So just what are Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's qualifications for the second-highest office in the land?
Well, for one thing, she's the only person on a national ticket to have ever bagged a moose.
So says California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring.
“She cuts taxes and shoots moose. That's Governor Palin,” Nehring said yesterday in St. Paul, Minn.
(Well, she did raise taxes on oil companies, which boosted Alaska's revenues, but that isn't something likely to get her in hot water with average voters.)
The California chairman said he is particularly pleased by the often-replayed video of Palin on a firing range.
“The reports I'm getting back is that every time they show that footage, we get 1,000 precinct walkers from the NRA,” Nehring said.
Daughter to daughter
Bristol Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate's pregnant 17-year-old daughter, received some words of encouragement from Meghan McCain, Republican Sen. John McCain's daughter who blogs regularly from the campaign trail.
“The first political convention I ever attended was when my mom was pregnant with me in 1984 and the Republican Party nominated Ronald Reagan for a second term as president,” she wrote. “I have been on political stages since before I could walk or talk. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that it is difficult to establish your identity and independence as the son or daughter of a politician.”
Meghan McCain said she was particularly scarred at the age of 14 when a reporter asked her father a hypothetical question about her getting an abortion if she became pregnant.
“This reporter's single question changed my life,” she wrote. “This story comes up in almost every profile written about me and in almost every interview. It's a rough go being the son or daughter of a politician.
“I have not known Bristol Palin very long, but there is a certain kinship I feel to her as I do other political daughters such as Chelsea Clinton, Jenna and Barbara Bush and Mary Cheney,” she said. “You can't fully understand it unless you have lived it. So I just wanted to let it be known that I support Bristol Palin and the entire Palin family.”
Not so new
The presidential television advertising war continued yesterday as the campaigns for McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama rolled out new ads – new ads, but very old themes.
Stop me if you've heard this, but Republicans claim an Obama administration would raise taxes and Democrats claim a McCain administration would amount to four more years of George W. Bush. Oh, and by the way, both are “out of touch.”
Here's the McCain ad:
“Take away the crowds, the chants. All that's left are costly words. Barack Obama and out-of-touch congressional leaders have expensive plans. Billions in new government spending. Years of deficits. No balanced budget. And painful tax increases on working families. They're ready to tax, ready to spend but not ready to lead.”
The Obama ad shows a photo of Bush and McCain embracing. It says:
“They share the same out-of-touch attitude. The same failure to understand the economy. The same tax cuts for huge corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent. The questionable ties to lobbyists. The same plan to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when we should be rebuilding America.”
It ends with a clip of McCain saying, “I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my Republican colleagues.”
A choice that pays
It's been a rocky introduction to the national spotlight since McCain tapped Palin to be his running mate Friday.
First came word of an ethics investigation into the Alaska governor's firing of the state public safety commissioner. Then word of her daughter's pregnancy.
All of this has raised questions about the thoroughness of the McCain campaign's vice presidential vetting process.
But there is a silver lining for the McCain campaign – $4 million in Internet donations rolled in over the weekend.
McCain joked that he wished he had picked her a month ago.
Raucous for Ron
Those never-say-die Ron Paul supporters offered a raucous endorsement of their hero – for what at this point isn't exactly clear – at a spirited rally in Minneapolis.
The libertarian Texas congressman, whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination was an Internet fundraising phenomenon, never quit campaigning even after it was clear that McCain had mathematically clinched the nomination.
A crowd of hearty Paul supporters stood outside of the Target Center in the rain waving signs and chanting Paul's name.
Organizers said they sold more than 10,000 tickets at $17.76 apiece for the “Rally for the Republic.”
“It's a continuation of something we started in the campaign,” Paul told a news conference. “It was more or less something to satisfy the enthusiasm that has been built for the message.”
Palin paparazzi
Just a few cameras will be clicking when father-to-be Levi Johnston shows up at the convention to be with the Palin family and his wife-to-be, Bristol, who as the world now knows is five months pregnant.
Sherry Johnston said her 18-year-old son left Wasilla, Alaska, yesterday morning.
Convention fact
The last national convention in the Twin Cities was the 1892 Republican convention that nominated Benjamin Harrison.
Compiled from news service reports.
