Those are Chuck Todd's words.  Think about it.  In one week she has energized the base in a way McCain can only fantasize about.  In that one week she brought in $10 million.

Now trolls, don't get me wrong.  I am not "running scared" that Obama/Biden will lose the election.  I think their campaign is too organized and disciplined to let that happen.

But I am damn scared IF McCain wins.  I think Palin is a far more frightening potential president than George Bush ever was and she will only have been assessed by the voters for 62 days before the election.  The prospect of her being a hearbeat away from the Oval Office truly scares me.  She is what the Christian right has been dreaming of all these years when they started putting their own on tiny school boards and city councils back in the early 90's with the hopes that they would work their way up.  Well folks, here she is.  Seemingly out of the blue (even though I'm believing that less and less).

In the words of Barack, "enough" and "not this time."  Voters got hoodwinked and then robbed in 2000, we got swiftboated in '04 and Kerry folded like a wet tent in Ohio.  We cannot afford another term of not the same but worse.  Palin is Bush without the insight.  She is Bush without the intellect.  She is Bush without the lack of internal motivation.  If McCain gets elected say goodbye to Roe v. Wade.  Adios to ANWR.  Kiss the endangered species act goodbye.  Look for further assaults on the LGBT community.  Watch a new energized Christian right assault libraries and public schools from coast to coast.  The Monica Goodlings of the world will be safe, secure and in power.

Sarah Palin is no fluke.  Believe them when they say she was vetted.  She was, just by their own unique criteria.  It is time now to move beyond the babies, beyond any possible affairs.  Let the National Enquirer handle it.

Here are three suggestions for how we as individuals can handle this and help Obama and, in the long-run, ourselves:

1.  E-mail three friends who are not a tuned in politically as you are and provide information about Palin's extremism.
2.  We should all get out of our comfort zone of echo chambers like TPM and work to convince independent/moderates who are more likely to frequent mainstream sites like the Washington Post.  Engage them in the comment section.  Use cogent arguments.  Avoid ad hominems and view persuasion as a long-term project.
3. Help the Obama campaign: canvas, phone bank, donate.

I love the conversation on this site, that means you Tena, but the country would be better off if we all agree to come back on Nov. 5th to celebrate what a great job we did.  No one here needs convincing to vote for Obama (with about four or so obvious exceptions) so what are we doing here?  Let's get out there and win this thing!

Palin's eagerness to slash important social programs is finally getting some attention: Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms at WaPo.

But a closer look at her budget axe beyond the salciousness of teen moms shows how careless she is. Palin slashed funding for the Fairbanks Food Bank in half right before Thanksgiving and has consistently chopped up requests by first responders for new equipment and trucks.

• Fairbanks Northstar Borough - $300,00 for a new fire/rescue truck.
• Butte Volunteer Fire Dept. - $10,000 for a fire safety equipment upgrade.
• Mat-Sue Fire Dept. - $25,000 for fire safety equipment.
• Kechamek Emergency Service Area - $25,000 for personal protection equipment.
• Kake (city, borough?) - $400,000 for a new fire truck.
• Central Rescue Team - $20,000 for a feasibility study for a new station.
• Anchorage Fire Station - $750,000 to renovate a fire station.
• Salcha Volunteer Fire Dept. - veto of $240,000 for a mini pumper and ten fire rescue suits.

The framing of Palin has to move beyond experience to extremism. Anyone who eagerly cuts requests by small fire departments for a new truck or fire jackets is simply out of step with mainstream Americans.

The NYT just put this up:

The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

The topic of whether Sarah Palin was actually pregnant makes me uncomfortable, but the evidence sure is suspicious.  When one reads the press accounts of the announcement of her pregnancy, which was just a month before the birth, it just gets weirder and reminds me of Rosie Ruiz where the evidence of her cheating during the 1980 Boston Marathon was perfectly obvious if one just ignored the euphoric chatter of her victory and looked at the facts soberly.

