A Republican from Wasilla
No, not Sarah Palin. That’s not the Republican from Wasilla I’m referencing. Rather, I’m thinking of Charlie Huggins, the guy who waltzed in from moose hunting to cast the decisive vote in favor of subpoenaing all the people the McPalin campaign had convinced to stop cooperating in the TrooperGate investgation. The final vote to subpoena those who withdrew their cooperation after Sarah Palin became the Republicans’ best hope to retain the White House was 3-2, with Huggins joining two Democrats; the original vote to launch the investigation was a unanimous 12-person vote.
But the McCain campaign, in explaining why the Governor will no longer deliver the cooperation she earlier promised, now claims the investigation is "tainted," in spite of the fact that the investigation retains bipartisan support.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is unlikely to meet with a special prosecutor looking into whether she or other state officials improperly pushed to punish a trooper, a spokesman for John McCain’s presidential campaign announced Monday.
Since Palin was named as McCain’s running mate Aug. 29, the campaign has dismissed the state legislature’s investigation into her dismissal of the state’s director of public safety, saying that Democrats are exploiting the probe for political gain.
McCain campaign spokesman Ed O’Callaghan said that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with the investigation, which he called "tainted."
And remarkably, I don’t think they’re talking about the evidence that the investigator believes a state contractor lied to him because she had a "financial incentive" to do so.
Nope, I just think they believe this is tainted for the same reason they think every real question about Palin’s qualifications is "sexist." Because McCain’s campaign depends on hiding how unqualified Sarah Palin is to be Vice President–not least because of a long, documented problem with abuse of power.
Sort of makes you wonder whether the Republican from Wasilla, Charlie Huggins, voted to subpoena the witnesses involved in the cover-up precisely because he knows the abuse of power Sarah Palin is capable of?
Update: Huggins’ spelling corrected per FrankProbst.
i wonder if huggins will be bought off..
as for palin, she is setting a terrible example which turns people off of politicians which is: saying one thing and doing another.. she was for the investigation until she wasn’t… forget about accountability with this bimbo.. it an’t gonna happen..
Maybe someone in tradMed will finally ask this question: Why would McCain choose a running mate mired in an ethics investigation? (and the fact that she is the first VP candidate EVER to be selected and campaign while in the middle of an active ethics investigation looking into her abuse of power). It goes back to vetting and to McCain’s judgment (or lack thereof).
Maybe McCain’s new slogan should be: “Vote McCain-Palin because nothing says reform like a VP candidate under an ethics investigation.”
so now that she refuses, will they attempt a subpeona against her?
what are the chances that succeeds?
So I was out of the country for a month, had very little access to news. When I first head that she had been selected, I honestly thought it added 100 electoral votes to Obama’s total. I mean, WTF, she’s Dan Quayle with an ethics problem!
Now I’ve returned, and jumping right into the middle not having watched how it came about, the campaign coverage looks like Sarah Palin is running against Obama. It kind of makes Obama look small. It makes McCain look invisible. And given that the ethics issues were well known beforehand, makes me wonder if they are likely to stick anytime in the next eight weeks.
Sarah Palin has less experience than George Bush did in 2000.
Doesn’t the campaign ad sort of write itself at that point?
The real story about Sarah Palin, IMO, is her favorable/unfavorable ratings. The day after her acceptance speech, they were super high. But they’ve been slipping fast ever since–now they’re almost even, favorable unfavorable.
After the initial roll-out, the Republicans managed the roll-out well, basically secluding her from the press. That basically postponed the time when people would know what you know.
SO now they’re gambling that more people hate the press than not.
Meanwhile, the truly foxy VP candidate made a great speech in Michigan yesterday. TPM has the full text. It’s interesting to pick up the slight variants as Biden delivered the speech.
That speech was changing right up until delivery–they definitely pounced on McCain’s “fundamentals” comment.
