I don’t see how the Ds can successfully use this against McCain/Palin, and I don’t agree that there is any significant (or even marginal) group of GOPers who are going to sit this out or vote Obama because of this.
What would the MSM/D contingent say? The most potent accusation would be the already-broached Michellobama claim that a person who can’t run her own house can’t run the white house. It was a stupid claim against Hillary and clearly backfired, and it is a stupid claim now. Even so, controlling one’s husband is a world away from controlling one’s kids. So that’s it; a lame response with no traction.
Secondly, the MSM/D contingent will trot out the inapposite claims about abstinence education. Given that no one knows and, hopefully won’t have to know whether Bristol used contraceptives or not, this is a non-starter. In other words, the claim could be just the opposite; that while abstinence education is not always effective, absintinence is 100% of the time. Contraceptives are not. Again, a futile attack.
As for the claim that the right will now eat its own young, so to speak, there isn’t a shred of evidence here or on any other conservative blog. The only negative reaction from conservatives have been from the same persons who didn’t like the Palin pick in the first place and whose response has been political rather than moral outrage. Yet the great fear that McCain has blown it is entirely dependent upon the premature belief that the Ds can use this to advantage. The Ds cannot use this at all, frankly, lest they are willing to kiss at least 25% of the Hillary vote goodbye, as the Hillary blogs are almost unanimous in pointing out (so far).
That leaves criticism of the timing of the announcement—a miniscule issue if any. Palin was announced the Friday of a long holiday weekend. McCain/Palin announces the news within three days, after 72 hours of the most vile, unprecedented, and vicious attacks—possibly in US political history—and does so in a masterful way that turned the tables on the boy-geniuses at Kos and DU. Sounds to me that the roaches at DU and Kos provided McCain/Palin with an absolutely perfect avenue with which to announce the news.
As a political watcher, I won’t go so far as to say this is great news, but I fail to see any evidence or rationale as to why this is bad other than that it is a distraction. Even then, look at how the Clintons, for all their faults, turned what they thought was a distraction (philandering) into a powerful political asset. McCain/Palin can and already have done that here.
Palin is a miracle for the party and the Country; it’s probably only due to the lingering sexism in the GOP that she wasn’t already a national figure before Friday. She will be the first female president, mark my words.
I know diehard liberal O-groupies who are gonna get real uncomfortable if/when the lefties attack Palin or her daughter over this.
Some of these women remember when women lost their jobs or were hidden from society because they became pregnant-even when they were married.
They won’t like this one little bit.