9:50pm Central:
I'm north of the city of Houston so we are only getting winds now. Every family member I have has called tonight (I guess they love me...;-). We are under a tornado watch and that is my main concern.
Tornado's scare the heck out of me.
I am keeping myself amused by watching Geraldo on Fox News slipping down in water and trying to speak with rain spattering in his face.
The flooding is already bad and the storm has even really started yet.
I keep changing to the local stations to watch them interview the people who stayed in Galveston even though an official announced on TV that if they stayed to please write their social security number on their arm in permanent ink so they can identify the body.
But....they stayed. 40% of the residents last I heard.
I have a bad feeling about the whole thing.
9:54pm
CenterPoint Energy is reporting about 300,000 customers are now without electricity this evening. Wow. And the weather isn't even that bad yet as much as I can see on local T.V.
I suppose that means I'll have power only until the storm reaches us.
10:11pm
Local stations reporting that downtown Galveston is under five feet of water and the storm hasn't even hit yet.
10:56pm
I decided I better take a shower since I might not get another chance for a while if things get crazy. Local news reporting several fires in Galveston.
11:00pm
The front of the neighborhood has lost electricity and the wind is hardly blowing! It's only a matter of time for me then. So I might not be blogging for much longer.
I'm guessing I won't getting any sleep tonight.
I will be texting my friend Beth at Yeah, Right, Whatever (she isn't in Houston) when things get bad, so you might check over there if you want an update.
In the news of the wierd there is this from The Houston Chronicle:
The Black Panther Party says it deployed 17 of its members to area gasoline station convenience stores to protect them from theft in the hours before and after Hurricane Ike makes landfall.
Owners asked the group to provide private security for their property, said Major Kenyha Shabazz, chairman of Peoples Party No. 3, the Houston affiliate of the Black Panther Party.
"These are the places that service our communities with food, water and fuel,'' Shabazz said. "We don't want these places torn up.''
During the daylight hours, Panthers were standing guard at boarded-up convenience stores in the East End, North Houston and Third, Fourth and Fifth wards. They planned to spend the night in the stores and be back out front at dawn.
Interesting.
11:40pm
Wow. 600,000 without power now. Still just windy here.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Live blogging Ike
When attacks go bad
These things happen when you are so determined to denigrate your opponent you don't do the most easy of research (like using google) before you stick your foot in your mouth.
From NRO
The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has a new ad attacking Gov. Palin's wildlife management policies in Alaska. In particular, the ad focuses on her support of aerial hunting of wolves and bounties on wolf kills. The ad puts the aerial hu What the ad doesn't mention is that the wolf hunting program is an effort aimed at keeping the wolf population down in order to protect Alaska's caribou and moose populations (in particular the former). A large and healthy caribou population is important both for the state's hunters and subsistence populations that rely on caribou for food.
Then there is this:
Yep. The day after 9/11, as part of its "get tough" makeover, the Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer, without caring why he doesn't use a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad:
"Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country.
From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):
McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.
Good grief.
Big Bad Hurricane
This is Galveston and the Hurricane hasn't even hit yet! Forecast says Ike will hit the coast with 115 mph force. Galveston neighborhoods are already flooded.
This is going to be bad folks, real bad. My heart goes out to all those who live on the coast. I saw on the news this afternoon these beautiful beach homes already halfway under water. They will be history. I'm wondering if Galveston will be history.
I just drove around here (and I live north of Houston) to run a few errands and it's really eerie. There are just a few clouds and the wind isn't even bad, but all businesses and restaurants are closed, even the grocery stores. This is the first time I have seen homes and businesses boarded up since I moved here 8 yrs ago. It was almost ghost like.
Everyone just seems to have a sense of dread about them. We are just waiting for the fury of nature to descend.
Last I heard the weather will start around midnight. We are far enough north that we will not be affected by the worst of it (I hope), but I'm a bit nervous about tornado's. But I am prepared.
There won't be any sleep tonight for all us in Houston.
Keep us in your prayers.
McCain Marches On
The purpling of Virginia is something to behold and has turned it into a vital swing state in the election. On Wednesday, September 10th, the McCain campaign made its way to Fairfax, Virginia to rally their troops and take advantage of the momentum built from VP pick Sarah Palin.