These are just a few snippets of the coverage and excuse the lack of links for I pulled these from Nexis:

Unassuming Alaska commentator Elise Patkotak gushes without seeing:

“I will eventually get over the desire to stand up and scream at Sarah Palin, ‘Are you kidding me here? You’re seven months pregnant? Where are you carrying this baby? In your pocket?’ Once that impulse has passed, I’ll be left with a quiet feeling of satisfaction that I was of the generation that led to all the Sarah Palins who dot the American landscape today.”

A writer at the Anchorage Daily News who hails himself as Alaska’s Ear pronounces three rhetorical questions and completely ignores what the last one suggests:

Well, darlings, is there anything left to say about Sarah’s pregnancy? After the acres of ink spilled since the announcement, Ear sees only three unanswered questions: What’s the gender? What’s the name? And how the hell could she get to be seven months pregnant without anyone leaking it to Ear? So much for the Omniscient Orifice.
And by the way, not a single reporter noticed? Are these the people we count on to watch the government for us? It’s mind-boggling.
Sharon Leighow, the governor’s press aide, was there when Sarah told a small group of reporters, including Bill McAllister, Wes Loy and Steve Quinn, as she was leaving the building Wednesday.
“You should have seen it,” Sharon said, clearly amused. “Their eyes went straight to her stomach. There was about seven seconds of silence. Then someone said, “You’re kidding.”
The Luscious Lobe is inclined to blame the general cluelessness on the fact that the Juneau press corps is overwhelmingly male, but Sharon insists she too didn’t know until last week. Sarah effectively hid her baby bump with long scarves, jackets and coats, she said.

And here is the front page story from the Anchorage Daily News, once again tripping right past the obvious mystery because its answer would be so incredible:

Palin said she’s already about seven months along, with the baby due to arrive in mid-May.
That the pregnancy is so advanced astonished all who heard the news. The governor, a runner who’s always been trim, simply doesn’t look pregnant.
Even close members of her staff said they only learned this week their boss was expecting.
“I thought it was becoming obvious,” Palin said. “You know, clothes getting snugger and snugger.”
But people just couldn’t believe the news.
“Really? No!” said Bethel state Rep. Mary Nelson, who is close to giving birth herself.
“It’s wonderful. She’s very well-disguised,” said Senate President Lyda Green, a mother of three who has sometimes sparred with Palin politically. “When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child.”

Oh yeah, and she was back at work three days after giving birth.  Pics of Palin during the supposed pregnancy here.

Now that everyone has a had a couple days to digest McCain's head-scratching choice for running mate, it makes sense to understand how to approach her.

A current push by the GOP is that Palin's  experience trumps Obama and Biden's (and McCain's) because she has sat in an executive office.  That's silly on its face and hardly passes the straight face test, but enough independents may buy this line to offer a few thousand votes for McCain here and there.  It also opens the door to a line by line assessment of her executive abilities so that the question becomes one of not just raw experience but, more importantly, competence.

Experience I think is not the way to go here. First, Democrats will get themselves involved in a fighting match of Palin's vs. Obama's qualifications.  To frame an argument between a lightweight VP candidate against Obama will diminish the latter.

Also any hint of sexism, of course, will explosively backfire.  I've already seen enough on the internets over the last 48+ hours to make any feminist's blood curdle. Any argument that Palin is too stupid or unsophisticated will be interpreted by the media, which  is looking for a fight, as sexism and it will be held against Democrats.

The beauty of the Palin pick, though, is how the age meme writes itself.  Obama maybe opened the door to McCain's temper question on Thursday, but it was McCain on his own who picked a 44 year old un-vetted running mate on his 72nd birthday.  The natural question, which Obama never has to raise himself, is what happens if McCain doesn't last the whole term?  Most voters will view Palin as far too dangerous an option in this post-9/11 world.

The best area to attack Palin directly is that she is a dangerous extremist.  She is virulently pro-life, is a global warming denier, wants creationism taught in schools, supports sadistic aerial hunts of wolves and bears when voters have twice turned down such an initiative and believes that the only route to energy independence is to drill more oil and gas and has rejected wind power.  Simply put, Sara Palin is outside the mainstream.  Such an argument does not rely upon her experience or her gender but about what she believes in.  That coupled, with McCain's age and her lack of judgment (trooper-gate) should render her irrelevant outside hard-core right wing voters.