In a memo obtained by The Hill,the Obama campaign has started to outline their attack strategy on McCain vice presidential pick Sarah Palin. Here’s a sample of one of their tastier talking points:

“What does it say that he knuckled under to the right-wing of his party, who angrily threatened to veto McCain’s preferred candidates, Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, for their pro-choice views?,” the memo reads. “What does it say that, in order to satisfy the right, he hastily selected someone he barely knew-and had only met once – to serve a heartbeat away from the presidency?”

If I were in the McCain campaign, I would jump on the political expediency of Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden for his running mate. What does it say that Obama decided on Biden because he was constatntly criticized for his lack of foreign policy experience and polls were showing a ten-point advantage for McCain in that aspect? Not to mention the racially insensitive comments Biden made about blacks when they rally around someone who is “clean” and “articulate.”
To go further, McCain should pounce on the fact that he’s following through with reforming Washington by bringing in an outsider to give the change that Barack Obama only talks about; why does Obama speak constantly about change but decide to bring in an insider who’s served in Washington since the Nixon administration?
John McCain could gain some serious traction on Obama by raising these points at the GOP convention coming up (hopefully) this week. It’s time for McCain and Palin to hit back.

I decided to stay up late and watch the follow up weekend to the Democratic convention coverage, but it seemed like all eyes were on Sarah Palin. Of course, she is receiving less than flattering reviews from the mainstream media and liberal commentators. Take this excerpt from Paul Begala on cnn.com:

Palin a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people, will have to put on a few pounds just to be a lightweight. Her personal story is impressive: former fisherman, mother of five. But that hardly qualifies her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

How nice. A state with more reindeer with people? Do the Democratic faithful know what happens when you insult rural and small town America? See 2004 election.
Seriously though, Palin has more executive experience than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined. The question that I have is that if Barack Obama is really all about change, then why did he select someone that’s been in Washington for around 30 years?
The trash Sarah Palin party continues at Newsweek.com, with a pretty insulting article written by Jonathan Alter:

The balance between work and family, always a ticklish issue, will be brought into bold relief by the fact that the Palins’ fifth child, Trig, was born with Down syndrome in April. Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman, may shoulder the bulk of the child-rearing duties in their family. But many voters will nonetheless wonder whether Palin should undertake the rigors of the vice presidency (and perhaps the presidency) while caring for a disabled infant. The subject will no doubt arise on “Oprah” and in other venues.

So now we have to bring Trig, a five month old child into the national picture for political gain? Wow. The fact that Sarah Palin has been running a state (with an 80% approval rating, for those who care about polls out there) and has been able to balance a political career with a family life isn’t proof enough? Would she be the only vice president with children? This is yet another attack on pro-life, conservative women who buck the feminist image that women don’t need men or children.
While it remains to be seen exactly how many women will flock to the McCain-Palin ticket, you can bet that the more conservative women out there who were undecided could potentially inch closer to voting for McCain. This scares radical left-wingers like Alter because now it gives those women another choice, and could potentially take away from the assumption that women always vote Democrat.
These are just two examples of the attacks the left-wing has waged (and will continue to wage) against Palin. Expect to hear more about a “scandal” involving a state trooper who tasered his 11-year old child in the coming months.
The most telling thing about McCain’s selection are his actions vs Obama’s words; Obama and McCain both say Washington is broken and needs to be fixed, which is something that all voters can pretty much agree on. However, Obama has selected a Washington insider. Hardly walking the walk. McCain has walked the walk, selecting an outsider with a history of reforming her state. This is why the left fears Sarah Palin.

I spent the night of the 2006 mid-term “thumping” at an election night party for Nebraska Senate candidate Pete Rickets. I put in quite a bit of time volunteering for Rickets, even though a lot of us knew he was a longshot candidate to unseat Democrat Ben Nelson. Rickets got trounced by over 30 points, falling victim to the GOP woes that have seemed to follow all the way up to the primaries this year.
Pete had a great story, but he was hurt by the image that the Democrats were successful in painting of the Republicans; that the GOP was too rich and out of touch, corrput, and all would turn out like George W Bush. While Pete would have made a good senator, it was a hard image to shake and it showed.
I spoke to a few of the other volunteers after he conceded and it was well known that the House and Senate would now be under Democrat control and we all wondered what went wrong. Was it Iraq? Was it Mark Foley? Was it gas pries?
No, no, and no. The problem was that we didn’t have any Sarah Palin’s running for office.
Palin not only is a fresh face, but also made ethics reform and crushing corruption a conerstone of her campaign for governor of Alaska. While Republcans were mired in scandals and trying to get out, only Sarah Palin got it. She knew that in order to get her message heard more effectively, she had to look corruption and scandals in the eye and not only address it, but vow to eliminate it. When she was able to gain the confidence of Alaskans with her promise to reform Alaska politics, she gained credibility and fired up the GOP base. Instead of following her lead, other GOP candidates just repeated old talking points and tried to distance themselves without aggressively fighting corruption like she promised to do.

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