McCain-Palin VP Liveblog

8:22 CT: The Palin rumors seem to have been dismissed, for now. It’s known that Lieberman is in Dayton, but people are still skeptical that it will be him, for good reason: aside from foreign policy, there’s not a lot of common ground with McCain. Mitt Romney has also been eliminated. Some other possibles are Tom Ridge, Charlie Crist, and Bobby Jindal. Also Rob Portman

8:38: It’s come to the point where Jeb Bush is reminisced about. Politico is reporting that it is not going to be Lieberman either, or at least unlikely.

8:49: The McCain campaign apparently wants to build suspense. I’m surprised they don’t want discussion of the person on the morning news.

9:02: It’s back to Palin apparently? John Harwood of CNBC and the Chicago Tribune is reporting that it is Palin.

9:15: Chuck Todd wants to avoid a Gephardt embarassment.

9:26: Politico is reporting it’s Palin as well. Bold choice. Notably, Jonathan Martin still couches his language with a bit of uncertainty. But there hasn’t been any denials so far on Palin that I’ve seen.

9:34: Palin has praised (parts of?) Obama’s energy plan.

9:37: NBC news is also now confirming. Mike Murphy likes it.

9:47: Andrea Tantaros at Fox News likes the pick. Oddly she talks about violence against women’s issues as compared to Biden, who wrote the Violence Against Women Act. She makes the point that Alaska is far from Washington and could take the Change mantle from Obama.

9:50: They’re pretty shamelessly going after former Hillary supporters. Bill Sammon is worried about Biden’s foreign policy experience in a debate. He compares Palin to George W. Bush in 2000, in expectations working against Biden. Tantaros says that Obama innoculates Palin against experience attacks. Well, sure, but it goes both ways.

9:57: These folks are happy.

10:00: You’re going to see this a bunch.

10:01: Chuck Todd says that it appeals to the social conservatives like Mike Huckabee, and the economic conservatives like Mitt Romney.

10:04: I think liberal blogger Matt Yglesias best describes what will be the Democratic view of Palin, and I also what I think is a fair summation of the ethics investigation into Palin:

All things considerd, if you’re going to get involved in an abuse of power scandal, one that involves an attempt to fire a state trooper who “had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann” and who “was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann’s (and Palin’s) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson, and violating game laws” doesn’t seem like the worst possible way to go. Certainly by the standards of Alaska GOP corruption it’s kind of small potatoes.

But of course the weird thing about the Alaska Republican Party is that while they send these endlessly re-elected legislators to DC to push for hard-right legislation, pork, and various forms of sleaze they’re running a government based on a weird form of socialism in one giant swathe of sub-arctic wasteland. Normal governors don’t get involved in controversies about state-owned dairy farms and the like (I believe it was Mikhail Gorbachev who moved to privatize the agricultural sector) and there’s no other state whose oil tax revenues are big enough to just cut the entire population welfare checks. It’s a bit hard to know how you shift from that into non-fantasyland world of federal policymaking.

10:09: Ambinder lists the pros and cons of Palin. Also, Kailey Bay Hutchison avoided answering the question of whether Palin is ready to be commander-in-chief on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell. She also seems to intimate that the Vice President does not have to be ready to be C-in-C, since “the President is the President.” She concludes by saying flat out that we have to trust McCain. Note to the McCain campaign: Hutchison is not a good surrogate for you.

10:17: Obama campaign is highlighting her job as a mayor two years ago, “where her signature achievement was to raise taxes.”

10:19: Joe Klein:

Well, who knows, really? But it does reinforce McCain’s independent trope. She is a reformer, way outside the Washington establishment, a terrific speaker, apparently, a great life story, a pro-lifer who chose to have a Down syndrome child…and she is a she. Is she ready for prime time? Would she be ready to take over if John McCain were incapacitated? In a weird, clever, way, Palin’s inexperience serves to illuminate Obama’s…and so Democrats, especially Joe Biden, would probably be wise to tread carefully here. The Republicans can easily make the argument that they got their ticket order rightside up–experience over a compelling new face–and the Democrats got their order upside down. They can make that argument…we’ll see how it flies. I do think that it’s safe to say, without qualification, that McCain will win Alaska now–then again, Alaska is the only one of the 50 states that Obama hasn’t campaigned in.

10:20: I’m taking a few minutes of a break.

10:22: Kelly O’Donnell on MSNBC: Everything I know about Palin, I learned from Wikipedia.

10:25: One last thing before I take a 20 minute or so break. As far as liberal reaction, Daily Kos points out that Palin has been favorable to creationists. Mydd, which towards the end of the primary became home to a lot of Clinton fans, is very negative based on the experience, but are a lot more skeptical on what her appeal will be.

10:52: Interestingly, Powerline is not a fan of Palin, because of her lack of foreign policy experience. See here and here.

11:01: Are Republicans serious that a Presidential candidate needs experience, but a Vice Presidential candidate does not?

11:11: iPol thinks Palin is the new Dan Quayle. I’d point out that at a minimum, Quayle actually became VP in 1988. Almost every single Republican or conservative that knows Sarah Palin likes Sarah Palin. Of course, when you have a large budget like Alaska does, likeability is basically defined by being not corrupt, which she has really done in her career.

11:16: Everyone in the McCain campaign is holding something that looks a whole lot like glowsticks.

11:16: McCain is in the hall.

11:22: He thanks the runners up, and introduces her as a reformer and someone with executive experience. He touts her as a former union member and someone who is married to a union member, who really touts how she grew up.He touts her reformist credentials.

11:28: She comes out accompanied by her family. The contrast in age to McCain is stark. This is also not quite the spectacle of an introduction that Obama-Biden was.

11:30: She speaks. First giving thanks to McCain, and introducing her family. Nate Silver is struck by how McCain has changed his message back from Country First back to Washington reformer. Her husband Todd is a world champion snow mobile racer. Her oldest son enlisted in the Army and is about to ship off to Iraq soon. She talks about taking on corruption, including “the good ol’ boy network.” Talks about bipartisanship, including her stand against the infamous Bridge to Nowhere.

11:36: McCain looks relatively awkward next to her for some reason.

11:39: Palin gets to the Country First argument, and now being a “time for resolve,” and referencing his time as a POW. She cites John Glenn’s glowing review of McCain that must have been from a long time ago.

11:43: Talks about it being 88 years after women gained the right to vote, specifically mentioning Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. Apparently Carolyn Mosely-Braun and others don’t count? Nah, it’s actually just a direct political appeal to Hillary voters.  She’s likeable in this setting, but remember: on a Friday of a holiday weekend, and a lot of people will not be paying attention. Her speech next week is far, far more important.

11:46: This has been a long week, for obvious reasons. I’m going to let this sink in and come back with a longer take tomorrow or Sunday. Enjoy the holiday weekend, folks. Take a two day break for politics, and if you’re in Ohio, keep Stephanie Tubbs-Jones in your thoughts tomorrow.