Politics Now

McCain's choice for VP surprises many

   MINNEAPOLIS … If Sen. John McCain wanted to shake up the Republican presidential race, he
couldn't have scored better than with today's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running
mate.

   The presidential candidate, expected to arrive here over the weekend for the Republican National Convention, stunned the political world with his selection of the 44-year-old governor, who has served at the Alaska helm for only two years.

   But there are reasons for McCain's surprise pick:

   Her conservative views will shore up his prospects with right-leaning voters who still are ncomfortable with the often unpredictable McCain.

   Like McCain, she is seen as a maverick, and that could prove a plus.

   As only the second woman to ever be nominated for vice president on a major party line, Palin could prove an attraction to female voters and even some supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

  The choice is different. It sparks up a campaign that needed to show some innovation and counter the excitement of the Democratic nomination of Sen. Barack Obama, the first black candidate for resident.

   Still, there are problems with the choice. Alaska is not exactly a treasure trove of electoral votes, and virtually nobody outside the north country has ever heard of her.

   Palin has only two years of experience, and is an unknown in Washington.

   Apparently, however, it's just that outsider status and fresh face quality that appeals to the Arizona senator.

   Will those attributes appeal to voters?    What do you think?

   Robert J. McCarthy

Barack Obama takes the gloves off

DENVER -- So Barack Obama was supposed to be a genteel "celebrity," right?

Well, it turns out he was ready to rumble. Listen to this:

"America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

And this:

"I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."

And this, on the George Bush years and the promise of another Republican president:

"It's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America."

This was a tougher Barack Obama who accepted the Democratic nomination, one that laid out some specific plans and took the fight to his opponent without for one moment resting on soaring but soft rhetoric about "hope."

So, did you like what you heard?

-- Jerry Zremski

A dream coming true?

DENVER -- Forty-five years after Martin Luther King Jr. told us he had a dream, the son of a woman from Kansas and a man from Kenya stood on a stage in the middle of a football stadium here and accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

And while Barack Obama didn't dwell on the historic nature of the moment during his speech at Invesco Field, it was much on the minds of the African-Americans in the crowd.

"They talk about Cloud Nine, but well, this is Cloud 99," said George K. Arthur, the former Buffalo Common Council president who was the first big-name local politician to sign on with Obama, who joined the New York delegation for the Democratic presidential candidate's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday.

"It means so much to the future of America, to my grandchildren, to everyone here," Arthur said.

-- Jerry Zremski

Bill and Hillary, loyal Democrats

DENVER -- So, less than 24 hours after his wife's much-lauded speech endorsing Barack Obama, Bill Clinton took the stage at the Pepsi Center and said the words the Democratic Party had been waiting for.

"Clearly, the job of the next president is to rebuild the American Dream and restore America's standing in the world," Bill Clinton said. "Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man
for this job."

Now of course this is a bit different from what Clinton told Charlie Rose: "I mean, when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run."

Well, this is America, and everybody has the right to change their mind, right?

-- Jerry Zremski

PUMAs: An endangered species?

   DENVER -- They were supposed to be prowling the streets and biting back at a
Democratic nominee they see as a callow interloper, but the Hillary Rodham
Clinton loyalists called "PUMAs" are few and far between in the streets of
Denver.

   "PUMA" stand for "Party Unity My"...well, anatomy, and the PUMAs have been
trying to make mischief since this spring, when it came clear that their
beloved Clinton wouldn't get the Democratic nomination.

   But only a half-dozen of them could be found on Denver's downtown mall
Wednesday, trashing Obama in terms that no conservative pundit would dare
utter.

   "Obama reminds me of Hitler," siad Sally Morton of Pittsburgh. "He's a
leader who's a good speaker who gets everybody revved up. It scares me. I've
never had that feeling before."

   The PUMAs marched and chanted "PUMAs united will never be divided."

   But as I walked by, PUMA Belinda Velasquez of Cedar City, Utah,
expressed a different sentiment.

   "Where the hell is everybody?" she said. "This is (animal manure)."

--Jerry Zremski

The Hillary that Democrats were waiting for?