The “fundamentals” quote should be running 24/7 on Obama ads – it’s pure Hooverism. On CNN this morning, McCain’s solution to the Panic of 2008 was to ‘…have a 9-11 Commission…” work on regulation for the 21st century. Yes, Mr. Maverick’s response to a trillion dollar financial and housing crisis is…..a Blue Ribbon Panel! Actually, he could probably just go and ask Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina how it happened and save a lot of time, since they know exactly how the fuck-up happened in the first place. That, my friends, is decisive, straight talkin’ mavericky action we can believe in!
….also, I think you are right about the story about Palin being the rising negatives. She has already played her Greatest Hits about the Bridge, the Jet, the Teleprompter, and they already seem to have lost their lustre for all but the rabid base.
Biden will do well in Ohio.
That was a great speech.
OT:
Folks, Ohio got hit, like many states, with category 1 hurricane winds on Sunday sent us from Ike. Now, the damage was nothing like the Gulf Coast of course, but the damage was significant. Our kids are out of school (2 days). The effort to restore power has been difficult. My neighborhood, like many, experienced downed trees on every lot and many lots have damage. Outside of the Gulf Coast Ohio has the second most out of power and the second most in damage.
We are lucky, our neighborhood, one of the few, had power restored seven hours after losing it. My parents are still without power so we have them at our home and salvaged their food. Many families, who did shopping on Saturday, lost all their food and do not have money to buy meals for this week. There are areas running low on bottled water in those areas with well water. Our neighborhood is working together to help one another. Power could take as much as seven days to restore in many areas. There will be about a 40% restoration by Wednesday. Some grocery stores lost all their frozen food cases because they could not run their emergency generator long enough.
This has made many concerned with how bad it is for those on the gulf coast.
By the way, the emergency weather service originally announced the winds were not going to be as strong nor sustain…they were wrong.
I’m sorry to read that, Klynn (about Ike, not about Biden).
Up here, we heard that Ohio and Chicago had taken worse hits than expected, which took a lot of force out of the storm by the time it crossed the border. We expected worse; very little happened in Toronto; north and east of here some places like Peterborough had downed trees and power losses, but those will be prepared by mid-week.
My best wishes to anyone who’s struggling to eat and keep warm and well lit this week. For a while, in advance, Ike brought us Texas heat, but it’s suddenly chilly, and winter’s coming on.
Ack. My fingers did one of those funny things — “repaired,” not “prepared.”
What is it about typing?
Klynn sorry to hear about your parents and other folks in your neck of the woods. Electricity out in neighborhoods in Athens for 12 -24 hours. The winds and skies were wild from Sunday at 3 p.m. until Monday around 5 a.m. Trees down. But compared to what took place along the coast…the damage is minimal here. The coverage of damage along the coast reveals how serious it is.
Hoping WO and others down that way are holding up. Red cross is a great way to help.
http://american.redcross.org/s…..=ntld_main
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..id=topnews
When Joe Sixpack is arrested under suspicion of DUI, he loses his license in most states if he does not cooperate with the investigation by giving a breath or blood sample.
When Sarah Palin comes under investigation for abuse of power, she becomes Vice President for not cooperating with the investigation.
And that is what is wrong with our country today: the lack of consequences when those in high position in government or industry break the rules. When the same rules once again apply to everyone, we will have emerged from our long nightmare.
OT, perhaps (but is anything really OT with this lawless gang?);
T. Boone Pickens, recently nailed for propagating lies as a funder of John Kerry’s swiftboating (and refusing to pay up the $1 million he offered to anyone proving that the Swiftboaters lied), has declined (on second thought) to fund the Swiftboating of Obama. His fellow Texas billionaire, Harold Simmons, is said to be picking up the slack.
Isn’t it time to saturate the national market with some 30-second TV spots (four different spots, let’s say) on the vileness of this Simmons guy? This could cost…how much? $10 million? Wouldn’t it do a lot to stuff these guys in the latrine from which they emerge, one by one by one? Billlionaires have lots of name recognition, after all–or at least their financial standing should guarantee that their names will be recognized right away.
