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain, on the Today Show.
Day: September 9, 2008
We’re all doomed!
Bloomberg makes an interesting view these days. There was a lot of red on the bottom of the screen tonight. Lots of talk about “bears” and “bottoms”. Lehman Brothers was described as a “basket case”. Lehman Brothers!
Topsy-turvy?
Sarah Palin, it was suggested, was chosen in part to boost the women’s vote for the republican ticket. CNN reports, however, that it is actually men who favour Palin more than women.
Bouncy Bouncy
Charles Franklin on Pollster.com has an excellent analysis of the post-convention polls.
Summary: it’s too early to say anything other than there might be a shift downwards in the Obama lead. The much heralded Gallup/USA Today poll showing McCain 10 points ahead is a genuine outlier. It polled likely voters, for one thing, a constiuency which is usually favourable towards the Republicans.
A prudent approach is to wait for a few more post-convention and post-weekend interviewing polls to see just how big and how sustained the RNC bounce is. But both estimators agree we have ourselves a real horserace now.
Bridge to Nowhere – The full arcane minutiae
The White House race is certainly throwing up lots of fascinating aspects, multiplied by the entrance of Sarah Palin into the fray. One of the most interesting and arcane elements of the campaign is that of the “Bridge to Nowhere”.
CQ Politics has an excellent article on the issue which is worth reading.
In essence, the timeline seems to be:
-Congress changed the funding arrangement so that Alaska could spend the money (previously allocated to the Bridge (or indeed Bridges) to “nowhere”) on general transportation projects
-After this, Sarah Palin campaigned in 2006 to still have the bridge built
-When she became Governor Palin said she would not build the bridge. But in fact, while she could have done, congress had already changed the bill so Alaska could spend it on any transport projects.
Palin has said “I told Congress ‘Thanks. But no thanks’ ” with regard to the bridge. But Congress already had given the Alaska government the money to spend as it wanted. She said ‘no’ to a bridge that she wasn’t required to support. She said ‘yes’ to the money.
It’s all quite complex but CQ Politics explains it very well.
Sarah Palin, fiscal crusader ? – I think not
In her speech last week, Sarah Palin said of her time as Alaska’s governor:
While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor’s office that I didn’t believe our citizens should have to pay for.
I wonder if Alaskan citizens think that they should pay for Sarah Palin to sleep in her own home for more than half of the year?:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a “per diem” allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.
Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official “duty station” is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.
The governor’s daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel and many of the trips were to and from their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.
Gubernatorial spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monday that Palin’s expenses are not unusual and that, under state policy, the first family could have claimed per diem expenses for each child taken on official business but has not done so.
Before she became the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee, Palin was little known outside Alaska. Now, with the campaign emphasizing her executive experience, her record as mayor of Wasilla, as a state oil-and-gas commissioner and as governor is receiving intense scrutiny.
UPDATE from ELectoral-Vote.com: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) also spends a lot of time in his Los Angeles home, but he doesn’t bill the state for it.
The Liberal Burblings Awards
Many congratulations indeed to all those nominated for this year’s “Lib Dem Blog awards”. Obviously these awards, being sponsored by the party, focus, quite rightly, on very high quality blogging. But I have noticed a gap in the blogging awards market and, rather than continuing to moan about it, I have decided to do something positive about it.
So, I am launching the Liberal Burblings Awards.
This is aimed at rewarding those Liberal Democrat bloggers who have shown dogged determination and sheer hard work in maintaining their blogs between September 1st 2007 and September 1st 2008.
Nominations should be sent to paulwalteruk@yahoo.co.uk or left as comments to this posting by 9pm this Friday 12th September. Self-nominations will not be accepted, as they are pants. I will announce the resultant list, which will be in alphabetical order (ranking, is, I believe, inconsistent with the spirit of these awards) and amount to 10-12 blogs (possibly more if more are nominated).
The things which will be considered a “plus” for inclusion on the list are:
-Frequent posting
-Skilful rants
-Notes about personal events
-Frenetic bouts of energy and passion, even anger
-Occasionally being totally “off the wall”
-Passion or obsession about one or two particular causes or subjects
-Bouts of insight and/or coherence
-Sheer hard work and effort
-Non-inclusion on any of the shortlists for the “LibDem Blog awards”.
-Non-enoblement to the “upper house” of LibDem Blog award judges
-Being on the ball for periods of time, commenting on news items even before many people realize they have happened.
Let them nominations roll!
Liberal Burblings 