The choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain's vice presidential running mate might be the final nail in the coffin of Senator McCain's reputation as an environmentalist. As governor, Sarah Palin has supported a variety of anti-wildlife measures in Alaska, including the cruel and unsportsmanlike aerial gunning of wolves, a policy in place before she became governor, as well as creating her own program of offering a bounty on wolves. Here's a search list from the Defenders of Wildlife website showing links to articles that highlight Governor Palin's dismal record on wildlife protection:
http://www.defenders.org/meta_content/search_results/main_search_results.php?q=Palin&submit.x=14&submit.y=8
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=auTmNXiBqkjE&refer=home
I'm glad that word is starting to get around that Evan Bayh would be a bad fit as a running mate for Barack. Evan's environmental record as Governor of Indiana was undistinguished; he opened the door to the flood of legal gambling that has warped Indiana politics and fiscal policy; he created the grossly mismanaged "Build Indiana" fund; he was a doormat for corporate interests. He also sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when that group utterly failed in its duty to protect America from George W. Bush's false intelligence on Iraq's non-existent WMDs. And...(see link above)...Evan's wife Susan has made a profession of sitting on the boards of several big corporations, positions that she probably would not hold if her husband were not a Senator. Evan represents old, special-interest politics. Barack stands for new, community-interest politics. If Barack wants to run with a Hoosier, he'd do better to pick David Letterman.
The returns from PA aren't in yet, but today's mail brought the first of Senator Clinton's attack ads against Barack Obama, with the "Hoosiers Can't Afford Barack Obama" theme. The bigger question for me is, "Can the Democratic Party afford the generous contribution that Senator Clinton's ads are making to the campaign to Senator John McCain?"
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