Posts by David Noon

With the nation on the verge of electing Barack Obama to the presidency, I decided to spend the evening surveying the political mood in Juneau, the city to which Sarah Palin would soon be returning as a defeated vice presidential candidate.

The Alaska Personnel Board released its own Troopergate “report” this afternoon, clearing Gov. Sarah Palin — and everyone else on the planet — of violating the state’s ethics laws in the lead-up to the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. The findings of the latest investigation were released without any specific details and [...]

Given Sarah Palin’s vast familiarity with American news sources, one would assume she’d understand that data emanating from the Heritage Foundation does not count as “independent.”  Nevertheless, for the past few days she and the McCain campaign have been repeating a dubious claim from the right wing think tank, which insisted the other day that [...]

Most readers have probably seen footage of McCain-Palin rallies in Ohio or Pennsylvania, where voters who could best be charitably as the “low information” variety have wound themselves into tight little knots of fury over the Islamo-Marxist-terrorist menace of Barack Obama.
Now that voting has begun, the panic over the possibility of an Obama presidency has [...]

CBS reports that a new ethics complaint has been filed against Sarah Palin, this time in response to the recent disclosure that she charged the state more than $50,000 for her kids’ travel expenses when they attended events with the governor.  Though Palin had been invited to these events in an official capacity, her children [...]

Most of the chatter about Sarah Palin’s political future rests on the optimistic premise that Palin, as a presidential candidate, would at last be capable of energizing social conservatives while drawing independent voters in ways that she’s been unable to do as a vice presidential pick. This tableau further assumes that Palin, having taken four years to mature as a national candidate, would carry none of the baggage she’s accumulated — quite literally — over the past two months. Barring a massive swing in the nation’s political climate, Palin will likely be a worse candidate in 2012 than she is at the moment.

Glenn Beck is a strange man. Given to public weeping when he speaks of George Washington, Beck also believes that schizophrenia offers a good model for sorting through and discovering the true meaning behind the day’s news. A living refutation of the principle that low ratings should pose a barrier to career advancement, [...]

Now that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is sifting through pruno recipes, it’s worth reflecting on how his conviction might affect the presidential race. It seems unlikely that Stevens could to any further damage to the “Republican brand,” as the cliche has it. To the degree that non-Alaskans might associate Stevens with Palin, today’s news will probably reinforce Palin’s negative public image, but it’s uncertain what that degree actually looks like. Palin and McCain have done their best to distance themselves from “Uncle Ted,” but Stevens has been unambiguous in his support for Palin.

Down in the polls, the McCain camp has apparently begun imploding, with rifts emerging between the camp’s chief advisers — Steve Schmitt and Nicole Wallace — and the vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
The sources of the intra-campaign tension appear to be numerous, with Palin being accused of harboring diva-like pretensions, which she seems to have [...]

Many of the details in this LA Times piece have been reported before, but the argument — that Governor Sarah Palin has engaged in ritual cronyism since taking office in 2006 — is worth hearing again, given John McCain’s continuing argument that his running mate’s executive experience makes her uniquely qualified to take over the [...]