Here's the delicious part:
23,000 people showed up to the event which was originally scheduled to take place at Fairfax High School. The liberal school board called an emergency meeting to stop the rally which turned out to be a boon considering the school property holds 6,500 people max. An adjacent park was adequate space to make a quick showing for the Presidential aspirant and his running mate.
I love it when liberals try to squash free speech and it backfires on them, don't you? Check out the video (Fred Thompson spoke!) and pics!
via NRO
New ad "Disrespectful"
These instant rebuttals from both sides are interesting, aren't they. I suppose they are playing in battleground states? Because I never see any of them from either side on TV here.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
I Think I Get It Now
Everyone will have their opinion of how Sarah Palin did with Charlie Gibson on ABC. I thought she did a great job, but the left will dissect it, of course. So let me just move beyond that and share with you what occurred to me while watching the interview.
This is part of the interview and the portion where Gibson tries a "gotcha" question about the "Bush Doctrine."
I want you to just observe Gibson's demeanor and attitude. Then I want you to compare that with his demeanor and attitude in an interview with Obama.
Gibson's bias against Palin is so overt and so over the top that ABC should be embarrassed.
With Obama he is smiling and friendly. Jovial even.
While watching the Palin interview it occurred to me what it really means when someone speaks about the "media elite."
Gibson sees people like Palin (and people like me), all conservatives really, as beneath him. That much is clear in the interview. He is condescending and aloof in his questions with her, as if he can't really be bothered. He asked her questions the way my college professors used to ask his class questions, with a bit of disdain at what he knows will be an immature answer.
People like Gibson see themselves as so intelligent and so aware of how truly superior the liberal view is, that they can barely disguise their disgust for those who believe differently. Gibson sees someone like myself, who graduated from a state university in the south or southwest, as one of the "common people." He would never admit that of course, but he simply oozes, if I may use his word, hubris.
To Gibson, Palin is simply one of those gun toting, bitter faith filled peasants that cling to those things in order to make sense of life. Is it no wonder that he relates to Obama? Is it no wonder that he questions Obama with the familiarity of a close friend? Their world view is the same. He sees Palin's worldview as ignorant and beneath him.
Palin held her own and Gibson never laid a glove on her, but he revealed himself as the personification of what we cannot stand about the mainstream media. The arrogance and the bias are clear. It is also why newspapers are dying and cable news is flourishing and the new media will eventually be the way all Americans get their news and opinions.
Many Americans may very well cling to their faith and their guns, but not because of their "frustrations," but because we understand that our country was founded on such principles as the 2nd amendment and freedom of religion. We get that. We don't see ourselves as better than others. We see ourselves as in this together. And we don't need a leader who thinks that we are stupid and out of touch. We don't a leader who fits in so easily with those in the media who share a disdain for so many in America who don't share their liberal beliefs.
We don't need Obama and we don't need Charles Gibson. Let us not be fooled by "just words."
As Palin says in her stump speech, there is really only one man in this race who has ever fought for you. That man is John McCain. And you can say or disagree with many things about McCain, but he has never shown the disdain for the American people who believe differently than he does, the way that Obama and the media elite do almost every day.
Obama will not fight for you, he will only fight for his belief in the way he wants the world to be, with people like Gibson, hollywood and himself allowing us to learn from them.
Excerpts from Palin interview
From TV Newser:
First on TVNewser: Insiders tell us the first Charlie Gibson/Sarah Palin interview is complete. The first sit-down lasted 30 minutes and included questions about energy independence, foreign affairs and whether Gov. Palin is ready to be Vice President. "Absolutely," is her response. When asked if she is ready to step in and be president of the United States. Palin answers, "You bet."
We're told Gibson asked for two extra minutes and used it to ask Palin whether she agrees with the "Bush Doctrine." Among Palin's responses:
• "The top priority is to defend the United States of America. I know that John McCain would do that."
• "With new leadership comes opportunity to do things better."
• "War has got to be a last option."
• "If a strike is imminent we have every right to defend our country...and that's what a McCain/Palin administration would do."
