Palin facing voters who doubt her readiness
NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin enters her debate Thursday night with Democratic rival Joe Biden as many voters harbor serious doubts about her readiness for the nation's highest office.
An AP-Gfk poll released Wednesday found that just 25 percent of likely voters believe Palin has the right experience to be president. That's down from 41 percent just after the GOP convention, when the Alaska governor made her well-received debut on the national stage.
Thursday night's debate in St. Louis gives Palin a chance to overcome the doubts in a 90-minute showcase, her first lengthy give-and-take session since joining the GOP ticket with presidential candidate John McCain.
McCain on Thursday dismissed suggestions that he was upset with campaign staff for holding back Palin and not letting her be herself on the campaign trail.
"We let Sarah be Sarah. She's smart, she's tough, she's been in debates before," McCain told "Fox & Friends" on Fox News Channel. "The American people ... the more they see of her, the more they love her, and I'm confident of that at the end."
Palin has granted just a handful of interviews and has appeared at times to be uninformed about national issues. For example, in a CBS News interview aired Wednesday she appeared unable to cite a Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed while saying many decisions had divided Americans. McCain and other Republicans criticized such questions as "gotcha journalism."
"People will have a chance to see her from beginning to end without being edited," former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., told CBS' "The Early Show" on Thursday.
"We've all had bad days," Thompson said, "and she's had some bad moments in some of these interviews, just like the rest of us have had."
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a prominent supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign, played up Palin's debate experience from her race for governor as she argued that Palin has sharper skills than she's being given credit for. The Democratic National Committee has e-mailed news stories to reporters describing Palin's able performances in gubernatorial debates in 2006, part of the party's effort to dispel the notion that Palin is a sub-par debater.
"I think Joe obviously has a challenge tonight. The expectations are so low for Sarah Palin and it's difficult for him, I think. No matter what he does he's going to be criticized," McCaskill told CBS. "Sarah Palin will be tough tonight. She's a good debater, she's an effective communicator, and she knows how to throw a punch with a velvet glove and a smile on her face."
In a conference call Wednesday with reporters, McCaskill was blunt about Biden's potential for error: "My friend Joe Biden has a tendency to talk forever and sometimes say stuff that's kind of stupid." Asked to clarify her remarks, McCaskill said she meant them "affectionately."
A poor performance by Biden could cement a negative image for the Delaware senator.
Palin has been preparing at McCain's retreat in Sedona, Ariz. Biden has been undertaking his own intensive preparation near his home in Wilmington, Del., though he went to Washington for Wednesday night's vote on the economic rescue package.
The 90-minute televised debate was to take place at Washington University in St. Louis, with PBS anchor Gwen Ifill serving as moderator. Ifill herself has come under criticism from some conservatives because she is writing a book on blacks and politics, with a chapter on Obama.
"Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn't writing a book favorable to Barack Obama," McCain told Fox News. "But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will treat this as a professional journalist that she is."
John McCain Must Release His Medical Records
Our guest blogger is Dr. Clark Newhall, MD/JD of Salt Lake City, UT, one of over 2,700 doctors from around the country who signed an open letter calling on John McCain to release his medical records.
In a time of increasingly complex and difficult issues both here and abroad, it is imperative for Americans to know the health of the candidates. Yet John McCain has never released his full medical records and he has severely restricted the public’s ability to judge his health. When McCain publicly “disclosed” his medical history, what he really did was provide a carefully selected set of medical records (1,173 pages in all) to 20 carefully selected reporters who were allowed three hours to review that massive pile of paper. They were not allowed to make copies and not allowed to consult with medical experts during the review. With this kind of pseudo-review, it is certain that we cannot know much about McCain’s health.
What we do know is concerning: The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology reviewed the cancer taken off McCain’s head in 2000 and found it to be “highly suggestive of a metastasis of malignant melanoma and may represent a satellite metastasis.” Even with the most optimistic scenario, if McCain has a metastatic malignant melanoma, he has only a 38% chance of surviving past 2010.
McCain had a melanoma taken off his head in 2000 but he has had several other melanoma cancers removed before that. It is not difficult to believe that a previous melanoma could have been the metastasis to the temple that was removed in 2000. If John McCain has a recurrence of melanoma, the attendant surgery with the possibility of chemotherapy is likely to be debilitating.
For these reasons, it is imperative that Americans demand the full and unconditional release of John McCain’s medical records.
It is sad that the GOP will not recognize the historic value of Sen. Obama being nominated as the first black candidate for the presidency from any major party in the US. The fact the Ms. Ifill is writing a book to explore this fact does not bother most people who have an open mind with regard to race and gender in American politics, not to mention a curiosity about their own nation's history. This is a cynical tactic. It is so off-base that I am beginning to wonder if it is inherently racist in it's origin. (da) BTW, Gwen Ifill is female as well. But, I guess that won't count in the "media bias" spin.--java
The Anti-Ifill Sideshow
01 Oct 2008 04:06 pm
Come one, come all, as the media chases this story down the rabbit hole.It's a little bit depressing. And predictable.
Smearing a journalist for the sake of smearing a journalist. Guilt-by-racial association.
Gwen Ifill seems to be writing a legit book... its title reflects an undeniable truth: Obama heralds -- and represents -- the new black political power structure.
Covering this as a "Republicans worry that" versus "media defends" story isn't intellectually honest. Republicans aren't actually worrying. They're pretending to worry in order to divert attention from the content of tomorrow night's debate.
The proper response of Ifill's friends should be eye-rolling, not defensive-crouching, as the latter just feeds the conflict even more.
And it's kind of insulting to Gov. Palin... as if she's going to crumple in the face of a moderator who might not be sympathetic. I've been watching previous debates. Palin can handle a tough moderator.
Democrats can be guilty of this sort of thing too -- in a way, the Ifill-mania is just a more egregious version of working the refs, but Republicans have patented this art.
Video: John McCain with the Register's editorial board
Sen. John McCain met with The Des Moines Register's editorial board Tuesday, September 30. You can watch the entire meeting (almost an hour) or watch shorter clips on specific topics.
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