Biggest impacts —spiking of anxiety and fear levels—will I be okay?

Very interesting. Makes me wonder what would have happened if Hillary had been the nominee—would Bill’s finances dragged her down? We may never know now. But I agree w you, full steam ahead on the team we have in front of us.

I think its impossible to second guess a possible Obama/Clinton ticket now. If Obama had picked Hillary, McCain would have picked someone else (probably male) and all the ads would have been slamming Clinton, dredging up the old scandals in addition to the angles they are ripping Obama with.

Thanks Liz—I’m a bit too young to remember the Kennedy years, but my interest in them has recently been spiked by my fascination with the show “Mad Men” which is this season set in 1962 (last year it was 1960 and had tidbits about the Nixon/Kennedy race). I’ll check out both books, especially the fiction one.

I think all the hysteria is due to one simple fact, both sides, love her or hate her (doesn’t seem to be any inbetween), recognize that she could tip the balance and result in the GOP winning in November. The Republicans have new energy, and a new message —grabbing Obama’s “Change” message, and the Dems realize that not nominating Hillary may have enormous consequences.

I’m with you Donna. I have no problem watching/listening to many conservative commentators, David Brooks, Monica Crowley, even Pat Buchanan is okay, although he can make me roll my eyes at times. Its Elisabeth’s demeanor that is hard to take, not her opinions.

Whoopi—I agree that name-calling is rarely productive. But sometimes a name is a good shortcut, it encapsulates a lot of information in a few words. I think calling Palin “Barbie” does that. It may be derogatory, but it gets across a constellation of inferred information, much as is contained in calling McCain “A War Hero”. Unfortunately most people don’t take the time to look at and evaluate the issues, and they vote based on things like family tradition (what party their family always has been), personality, and the effectiveness of the advertising package put out there (think Mad Men on steroids). So to me, its okay, although I am totally with you that calling her a B**** is not. BTW I heard the RNC convention delegates were 93% white. I don’t have a similar statistic for the DNC.

Everything I’ve heard about his grandmother sounds typical to me.

I’m not sure Vietnam in any way protected our rights.

Her speech bothered me, but what I found really scary was how the crowd ate up all that meanness and spite, they were thrilled and fired up. I was watching and thinking—is this what 1/2 (approximately) of the country believes in and likes??? Yikes!!!

Heard on the radio and interesting comment from a woman journalist. She said she was offended by the sexism directed at Sarah Palin this week, both the negative and positive sexism. The negative we all know —? like can she be a mom and VP etc. But the positive I hadn’t thought so much about, that her looks and charm are being touted as reasons she is such a great candidate. As she asked, if Sarah looked like Madeliene Albright (a great person in my mind) would people be so bowled over by her?

Thanks Star—I like your picture of her, not that it jives with what I saw last night, but I appreciate your take. My only solace if she and McCain are elected is that we are likely to have a democratic congress, who will likely moderate who they can get approved for the Supreme Court and any bills will have to be both signed by McCain and approved by congress. My parents were great believers in divided government, we may soon have that again.

Star—I’m curious, I’ve been reading your comments, and you’re obviously in Palin’s corner. What do you see in her, like about her that so many of us are not seeing?

That is the basic story, but all complaints against the trooper that were lodged were dealt with through the system. Palin just didn’t like that the displinary review didn’t result in his firing. I think the main point is that she, like Bush, believes her desires should be carried out without regard of what the law is. This indicates abuse of power, and we’ve had more than enough of that for the past 8 years.

Thanks Liz, that sums it up for me fairly well. The trio of Romney, Guiliani and Palin seemed to embody a Republican party that lies without compunction with crocodile smiles. Romney—“liberal Supreme court” as it upheld basic rights for Guantanomo detainees, Guiliani —9/11 means we have to continue to invade other countries (even if they pose no immediate threat) with no mention of the cost to our treasury or domestic programs, and Palin—putting down Obama in so many ways, including belittling the job of community organizer. They have no issues, so they rely on character assasination. If any of you have Christian friends who are swallowing this I heard a good comback today—Jesus was a community organizer, while Pontius Pilate was a governor.