• "In order to stop Islamic extremists we must do whatever it takes. We must not blink, Charlie."
Update: More from USAToday:
When asked by Gibson if under the NATO treaty, the U.S. would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin responded: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help."And we've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable."
Also:
Palin defended a previous statement in which she reportedly characterized the war in Iraq as "task from God".Gibson quoted her as saying: "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God."But Palin said she was referencing a famous quote by Abraham Lincoln."I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words. But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side."
More:
Gibson: "Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say 'I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?' "Palin: "I do, Charlie, and on January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, we'll be ready. I'm ready."Gibson: "And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"Palin: "I didn't hesitate, no."Gibson: "Didn't that take some hubris?"Palin: "I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate."
I would hope that her explaining her remark about God's task would shut up those who insist she was speaking for God, but it probably won't because nothing will stop them.
What irks me is that Obama always goes on about God when he is speaking in Churches, but he never gets drilled like this. Why do you think that is?
GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it is God's plan."
PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, in my world view, is a grand -- the grand plan.
GIBSON: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?
PALIN: I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.
Never Forget
There was a moment when we Americans were one. We were not Republicans. We were not Democrats. We were not Protestant or Catholic. We were not left and we were not right. We were one.
Hurricane's a'coming
It's not looking good.
I've got my generator, batteries, candles, food, water, and most importantly wine and beer.
No evacuation for me. Rita proved to me that one is better off standing knee deep in water in their living room than to get on a Houston highway during an evacuation.
I'll keep posting as long as we have electricity.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Pattern of Behavior?
Ace has some clips up of supposed examples of Obama being condescending to Hillary. I actually felt that way too during the primary. Especially in this clip above. When Hillary says "Well, that hurts my feelings." I actually laughed out loud. I was astonished myself. Hillary made me laugh. She was funny. But then Obama gave her his smug "You're likable enough" and I stopped smiling. It WAS condescending. There is also the "sweetie" comment to a reporter you might recall. Ace thinks there is a pattern here. Which would make the "lipstick on a pig" comment a bit more interesting. You decide.
The Pink Elephant in the room
I kept wondering why in the world the left would keep attacking Sarah Palin when it was clear that attacking her was backfiring. I wondered why Obama's request to leave her family out this was ignored by his supporters. Surely, I thought, they see that all these nasty smears are only helping rally people around Sarah and only making themselves look bad.
Then I realized what all these type of over the top nasty stuff was about, abortion.
My brother once said to me, "It's always about abortion to you." And I replied, "Because it is always about abortion."
I wrote recently a post titled "The issue that haunts us." In that post I wrote that until the people of America have a real debate on this issue and the people look at all the evidence, and then decide what is right, this issue will continue to raise it's ugly head.
I've worked in the pro-life movement for over 20 years. I've listened to the despair of women affected by abortion and I've heard from women through my blog who feel abortion didn't affect them at all. The Alan Guttmacher Institute of Reproductive Health, states that "At current rates, 43% of all women will experience abortion at least once by the time they are 45 years of age."
That is a great many women. Many who have forgiven themselves and asked God to forgive them, and they now are pro-life. Many staunchly believe they did the right thing and are pro-choice. But the vast majority, in my opinion, clench their teeth at the Doctor's office when asked how many pregnancies they have had. They don't talk about it, they don't want to think about it, and they try not to vote based on it. They just want to forget it.
When you read the testimonies at places like "Silent No More" you see that so many cannot forget. Their stories will break your heart. So many women who were coerced into abortions by husbands, boyfriends, bosses, and parents. In a hundred different ways, it was never their "choice."
But for the pro-choice side, they don't want to hear those stories. They don't want admit that women are forced into abortions every day in this country.
For feminists it's one thing for some male politician to be pro-life. Feminists figure, "what do they know?" But for a women to be nominated for the Vice President of the United States and be pro-life? Well that is unacceptable. This brings out rage. Literally. Especially for those feminists who have justified and even sometimes celebrated their abortions. To them Sarah is a slap in their face. Every time they see her, they see someone who says that aborting their baby was wrong. It's made worse by the fact that Sarah even chose to bring a disabled child into this world. Trig's mere presence reminds them that some mothers choose life no matter what the circumstances.
