Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

I wended my way to Denver from Seattle last week my preferred way, by car. The vast empty of the high desert that comprises most of the geography between the two points always lends itself to some good thinking, and I needed to do some good thinking about this election, where it could lead for our future, and what it could mean for the West. [more]

By far the most comprehensive and insightful political convention coverage this year has come from the National Journal, usually considered a thorough but boring insider's record of Beltway politics.

Now is the time to shine, though, for those reporters and editors who have been at the politics game long enough to know the ins and outs but still fresh enough to approach the coverage with energy and to do so broadly. OK. My point is this: If you're interested in what it's really like at the Republican National Convention this week -- beyond the tabloid-driven revelations about Sen. John McCain's running mate's daughter -- or if you want an honest account of what impact the news has made at the convention, go to the National Journal. [more]

From Colorado's KUNC

In this interview with KUNC's Brian Larson, Jody Hope Strogoff, the editor and publisher of the Colorado Statesman, says Colorado delegates to the Republican National Convention -- going on this week in Minneapolis -- are united behind Sen. John McCain, despite the large majority of the state voting for Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the primary election.

Strogoff also gives us a peek into the delegates' first days at the RNC, how they're responding to news of VP pick Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy and why the McCain and Palin have scheduled their first campaign stop together for Colorado Springs.

Strogoff tells KUNC, "He just wants to wrap up the conservative vote in Colorado and Colorado Spings is probably the place to go if you want to do that."

Click here for the full interview on KUNC.

News of Note

As the GOP convention in Minneapolis kicks off, Montana delegates and party leaders are fired up about Sarah Palin.

They say she's a good play for conservative and independent voters in the state -- and she knows the issues and complexities of policy in a rural state.

Party chair Erik Iverson tells John S. Adams of the Great Falls Tribune that the pick "makes a lot of sense from the standpoint in winning the election" and Rep. Denny Rehberg says in a release, "As a rural western state, Alaska has much in common with Montana, from rural schools and gun rights to tremendous natural resources and Native American issues. Sarah Palin was born in Idaho where she attended the University of Idaho and has spent most of her life in Alaska so she knows her way around the Mountain West and the I-90 corridor. The selection of Washington D.C. outsider Sarah Palin was inspired and will serve as a welcome asset to John McCain's campaign.”

More from Adams' story here.

Diary Of A Mad Voter: Jessica Peck Corry

Enough change already. Two days into their national convention in Denver, Democrats proclaimed a need for change with a passion seen only from the aggressive panhandlers staked out on the 16th Street Mall a few blocks away.

But behind all of the rhetoric of new beginnings, an aged policy platform has emerged. As eight U.S. Senate Democratic women took the stage Tuesday afternoon to present their "checklist for change," it was hard not to feel sorry for them. [more]

Missoula Notebook

As I sifted through news reports about Palin this weekend, I seemed to find more and more evidence suggesting that — given the upside-down, Bizarro World that American political culture inhabits — Palin will not hurt McCain’s candidacy but might even help it and, indeed, might even find herself in the Oval Office one day. I’m already anticipating that Palin will “win” her debates with Joe Biden, not despite but because of a shaky grasp on the facts of foreign policy. [more]

Presidential Politics

This one is sure to stir up the morality debate a little further: Republican Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant, and plans to marry the father. The announcement came in response to persistent blog rumors alleging that Palin's recent baby, born last April 18, is actually her daughter's. Bristol is said to be five months pregnant. Will the religious right's love-fest with Palin come to abrupt end in light of the pre-marital sex, or will it be reinforced by the decision to marry and have the baby?

Convention Coverage: Reporter's Notebook

These questions are from email received during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Plus I made a few of them up.

Q. What was it like?
A. The whole town was a big party around the clock. Street music, hawkers with every kind of Obama product you can name, Denver “hosts” in official tee-shirts directing people everywhere. The 16th Street Mall is like a long Main Street with open space in the middle, which was occupied by vendors selling everything from political memorabilia to on-the-spot neck massages. You had to walk this mob scene every day to get to the Pepsi Center, but it was great fun.

Q. Did you meet anybody famous?
A. I shook Caroline Kennedy’s (who is very short) and Michelle Obama’s (who is very beautiful) hands, and got ten feet from Jimmy Carter (who is looking frail) who turned and smiled at me when I stupidly called out, “Mr. President!” (what was I going to say next? Come over here and talk to little old me? I was without a master plan.) I met Clinton's Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (who really is 4'5"). I sat next to either Judy Woodruff or Leslie Stahl on a press bus, but she was asleep so I’m not sure which one it was. And around the press halls it was hard to miss Diane Sawyer (who is tiny) Keith Olbermann (who wears very expensive clothes) Joe Scarborough (who is skinnier than he looks on TV) and Rush Limbaugh (whom it’s really hard to miss.) And I met quite a few Congresspeople, but I’ll be danged if I remember who.

[more]

Presidential Politics

Sen. John McCain's choice of obscure Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday was greeted with amazement in her home state and among many political analysts. The selection is obviously a gamble and, as was surely intended, reflects McCain's maverick streak. An appealing personality, Palin will shore up McCain's support among evangelical Christians, and the fact that she is a true Westerner who hunts and fishes (and whose husband is a champion snow machine racer) could help the ticket among rural blue-collar voters, especially in the Mountain West.

Yet the argument that she will draw disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters seems fanciful; the older feminists and veteran party loyalists who formed Clinton's base are more likely to be offended by the tokenism of such a thinly-qualified woman on the ballot than inspired to vote for McCain.

Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, Palin moved to Alaska with her family as an infant, though later returned to the Gem State to attend college. She graduated from the University of Idaho with a journalism degree, though the Idaho Statesman reports that she left "light footprints" on campus, with no current faculty or staff remembering much about her. The media knows hardly anything about her either, and as James Rainy points out in the LA Times, with the press now racing to Alaska to look under every rock, "the rush to judge the governor promises absurdities from both sides of the spectrum."

EYES ON COLORADO

Thursday may have been Barack Obama’s turn to light up the Democratic National Convention, but it was Colorado’s day in the sun.

“It’s fitting to have the eyes of the nation on Colorado,” said Rep. Mark Udall, whose father Mo made an unsuccessful presidential bid and addressed the Democratic National Convention 32 years earlier. “It’s fitting that the change we need in Washington starts here in the Rocky Mountain West. It was hope that first carried early Americans here, not know what lay ahead but knowing they must go forward, just as we must go forward. And like those early Americans, we believe this is a land of fresh starts and boundless optimism. We look to our mountains and prairies, our wide-open skies, and we see the limitless possibility that is America.” [more]