denver posse starts blitze

[palo]

A wonderfull time was had by all at the garden party. We will be giving updates as possible.

[Ann Cantelow]

Thanks, Tonya! And thanks for your thoughts, too!!

Tonya Hennessey said:

Ann! This is great! Thanks for your thoughts, and all the great pix!
- Tonya

[Tonya Hennessey]

Hi Field Hands!

I've begun leg 2 of my Midwest Convention and Family/Friends tour ... writing from my friend Louise's here in my home town of Minneapolis. This week I'm looking forward to being in the streets and out with the protesters, after a great time in Denver hanging at the Big Tent (and Mile High!).

Last night when I landed, I called another new friend that I met at NetRoots in Austin --- a young Latino guy who had worked on Hillary's campaign and is now working for Obama here in the Twin Cities, def an energetic go-getter! He gave some of the scuttlebutt around the campaign's reactions to McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as VP. I'll keep it off-the-record, but suffice it to say it was a surprise, and there's a fair bit of figuring out just how to react, what the boundaries are, etc.

Meanwhile, he pointed out, as some of you may have noticed yesterday, that even the news networks were reading from Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry --- who is she? Where's the opposition research?

Anyway, this just in from my friend Iyse Hogue at MoveOn.org (sorry, don't know how to do a block quote):

"Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:

* She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1
* Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2
* She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3
* Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4
* She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.5
* She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
* How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7

This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family."

The talking points above seem to me to be within the bounds of Al's request on The Field to not engage in any kind of misogynism in talking about Sarah. I agree, it's nobody's business as to how many children she decided to have, and when.

However, I also agree with many women friends that the pick is condescending -- if McCain wanted a woman VP to undercut Obama, and the Clinton's full backing of him this past week, there were others with solid experience and credentials. Just because John picked a woman, women should vote for him?

Anyway, I'm also feeling a lot like Sean at 538 now: Suddenly I'm MUCH more interested to be here for the RNC!

Adelante!
Tonya

[Janey Laird]

Ann - your photos and posts are truly enjoyable. Tonya, thanks so much for keeping the board hopping with your observations and writings. Mo, thanks for jumping in and adding - very interesting - even though you had to jump in a bit later. You really added to our little field of joy. Dave, I so appreciated your posts, what you said and your photos. And, kariseal - we all understand how busy you were but so liked getting a peek into what you were up to. Erin, I KNOW how busy you were with your actual job of reporting in Denver, so thank you for jumping in too.

Everyone who posted - thank you so very much. Not just from me. It seems that people are reading these and really liked the insights you were adding as the week went along. You all are wonderful.

I wanted to respond to each and everyone, and that is good. They invoked a thank you response from many of us. So - thank you!

[Janey Laird]

Let us go ahead and start a new discussion called: Wrap Up Denver - Remains of the Swarm. For those of us who still have some pictures, ideas, thoughts, impressions, and so on, this is where we can do that.

Also - check out jhaygood's question on the Debrief discussion on the Posse page. It is a good one, if you could take a few minutes.

You guys are great.