WataugaWatch

Several readers have sent me the link to Mudflats, an Alaska blog written by an East coast native who's lived and worked in Alaska since 1991. This blogger offers more insider specifics on the curious case of the rise of Sarah Palin. First up: Palin's Big Lie that she opposed "the bridge to nowhere" earmark. T'ain't true. "Total fabrication," says Mudflats, who proceeds to offer the irrefutable evidence.

The giggling over Palin among the Sunday Morning Gasbags was under tight control, though the only talking head worth listening to, Republican operative Mike Murphy, who ran John McCain's campaign back in 2000, delivered the only opinion worth the combined hot air: Sarah Palin can make the religious right giddier than the prospect of themo-noookalar war with Russia, but if all she does is solidify McCain's base, she's done NOTHING toward winning this election.

The big giggle moment of the morning came when Cindy McCain said Sarah Palin had foreign policy cred on the basis of Alaska's being so close to both Russia and Canada, two of our most despicable socialist enemies, after Obama, of course. By this reasoning I consider myself an expert on oil and gas, since I grew up adjacent to the oil patch in Texas. Hell, all my uncles were roughnecks on oil rigs, so maybe I ought to be Secretary of Energy! George Stephanopoulos, bless his heart, kept a straight face throughout Cindy McCain's rap.

Under the topic heading ... The Things a Whore Has To Say and Do: A couple of weeks ago Karl Rove belittled Tim Kaine as a possible Democratic Veep pick on Face the Nation:

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished. I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done.

He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It's not a big town.

Oops. It takes a whore to swallow the big ones. Friday on Fox News -- and exhibiting absolutely no involuntary gag reflex -- Rove bragged about Sarah Palin:

She's a former mayor. She's the mayor of, I think, the second largest city in Alaska before she ran for governor.

For the record, Wasilla, Alaska, was not even the 10th largest city in Alaska. It's smaller than Chula Vista, Aurora, Mesa, Gilbert, North Las Vegas, and Henderson.

With all due respect.

Labels: Cindy McCain, John McCain, Karl Rove, Mike Murphy, Sarah Palin

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polling for NARAL Pro-Choice America of 1,788 likely November voters (1,000 representative likely voters plus oversamples of 424 likely-voting Republican women and 364 likely-voting Independent women) shows that (among other things) many women have no idea of John McCain's hard-line on women's rights and that when they learn how anti-choice he is they are much more likely to vote for Obama.

The poll was done in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. With McCain's record on abortion exposed, "Obama gains 6 points overall, with his lead in [these] battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47-45 percent) to a net 13 points (53-40 percent)."

This will be called "push-polling," especially by people who don't like the results. But the bad push-polling we've all heard about is the kind wherein the poller asks the person answering the phone, "If you knew that John McCain fathered a black child, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?" That was used against McCain in South Carolina by George W. Bush in 2000. At least this poll presented correct information about McCain's consistent position on abortion.

This comes out on the same day that Cindy McCain decides to make a big issue out of Michelle Obama's patriotism. We have a lot of questions about Cindy McCain too, even more since she decided to put her own sterling character in the scales next to Michelle Obama.

What do you suppose Cindy McCain would say -- or do -- if some government flunky told her that her pregnant-out-of-marriage teenage daughter could not have an abortion. She'd do what rich, determined, privileged women always did. While still maintaining the unmitigated snootiness to question other people's patriotism.

Labels: abortion rights, Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research, John McCain, Michelle Obama