These women lash out in anger at Sarah Palin. They feel that her candidacy questions their choice. It opens the book of their life to a very painful chapter that they never wanted to remember.
These attacks on Palin will continue no matter what Obama says or does. Because this isn't about Obama now. It's about the choices we make and have made. Palin symbolizes a woman who has made a very different choice than they did. And they cannot forgive that. They will not stop proving to the world and to themselves that Sarah is wrong. She must be wrong for them to continue to hold on to their "right." She must be wrong for them to resist opening up that wound that they refuse to treat.
She must be wrong, because her being right is just too painful to imagine.
"S.C. Dem chair: Palin primary qualification is she hasn't had an abortion"
From Politico: (emphasis mine)
South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate " whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”
Palin is an opponent of abortion rights and gave birth to her fifth child, Trig, earlier this year after finding out during her pregnancy that the baby had Down syndrome.
Fowler told my colleague Alex Burns in an interview that the selection of an opponent of abortion rights would not boost McCain among many women.
“Among Democratic women and even among independent women, I don’t think it helped him,” she said.
Told of McCain's boost in the new ABC/Washington Post among white women following the Palin pick, Fowler said: "Just anecdotally, I believe that those white women are Republican women anyway."
Isn't that special?
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Limitless possibilities
A caller on the Rush Limbaugh show reveals the "real" Sarah Palin.
CALLER: And I wanted to share a story with you. A week ago last Saturday we went to the Palin-McCain rally in Washington, Pennsylvania, was the day after he announced her, and we have a five-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, and we made a sign that said: "We Love Kids with Down Syndrome."
McCain and Sarah noticed the sign and asked them over by the campaign bus.
CALLER: Right. So we accompanied them up the hill, we went right to the bus, where it was, and Governor Palin, Senator McCain, Cindy, Todd Palin, they're all standing there. We're in this inner circle with just us and them, and the Secret Service agent, and they came right up to us and thanked us for coming out, said they loved our sign, and Governor Palin immediately said, "May I hold your daughter?" and our daughter Chloe, who's five, went right to her, and I have some pictures I'd love to send you maybe when I'm done here, but Governor Palin was hugging Chloe, and then her little daughter brought their baby Trig who has Down syndrome from the bus, he was napping, and Chloe went right over and kissed him on the cheek, and my son Nolan who's nine, he thanked her.
More:
RUSH: And then could you send us these pictures? Would you mind if we put them on the website?
CALLER: I would be honored, and my main thing is they are warm, kind, genuine people, and they represent the best of this country.
More:
CALLER: Well, we're very blessed and I want people to know what a blessing it is to have a child with Down syndrome. These kids, they're angels.
RUSH: That's the thing. There's always good to be found in everything that happens. It may be a while before it reveals itself.
CALLER: Absolutely.RUSH: Right, and when she hugged my daughter I said, here's the difference, this candidate embraces life and all its limitless possibilities.
That's it for me. That is why I love Palin. She "embraces life and all it's limitless possibilities."
Excuse me?
From Ben Smith's blog:
Amie Parnes reports from Lebanon, VA:
Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new "change" mantra."You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig.""You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink.""We've had enough of the same old thing."
Did Obama just call Sarah Palin a "pig?"
Classy. The "new politics" I suppose.
If We Win....
It will be because of women Democrats like this.
*Warning. She uses uhh...colorful language.
h/t Alabama Improper
"How Obama Blew It"
One of the Democrat's own explains how the left's attack on Palin has blown up in their faces:
A Washington Post poll had that lead at only two points, but clearly showed a McCain surge - especially among women. This wasn't what Democrats were expecting when they left Denver - yet they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Obama's toughest challenge has always been to connect with working-class swing voters. So attacking the poster child for small-town values, Sarah Palin, was a bad strategy.
No, Obama didn't engage in the mass sneering at Palin - but he did fall into the trap of disrespecting her. When McCain chose her, the Obama campaign's first response was to ridicule the size of her town. Then the candidate himself began referring to her as a "former mayor" when she is in fact a sitting governor.
