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- Palin, Palin, Palin: Joshua Green explains how Palin could ende up like McGovern running mate Thomas Eagleton. Palin vetoed state funding for teenage mothers. Dan Balz reports on the sole meeting between Palin and McCain's VP vetters the Wednesday before the Friday announcement. Politico breaks down the odds of Palin becoming president due to President John McCain no longer being able to fulfill his duties. Fred Hiatt explains the McCain campaign's one-size-fits-all approach to vice presidential acceptance speech writing. A new McCain ad argues Palin has more experience than Barack Obama. Finally, Greg Sargent asks why Palin's association with the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party isn't on par with Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
- Matt Yglesias takes a look at the official GOP party platform and discovers such maverick economic ideas as refusing to adjust for inflation when assessing the federal budget and passing a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget every year (except in times of war) and a congressional super-majority for tax increases.
- Franklin Foer argues that John McCain will end up playing the same role -- right down to the disastrous overemphasis on military biography -- that John Kerry played in the 2004 election.
- Vanity Fair reports on a hush-hush sit-down between Barack Obama and Fox's Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, which resulted in something of a truce (whatever that means) for the remainder of the election season. This accompanies Obama's decision to appear on the Bill O'Reilly show for the first time. Meanwhile, John McCain decides to snub Larry King in retaliation for the awkward exchange between CNN's Campbell Brown and McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds last night. God forbid journalists actually ask substantive questions and then, you know, ask for details when the interviewee can't provide an answer.
- Tonight's RNC highlights: former McCain rival Mitt Romney, who, in continuing with the standard he set at this year's CPAC, plans to rip into Obama and liberals in a fiery address; Norm Coleman, who is, I believe, the only at-risk GOP Senator who chose to show up in St. Paul (he represents Minnesota so he kinda has to make an appearance); Rudy Giuliani who will probably talk exclusively about the initiatives he spearheaded while mayor of New York City prior to 2001; and, of course, Sarah Palin's VP nomination acceptance speech, barring the (very unlikely, I think) event of McCain choosing a different VP at the last minute.
- First Read reports on voter rolls in battleground state Nevada, noting a registered voter deficit favoring Democrats over Republicans by 76,000.
- Polls: CNN has Obama ahead of McCain in Iowa, 55-40, Minnesota 53-41, and Ohio 47-45 with things tightening up somewhat when Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are included. A Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll has McCain up ahead of Obama in North Carolina by three, 47-44.
- Pundits are much more interesting when they don't think they're being recorded, as this Mike Murphy-Peggy Noonan exchange attests.
- And Finally, Hilzoy flags this comment from one of my all-time favorite wingers, Frank Gaffney: "Speaking of geography, Alaskan territory is also along the trajectory of ballistic missiles launched eastward out of Stalinist North Korea. For that reason, among others, Alaska's Fort Greely was selected as the site for the principal U.S. ground-based defense against such missiles. As that state's governor, Sarah Palin would know more by osmosis -- if nothing else -- about the necessity for U.S. anti-missile systems than either Messrs. Obama or Biden."
--Mori Dinauer