DENVER -- Out on the campaign trail, Barack Obama must have been smiling.

On the state at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Rodham Clinton was giving a speech full of passion and poetry, an emotional endorsement of Obama for president.

"My friends, it is time to take back the country we love," she said. "And whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines."

Of course, many of her supporters are not yet on the Obama team, and one has to wonder how they feel after hearing Clinton deliver the kind of heartfelt, searing speech that she delivered so rarely on the campaign trail.

I've seen Clinton speak dozens of times now, and it seems to me that the last two speeches I saw were the best two: the June address where she left the presidential race, and Tuesday's pointed plea for an Obama presidency.

So many of her speeches seemed like they were written by a committee -- and a divided, inarticulate committee at that. But not those last two, which, in style and substance, approached eloquence.

It all must be leave Clinton supporters wondering: Where was this Hillary all through the campaign?

-- Jerry Zremski

A special moment for Slaughter

DENVER -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's speech at the Democratic National Convention Monday proved to be an especially touching moment for Rep. Louise M. Slaughter of Fairport.

Slaughter and Kennedy spent years working together to try to pass legislation banning discrimination on the basis of a person's genetic makeup, and finally this spring they succeeded. Kennedy was at Slaughter's side to talk to reporters about the bill's passage in the Senate, and just weeks later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

"I was stunned," Slaughter said. "He came to every meeting and we were constantly talking" about the bill, and Slaughter saw no sign at all that Kennedy was ill.

In the weeks since his diagnosis Slaughter has been sending him notes periodically through his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island.

Right up until Monday, it was unclear whether Sen. Kennedy would be well enough to speak at the convention, Slaughter said.

"And then he gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard," she said. "It really set the stage for everything everyone else talked about."

Slaughter said the bill she worked on with Kennedy is one of her proudest accomplishments. Now that people will feel free to get genetic testing without fear of discrimination, genetic therapies are likely to revolutionize medicine, she said.

-- Jerry Zremski

An unconventional giveaway

DENVER -- Steps away from the convention hall and in the shadow of a giant roundish yellow tent with the word "Trojan" stamped on its side, a young woman with stringy brown hair and goggle-shaped sunglasses stopped me and thrust a condom into my hand.

"We are trying to get condoms on the agenda!" she said in a thick, inexplicable Australian accent.

Not surprisingly, though, condoms are not on the agenda at the Democratic National Convention, or at least not in the convention hall.

Noble though it may be for the company that makes Trojan condoms to promote its product to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, Democrats seem more focused on health care for all and ending the war in Iraq.

But that doesn't stop corporate America from promoting its wares outside the convention hall. While Trojan gives away free samples, Captain Morgan -- you know, the guy with the spiced rum -- has been roaming the city, promoting his quadrennial run for president. And practically every major corporation has a lobbyist or two here, rubbing elbows with the delegates and elected officials at party after party.

Democracy -- ain't it grand?

-- Jerry Zremski

Finally moving on?

DENVER -- Finally, it seems to be happening. The Clinton supporters in the New York delegation are moving on to support Barack Obama.

At least that's what many of those interviewed this morning told me.

But how about you? If you backed Clinton in the primary, would you still want the chance to vote for her if you could at tomorrow's roll call vote at the Democratic National Convention?

-- Jerry Zremski

Emotional moments for an Obama backer

DENVER -- Diana Cihak was one of Barack Obama's first supporters in Western New York, and that made Monday all the more special for her.

About a year after Cihak, former Common Council President George K. Arthur and a handful of others began organizing for Obama in the heart of Clinton country, Cihak found herself on the floor of the Pepsi Center as an Obama delegate.

Listening to Michelle Obama speak on Monday, Cihak felt a special connection as the mother of two daughters the same age as Malia and Sasha.

"I cried," Cihak said. "Michelle Obama just gave such a powerful speech."

And just when Cihak thought her eyes were drying, she found out that Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was about to address this morning's New York delegation breakfast.

Hearing that, Cihak said: "I should go buy some waterproof mascara."

-- Jerry Zremski