A condensed version of Cindy McCain's convention speech:

I have a lot of kids. Watch me kiss them.

As I fly around the country in my private jet doing my duty to help the unfortunate, I get really sad.

If we had no federal government to get in our way, rich people could do so much more to help the poor. Only Republicans understand this.

My husband rocks. Women look for a good father when they decide to get hitched. John takes showers with us, er, John showers us with love.

If you don't elect my husband, we're all going to die.

You can trust my husband. He's a good driver. So is Sarah Palin. You want their hands on the wheel.

[more ...]

John McCain, More of the Same.

Is anybody watching the Republican National Convention? John McCain speaks at 10 p.m. ET. We'll have a new thread up for that, but if anyone has anything to say before then, here's a place and an open thread.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland:

“Just from what little I’ve seen of [Michelle Obama] and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said, according to The Hill, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.

When asked to clarify, Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

The only surprise is that it took so long for a prominent Republican to say it out loud.

“It was only a matter of time before Republican officials shifted from oblique racially-charged language to brazen racially-charged language,” wrote Steve Benen, author of a blog for Washington Monthly magazine.

Westmoreland is thinking about running for governor of Georgia in 2010. Is he trying to solidify his base?

In light of last night's speeches at the Republican National Convention, the Obama campaign is reminding the public of this video, shown at the Democratic National Convention. These are the community organizers who were the objects of scorn and derision yesterday in speeches by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. Ordinary people trying to make their communities and their country better. To the white conservative crowd, "community organizer" might be a code word, but ridiculing people who do good work is a strategy destined to backfire.

A "mountain of dismal economic news" released today will not help a McCain-Palin ticket that has no economic plan more sophisticated than "What Bush did" and "drill, baby, drill."

[T]he Labor Department said new applications for unemployment insurance rose by 15,000 from the previous week. That broadly missed expectations for a fourth-straight week of declines, and heightened worries that the average American — already feeling the effects of the weak housing market — will have even less means to spend. ... Economists are predicting the eighth straight monthly payrolls drop, and a rise in the unemployment rate.

That typical Americans have less to spend is evidenced by the absence of spending, as shown by poor retail sales figures last month. Crude oil prices dropped, but not as much as analysts expected. All of this contributed to another stock market plunge. If John McCain continues to cling to the Bushian belief that the economy is strong, he might have to worry that even the reddest of the red states will turn bright blue in November.

Will McCain come up with a realistic plan to turn the economy around? Listen for one tonight when McCain accepts his party's nomination.

I hope most Democratic women realize the truth in Gloria Steinem's column today in the Los Angeles Times. Hillary Clinton certainly does, and so do I.

The reason Gov. Sarah Palin is the wrong woman for the job of Vice-President has nothing to do with her gender or her family issues or private life (although I wish she would stop bringing them up and showcasing them.)

She's the wrong woman for the job because of her stand on issues and her attachment to the radical right. Unfair treatment by the media doesn't make her any more qualified or right for the job of Vice-President. Here's some snippets from Ms. Steinem:

Gov. Sarah Palin is no friend of the environment.

Palin, McCain's vice presidential running mate, has had frequent run-ins with environmentalists. ... "Her philosophy from our perspective is cut, kill, dig and drill," said John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, maintaining she is "in the Stone Age of wildlife management and is very opposed to utilizing accepted science."

Palin challenged the Bush administration's decision to classify the polar bear as an endangered species. Nor does she agree with the National Marine Fisheries Service that the beluga whale population is endangered. She opposed ballot initiatives to better protect salmon streams from mining operations and to outlaw the shooting of bears and wolves from aircraft. Let's not even talk about her lust for pipelines despite their impact on caribou populations. And, unlike John McCain, she refuses to acknowledge that human behavior might have had an impact on climate change. [more...]

In his first reaction to Sarah Palin's speech last night, Chris Matthews said something interesting, and in my view, correct - there was no Hillary Clinton in Sarah Palin's speech last night.

When backed against the political wall in February by an attacking, hostile and sexist Media and a string of lopsided primary and caucus defeats - Hillary Clinton became a fighter, but not for herself, but for working class voters and women. She championed issues and talked about their concerns. Before our very eyes, Hillary Clinton became a great politician. By contrast, while Palin offered her appealing biography, she did not talk about the issues the working class voters care about. Instead she gave a sort of Republican version of Ann Richards' 1988 Democratic Convention keynote speech. Of course Republicans loved their red meat, but it was a missed opportunity for Palin (and for the McCain campaign that decided what would be in this speech.) More . . .

Joe Biden on Sarah Palin's media coverage:

Asked if some of the criticism aimed at Palin has been sexist, Biden said: "Yes, by you guys in the media. ... When I heard that media response, you know, this coming from some of the right-wing guys, saying that, 'Well, how can you be a mother and a vice president at the same time?' ... I mean, millions of women in America are going through exactly what she (is going) through. And guess what? They can handle it."

Amen.

Biden on Palin's speech: [more ...]

Senator Obama issued this response to Gov. Palin's speech:

The speech that Governor Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change."

Obama took a few hits tonight from Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee on his experience. I think unless he confronts that argument head-on, the attacks will increase and begin to resonate. He can't do it by relying on Biden, unless it's in the context of combined ticket experience.

More...

Wow, that didn't take long. The Washington Post reports the National Enquirer is alleging Gov. Sarah Palin had an extra-marital affair with a friend of her husbands. The McCain camp blasts the report.

But for John Edwards' affair turning out to be true, who would even give the National Enquirer a second thought?

Howard Kurtz writes:

The mainstream media might well have ignored the unsubstantiated allegation, as they did for eight months in the Edwards saga. But the McCain's team quick response in defending the Arizona senator's running mate had the effect, intentionally or otherwise, of giving the story more prominence.

Also read the part about how Levi didn't want McCain naming him publically as the father of her daughter's child.[More...]

This AP article examines some of the ways Republican speakers (to put it nicely) "stretched the truth" tonight. An example:

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

More...