This blizzard should come so fast that the courts can’t stop it. A Rovian maneuver of the most basic kind.
josh has pointed out a very interesting factoid on palin’s refusal to cooperate with the troopergate investigation:
notice who announced it; not her AK spokesperson, not her campaign, not by the investigation.
nope; by the mccain campaign spokesperson.
also, this one (from the boston globe):
what’s the difference between bush and palin?
lipstick.
Wasn’t it already clear that she would not testify, for when she held her going away rally in her home town a few says ago, she said something to the effect that “I’ll see you back here in November, and I will bring my friend (MCain)?
Last night on Campbell Brown’s CNN hour all she could find to report about were the Sarah Palin impersonators. Campbell did not find Trooper gate substantive enough to focus on or ask questions about. No mention of the Alaska folks protesting against Sarah’s performance and unwillingness to testify.
Campbell Brown also chose to quote Karl Rove’s comments about the tone of the campaign. You know Karl’s comment about how dirty the campaign is getting. If Campbell is going to mention what Karl thinks why not mention that Karl has yet to testify in front of Congress. Call Karl out instead of quoting him. How absurd.
No need to wonder why Sarah is able to repeat lies when folks in the media like Campbell Brown focus on Sarah impersonators instead of asking Sarah serious questions about her lies and troopergate.
Does anyone know the ins and outs of Alaska politics? I mean, Charlie Huggins (Proofreader note to EW: You spelled it “Huggins”, then “Higgins”. I think “Huggins” is correct.) is from Palin’s home town, and he could have shut this thing down with his vote. The Republicans could have then pooh-poohed the whole thing as a “partisan witchhunt” by the Democrats. The fact that he didn’t do so tends to raise my eyebrows. My sense is that a LOT of Alaska Republicans really don’t like Palin, but I’m obviously not a local, so I can’t be sure. It seems to me that if people simply disliked her, they would do the pragmatic thing and help her get elected, thus removing her from the Alaska governorship and Alaska politics in general. The fact that several Republicans are refusing to do so leads me to believe that the animosity toward her is so profound that they can’t stand to see her succeed, even if it means they’re still stuck with her as governor.
You note that Huggins is from Wasilla. He is also a member of the same church as the Palins. It is a small town and many connections. The State Senate leader is Lyda Green,also from Wasilla. Lyda, who is 70+, has decided not to seek re-election this time. She was once a supporter of Palin but now as been vocal to the public and an active opponent of Palin over the past two years. Green is one who speaks her mind but has long been involved in Republican party politics for years in Alaska. I think she sees Palin as just an opportunist who will trash anyone and everyone to achieve her ambitious goals. You can read more about Huggins at http://www.akrepublicans.org/huggins/index.php.
More chuckling about Sarah
“Sarah is the Bush Doctrine”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…../#comments
SJC subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property started at 10.15.
Brownback just said something paranoid about bringing detainees to U.S. prisons. (Sorry: I just turned it on.)
I think that the big thing that he does here is that he gets the rape kit story on television. Just like Tina Fey got the crystal meth capital of Alaska story on TV. She’ll probably lie about it if she’s asked, but it becomes something that the media can check and then put in their catalogue of lies. (Why no one has asked about her no-abortions-for-rape-victims stand is beyond me.)
We can put money on that Campbell Brown will not be asking any of those substantive questions about Sarah’s abuse of power. Campbell will probably have some more Sarah impersonators on. Has anyone in the MSM had Charlie Higgens on to discuss his firing?
“A McCain spokesman said today that Palin will not cooperate with “that investigation so long as it remained tainted and run by partisan individuals who have a predetermined conclusion.”
Who else makes up the “tainted” list? A picture and description of the “tainters” would be interesting