When she retaliated (justifiably) by mocking his stint as a organizer, the Obama camp was clearly rattled. Obama himself actually began arguing about the importance of community organizing. His supporters amplified this cry - claiming Palin's attack was a racist slur and passing around e-mails titled "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor."
More:
Meanwhile, the media lit up in all their cultural-elite splendor.
Alaska? they sneered. It has the population of Las Vegas! Funny how the coastal elite only sneers at red states with small populations. Howard Dean hailed from a blue state with almost the same population as Alaska and was a national phenomenon and front-runner for the presidency. Joe Biden's Delaware has a similarly small population - but no mocking was forthcoming there.
Evangelicals will never vote for a woman who works! they declared. This from people who've likely never met an evangelical in their lives. They could barely contain themselves when they found out Gov. Palin's daughter was pregnant, so sure were they that evangelicals would hang her from the highest tree. When evangelical leaders expressed support, there was a palpable disappointment that Palin or her daughter wasn't branded with a scarlet letter.
They claimed that the Palin announcement was some desperate pick that came out of nowhere. Had they been doing their jobs, or even perusing The Weekly Standard or right-wing blogs, they'd have known that she was on the list.
Since they didn't know anything about her, they started making things up. Anything that fit the caricature of a right-wing hypocrite was thrown up with, seemingly, no fact-checking.
They said she opposes contraception, when she said in a campaign debate that she is pro-contraception. They said she cut funding for pregnant teens, when she provided a massive funding hike.
They accused her of cutting funding for mentally disabled children, when she raised it 175 percent over the former administration. She was said to have been a member of the wacky Alaska Independence Party; The New York Times had to run a retraction.
What is amazing to me is that there are people out there (many commenting on this blog) that not only refuse to admit they were wrong in their smears, but continue to advance the lies that have been debunked! They think that if they say "the sky is red" enough times, it will be true.
Obama, to his credit, realized that that attacking her family would not work on Palin, but Obama's supporters didn't listen. The mistake that Obama himself made was to diminish her accomplishments. Now Obama will have to pay the price for what his supporters are doing and he can't claim complete innocence in attacking her unfairly.
"No one was ever hurt"
Jake Trapper at ABC News points to a "cartoon" Bill Ayers wrote about his bombing days: (emphasis mine)
"From his Chicago home, Bill Ayers responds to the 'We didn't do enough,' statement, a soundbite echoing ad nauseam through the media."Says the Ayers cartoon: "It's impossible to get to be my age and not have plenty of regrets. The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.
"During the Vietnam war, the Weather Underground took credit for bombing several government installations as a dramatic form of armed propaganda. Action was taken against symbolic targets in order to declare a state of emergency. But warnings were always called in, and by design no one was ever hurt.
The only problem is that people were hurt. In fact, three people were killed.
From Wikipedia:
"Apart from an apparently accidental premature detonation of a bomb in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion which killed three of Weatherman's own members."------ "However, according to Mark Rudd, one of the founders of the Weathermen, the group that constructed the bomb that exploded prematurely in Greenwich Village had planned to set it off at a dance in an Army NCO club, which presumably would have had lethal consequences."
I think the fact the it was three of his own doesn't discount the fact that three people were killed by Ayer's actions.
*Note: Interestingly since I wrote this someone has disputed this. It now says: "The neutrality of this section is disputed.
I'm thinking the families of the three dead wouldn't dispute it.
A Big Thank You to The Left
Bill Kristol has the perfect thank you note up here.
Thanks to the liberal media and Obama's arrogance, this race is looking like a real honest to God race.
"First: Thank you, Barack Obama. He lacked the confidence or the strength to ask Hillary Clinton, recipient of some 18 million votes, to join him on the ticket. Such a ticket, uniting and exciting the Democratic party, would have been hard to beat in this Democratic year. Having ruled out Clinton, Obama then lacked the nerve to double down on the theme of change, by selecting, say, Virginia governor Tim Kaine or Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. A change versus experience election wouldn't have been a bad bet for Obama. Instead, he settled on an unimpressive vice presidential pick, a long-time, long-winded overrated senator from a safe state, who gave him no lift at all in the polls, and offers no prospect of doing so.
