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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Populist Commercials and Oil Money

Hillary Clinton spent April 25, 2008, in Indiana, and gave a speech about economic issues in Bloomington. You can see a clip of it in the video below:

Clinton also broadcasted a populist commercial about the soaring prices of gasoline, an issue very important to Midwest voters. In this spot (see below) she calls for "suspending the gas tax this Summer." 

However, this is the same proposal offered by Senator McCain in a recent speech and is generally considered a gift to the oil companies (it's not clear whether the details of the two plans are identical). An examination of campaign contributions by individuals from the oil and gas industry by the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that McCain has been the largest recipient of their largesse and Clinton comes second. 

So far, individuals from the oil and gas industry have given McCain more than $404,000, while Clinton received $309,363 and Obama $222,309. In fact, nearly 70 percent of the industry’s donations in the 2008 White House race have gone to McCain and other Republicans, which is no surprise knowing that the Bush administration has been a figurehead for the oil industry during the last 7 years.

It's somehow bizarre, instead, that Clinton would attack Obama on this issue, when he is the least connected to oil interests of the three candidates.