Bill Manzi.com

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin makes her first remarks after being named to the Republican ticket.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26457563#26457563

The Draft Governor Palin movement, spurred at least in part by the Club for Growth, has hit the jackpot. Here is a video they produced before the McCain pick.

Governor Sarah Palin is an Alaska Republican that has rocked the party boat in Alaska. Palin is a two term City Councilor and former Mayor of Wasilla, and a losing candidate for Lt. Governor in 2002. She also interviewed to replace then senator Frank Murkowski, who had been elected governor. Murkowski selected his daughter to suceed him in the Senate, passing Palin by. In retrospect a bad political choice for Gov. Murkowski. Governor Murkowski appointed Palin as Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she promptly blew the whistle on fellow Republicans for conflict of interest and other legal violations. The Alaska Republican Party Chairman and a former Alaska Attorney General were forced to resign from the Oil and Gas Conservation Committee, and she made a name as a clean government politician.

In 2006 she took on Republican Governor Frank Murkowski and defeated him in a big upset. She then went on to defeat Democratic former Alaska governor Tony Knowles in the final.

Palin is a life member of the N.R.A., and is pro-life. She is a life-long hunter and rather than hunting varmints like our former governor she hunts moose. Palin is against gay marriage, but her first act as Governor was to veto a bill passed by the Alaska legislature that would have barred benefits to gay employees of the state.

Palin is embroiled in a controversy relative to her dismissal of Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety. Monegan has alleged that he was fired because he had not terminated a state trooper who is the former brother-in-law of Governor Palin after a series of incidents involving the trooper and Governor Palin’s family. The Alaska legislature has hired an investigator to look into this situation, although the trooper was disciplined before Palin became governor. The Governor has denied the allegation, and cabinet Commissioners serve at the pleasure of the Governor.

Palin is married to Todd Palin, a native Eskimo, who is a fisherman and an oil field worker for British Petroleum. Palin has three daughters and two sons.

Senator John McCain has picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, according to NBC News. Palin is a first term governor who defeated Alaska icon Gov. Frank Murkowski in a Republican primary in 2006. She is the first woman ever selected as a Vice -Presidential candidate on a G.O.P. ticket.

NBC News is reporting that Mitt Romney and Gov. Tim Pawlenty will not be chosen by John McCain to be on the Republican ticket.

DENVER – Two of the leading candidates to be John McCain’s vice presidential pick — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — appear to be out of the running, NBC News reported Friday.

Pawlenty has been told he won’t be chosen by McCain, according to NBC’s David Gregory. And Romney won’t be at today’s Dayton, Ohio, rally with McCain, NBC’s Chuck Todd reported. Romney spent Thursday courting donors in California.

New speculatiuon centers on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Stay tuned.

The third commercial in the Pickens p.r. assault on energy. With him and Gore running ad after ad the American public is hearing a lot of talk about renewables. Good ad.

A nice touch from John McCain.

The Obama speech. Did he hit it the way he needed to? I thought he did, directly confronting the main lines of attack against his candidacy. Less flowing rhetoric and more substance. Did he accomplish his goals?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26447607#26447607

A powerful tour de force by Al Gore, indicting the Bush Cheney administration for multiple failures and extolling the virtues of Barack Obama. This video is just for my friend Jules, who looks forward to my each and every Al Gore post.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26446418#26446418

The second commercial from T. Boone Pickens, again pointing to the inherent dangers of the insane energy policy that is leading to the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the planet. Pickens wants to drill, and has no problems with oil, but recognizes the limitations of that policy. Drill here and drill now is not an energy policy, but a slogan. We need oil in the short term, and we ought to take measures to increase domestic production. But that is not a substitute for a strategy that weans us from the dependence on foreign oil that is strangling our economy.