Second: Thank you, John McCain. He showed guts with his pick of Sarah Palin. He also demonstrated a shrewd strategic sense. He knew that running on experience would carry him only so far--most likely to a respectable defeat. He understood the implications of Obama's passing over Hillary--not that Clinton voters would vote for McCain-Palin (though if even a few do so, it could make a difference), but that his pick of Palin when compared with Obama's shying away from."
Even better:
"Third: A special thank you to our friends in the liberal media establishment. Who knew they would come through so spectacularly? The ludicrous media feeding frenzy about the Palin family hyped interest in her speech, enabling her to win a huge audience for her smashing success Wednesday night at the convention. Indeed, it even renewed interest in McCain, who seems to have gotten still more viewers for his less smashing--but well-received--presentation the following evening.
The astounding (even to me, after all these years!) smugness and mean-spiritedness of so many in the media engendered not just interest in but sympathy for Palin. It allowed Palin to speak not just to conservatives but to the many Americans who are repulsed by the media's prurient interest in and adolescent snickering about her family. It allowed the McCain-Palin ticket to become the populist standard-bearer against an Obama-Media ticket that has disdain for Middle America."
So the left can keep their attacks coming. It is only rallying the base and more. I can't tell you how many of my friends and bloggers weren't too keen on McCain before Palin, but the attacks from the left and the way the media has treated Sarah Palin has brought them home. They are fired up and ready to take it all on for the Republican ticket.
I don't take too much from polls because they always change as I mentioned in a few posts below, but this one from RealClearPolitics illustrates how much gratitude we should have to the media and the leftwing attackers.
In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.
Check out this poll!
Majority of independents now prefer him over Obama, 52% to 37%
Thank you!
h/t BigDog
Monday, September 08, 2008
McCain/Palin at Colorado Springs
Palin is Our Voice.
In the 70's I thought of myself as a feminist. I believed that women were as capable as men in education, work, and in sports. To me it was about self confidence. It was about not letting anyone tell you that you couldn't achieve what you wanted to achieve. It was about independence and self reliance.
In the 80's I realized that the feminist movement had moved beyond those things into the man hating, abortion loving, radical movement that it is today. Feminists lost women like myself and apparently women like Sarah Palin, long ago.
What many women like me love about Palin is that she represents not only what we believe to be true about the equality of women, but also the gift of being a woman. We know that it isn't the same as being a man. We know that there are different gifts. And the most wonderful gift we are given as women, as opposed to men, is the gift of carrying our children within us and giving birth. We love this essential part of our being. We love the men who share our life and help us created these incredible wonderful creatures we call our children.
Feminism seemed to reject that and that is why we rejected it. Growing into womanhood in the 70's and 80's, we were strong independent women who also believed in a strong and loving God. We believed in the sacrament of marriage and the miracle of birth. We weren't the subservient housewives of the 50's, but we certainly weren't the bra burners of the 70's. Like Sarah, we were athletes who competed with the best of them, and never admitted defeat. We were students who excelled as well as the boys in our classes. We were the girlfriends who didn't let the boys take advantage of us. We were the ones who worked hard, but never let work consume us. We were the mothers who saw our children as the greatest of gifts.
We could no longer call ourselves feminists because we saw the advocating of abortion as the horror for what it is. We didn't see men as patriarchal, but as partners in life. We saw ourselves as independent, but understood that marriage was a shared experience. We saw ourselves as strong, but understood our need for God. We embraced our faith and our strength together.
This is why women like me connect so deeply with Sarah Palin. She stood up to the good 'ole boy network in Alaska, but as she did it, she never forgot that family and children were the most important thing and that faith was what she would rely on to get there.
Sarah Palin believes in the things I believe in. She fights for the things I fight for. She is strong and she celebrates being a wife and a mother. She knows the heartache that comes with life and she still stands up and gets back to work. She seems to view her life, full of love, family, work, and the kind of problems we all face, as the gift that it is. Our lives are wonderful and messy and we love it. And that is why we love her.
For me and for so many women, she is our voice.
Palin and Convention bump
Nice.
McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters
I almost missed this. Thanks to DaveW for noticing. Even better:
In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.
