Separation of Church and State, Alaska-style

As you can see in New York Times's interactive map of the language Republican used during the Convention, there was much talk about "God" and about "Business" in St. Paul, which is not surprising.
Mainstream media, however, failed to notice that Gov. Palin has an habit of mixing God and Mammon even more thoroughly than the average George F. Babbitt. A few months ago - as reported in the Anchorage Daily News - she flew from Juneau to her hometown of Wasilla (courtesy of taxpayers) to meet a religious group and deliver the following remarks "I can do my part in doing things like working really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline." Palin said. "Pray about that also. I think God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that."

Praying for a pipeline... wow!, not even George W. Bush had thought something like that, so far.

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Palin's 15 Minutes of Fame/2

McCain's campaign released today a statement to let the world know that Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of John McCain’s running mate, is five months pregnant, but has "the love and support of her family." No less. The statement goes on saying that "Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family." The young man is not even named, and the text convey a certain lack of enthusiasm.

It seems fair to report that, in answering to a 2006 Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire, Palin stated that she didn't support "explicit sex-education programs." Too bad. Maybe now Governor Palin will change her mind about what 17-year-old girls should learn in high-school.

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McCain-Palin's Rebranding of The Party Remains Doubtful

It appears that rejuvenating the image of the Republican party, and making its brand more popular among women is not as easy as it seems. The first polls taken after Palin's choice on Friday show that among Democratic women - including those who, according to mainstream media should have been truly disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination - 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% LESS likely (Gallup).

According to Rasmussen, women soundly rejected her, 48% to 25% in answering to the question: "Is she ready to be president?

Overall, likely voters expressed a favorable impression of her by a 53/26 margin, but there was a severe gender gap on this: Men embraced her at 58% to 23%, while for women it was 48/30.

The widespread uncertainty about whether Palin is qualified to be president amounts to the lowest vote of confidence in a running mate since the elder George Bush chose then-Indiana senator Dan Quayle to join his ticket in 1988. 

Is that surprising? Only for CNN and FOX pundits (as Frank Rich pointed out in his excellent column yesterday). The long trend of American politics are well-established, and one of them is that women tend to vote Democratic because of Republican Party's staunch opposition to abortion. As a large majority of women are pro-choice, it is only natural that they vote for the party who supports their rights in the political arena. Palin is the darling of pro-life women (and men), a constituency that was skeptical of McCain tepid attitude toward their crusade to outlaw abortion. In this respect, it is another move to consolidate the Republican base, not to hunt in the Democratic pastures.

The problem of this strategy is obvious: this year, the number of citizens who identify with the GOP is much smaller than the number of those who consider themselves Democrats. The gap is about 29% to 37%. This means that bringing to the polls all the faithful supporters of the two parties will translate in a large victory for the Democrats, assuming that Independents split 50-50 between McCain and Obama.

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Charlie Cook Thinks That...

Charlie Cook, the founder of the well respected "Cook Political Report" wrote six weeks ago:

"My father turns 90 years old next month and has joked that at his age, he doesn't buy green bananas anymore.

The folly of a 71-year old nominee picking a green, relatively inexperienced running mate seems much more serious, particularly if that presidential nominee sells as his strong suit that national security credentials are his "raison d'etre" for the presidency.

In a very challenging national security environment, putting someone on McCain's ticket who only has experience heading the Florida or Minnesota National Guard would seem a stretch given McCain's rationale for the presidency."

It turns out that McCain selected not the governor from Florida (pop. 18,251,000) nor the one from Minnesota (pop. 5,200,000) but the chief of ALASKA National Guard (population unknown, but a lot of salmon).

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