Palin's Stall: Governor is stonewalling the Troopergate investigation

From the Anchorage Daily News:

Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.

Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules.

As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president.

The allegations are that she, her family or administration improperly pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Gov. Palin's ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who had been in the middle of a custody dispute with Palin's sister.

In July, when legislators started talking about conducting an investigation, Palin denied any wrongdoing and said she welcomed an investigation.

"Hold me accountable," she said.

The Legislature took her up on that offer. But this week, she basically told the Legislature, "Never mind."

Palin's lawyer has asked the Legislature to drop its investigation. He had the governor file an ethics complaint against herself, in a bid to turn the entire matter over to the state Personnel Board, which would hire an independent investigator.

This is not an open and transparent attempt to establish Gov. Palin's accountability. It is an attempt to drag out the investigation until after voters decide the fate of her vice-presidential bid.

Instead, Gov. Palin should honor her pledge to cooperate with the Legislature's investigation, conducted by former state prosecutor Steve Branchflower.

She could start by telling aide Frank Bailey he has to talk to the legislative investigator. She should fire him if he doesn't.

Bailey was caught on an audio recording of a phone conversation with a Public Safety Department official, in which Bailey pushed to get Wooten fired.

Bailey was put on paid leave, not fired. A spokeswoman for Palin said that while Bailey is on the state payroll, Palin can direct him to cooperate with the legislative investigation.

So why is Bailey still on the payroll, after he bailed on a scheduled interview with the legislative investigator Wednesday?

The Legislature hasn't given its investigator the power to subpoena, or compel, testimony of witnesses. Subpoenas appeared unnecessary, since it appeared the governor and administration would be cooperating.

That's over. It's time for the subpoenas.

The Legislature's investigation is supposed to be wrapped up by Oct. 31. That's obviously poor timing from the standpoint of the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, coming just a few days before the national election.

Instead of trying to delay the whole thing, Palin should take a cue from U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who asked that his corruption trial be moved up so it would be completed well ahead of the November general election. Voters deserve to know the outcome of Sen. Stevens trial and the investigation into Palin.

When this investigation into Troopergate started, Gov. Palin's response was refreshingly open. Since she became the Republican candidate for vice president, her approach has changed for the worse. America deserves the same openness and ethics from vice-presidential candidate Palin that she promised to Alaska voters in 2006.

BOTTOM LINE: Gov. Palin is stonewalling on Troopergate; the Legislature should issue subpoenas.

Make or Break?

And yesterday people thought Sarah Palin had a lot riding on one night.

Palin: A Feminist?

From Talking Points Memo:

Many people are unfamiliar with Feminists for Life and wonder what the choice of Sarah Palin, who is against abortion rights, signals to the electorate.

Well, let me tell you something about Feminists for Life. In 2003, I decided to investigate this group and its energetic leader, Serrin Foster. What did it mean, I wondered, to be a feminist and actively fight against the right to choose when or whether to have a child?

...

Feminism is all about having choices, Foster told me, after her talk. I couldn't agree more. Young women, she says, should have the right to bear a child and have access to high-quality, affordable child care. Again, I heartily agreed.

But Foster is cleverly disingenuous. When I asked what she does to promote child care, her answers were vague and evasive. When I read the organization's brochures aimed at campus physicians and psychologists, I found nothing about campaigning for child care. The real goal is to convince professionals to persuade young women to "choose" to bear a baby.

...

In the end, I decided that Feminists for Life is neither about feminism nor about choice. It is a cunning attempt to convince young women that choice means giving up the right to "choose."

Sarah Palin is the inexperienced woman Sen. John McCain has chosen as his running mate, hoping that she will attract the vital female vote.. It's the worst kind of affirmative action, choosing a person he barely knows, who is completely unprepared to assume any national office. It's like nominating Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. It's all about ideology and not about competence.

To put it bluntly, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. Nor does she have the vision and brilliance of Barack Obama. This is an incredible insult to most American women. Just how stupid does he think we are?

Relentless

Wonderful recap of the primary election. Download it. Read it.

Florida?

There is a very interesting take on fivethirtyeight.com about why HRC would make a good choice for VP. I have been saying that for weeks now, that I totally changed my opinion on adding her to the ticket. We may know today, or tomorrow, but it is very doubful that she's the pick. However, with 25 + % of the HRC primary voters saying they will vote for McCain, it's hard to imagine a running mate who would do more for Obama than her.

The other name that I haven't heard at all, except for a slight blurb on POTUS '08 (XM Channel 130), is Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida. As electoral-vote.com put it, "[He] would certainly put Florida in play. That alone might be reason to choose him. There is no conceivable way McCain could get 270 electoral votes without Florida." Nelson won his last race in Florida by the largest margin by a Democratic candidate in the last century.

All of this leads me to question why Obama isn't concentrating more effort into Florida. If Obama gets Florida (and he is only a few points back) his job gets monumentally easier. 538.com has him only 50-50 to win all the Kerry states, but with Florida, Obama can lose multiple states that Kerry won and still win. Assuming he wins Iowa (where he has not trailed in a poll since 2007), Iowa plus Florida means that McCain would have virtually no chance of winning.

The bottom line is today is a huge news day. There is no major Olympic event finals tonight (gymnastics, swimming, and the 100/200m track finals are over), and any news would be big news. I would love to see Obama take advantage. HRC is in Florida today and Florida is busy recovering from a hurricane. It would be a wonderful pick-me-up to all of the Florida voters who went to the "beauty-contest" primary and voted for Clinton to get a text message this afternoon that says only this:

"Dream Team."

He's Fighting Back

I like this ad. It hits McCain where he is vulnerable. His wife is worth over $100 million and for as much of a 'One of the Guys' act as he puts on, he's as out of touch as President Bush.

The big thing for the Obama campaign is that they need to have a consistent attack.

Kerry was "flip-flooper"

Obama is "Celebrity"

McCain needs that label.

Obama has been doing a great job of running attack ads in individual states, but he has yet to come out with the consistent attack theme that all of his surrogates can latch onto.

Ugly Math

A look at the most recent electoral map, with each state being decided by who is leading in the RCP average, indicates that for the first time this entire election cycle, Mr. Obama is now trailing in the electoral vote count. This is a massive and significant development.

First, for a candidate that is claiming he will drastically "change the map," he is trending towards an identical finish as John Kerry with the additions of Iowa and New Mexico. This is a major blow to the argument that HRC's 'Kerry +1' strategy was not aggressive enough. It is hard to see her losing any of the states he is ahead in (except maybe Iowa), but her prospects would be much better in places like Florida, Ohio and West Virginia.

Second, the reality has become that McCain dominated Obama in the Saddleback forum. For a candidate that shunned townhalls with McCain (apparently to prevent McCain from getting free media coverage) the one he did agree to was in front of an audience that was 70% against him, and with a questioner who's religious philosophy unquestionably differed from his own.

This was a major mistake. Obama is not going to win a forum on Christianity. What he needed was a forum with mothers of fallen soldiers or with people who lost their jobs under Bush. The conventional wisdom has become that Obama is terrible without the benefit of a teleprompter and a podium. Saddleback did nothing to change that.

Third, McCain is controlling the media, the discourse, and the message. What are the three current themes of the campaign? Celebrity, drilling, and the Georgian conflict. All of which Obama loses on. It is downright embarrassing for his campaign that he has completely lost control of his own message and the direction of the race.

With McCain picking his VP a day after the close of the DNC and a convention-bounce unlikely, Obama needs to take some drastic steps immediately to regain control of the race.