NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Friday
she thinks Barack Obama regrets not making Hillary Rodham Clinton his
running mate.

Palin praised Clinton’s “determination, and grit and even grace” during the
Democratic primaries, sounding an altogether different note than when she
suggested earlier this year that the New York senator was whining about
negative press coverage and campaigning in a way that was not advancing the
cause of women in politics.

“I think he’s regretting not picking her now,” Palin told ABC News.

Her comment brought a sharp rejoinder from Democratic Rep. Debbie
Wasserman-Schultz, on behalf of the Obama campaign: “Sarah Palin should
spare us the phony sentiment and respect. Governor Palin accused Senator
Clinton of whining.”

Palin, in the second part of her first major interview since she joined the
GOP ticket, also defended the nearly $200 million in federal pet projects
she sought as Alaska governor this year even as John McCain told a
television audience she had never requested them.

Palin was confronted in the interview with two claims that have been a
staple of her reputation since joining McCain: that she was opposed to
federal earmarks, even though her request for such special spending projects
for 2009 was the highest per capita figure in the nation; and that she
opposed the $398 million Bridge to Nowhere linking Ketchikan to an island
with 50 residents and an airport.

Palin actually turned against the bridge project only after it became a
national symbol of wasteful spending and Congress had pulled money for it.

Palin told ABC’s Charles Gibson that since she took office, the state had
“drastically” reduced its efforts to secure earmarks and would continue to
do so while she was governor.

“What I’ve been telling Alaskans for these years that I’ve been in office,
is, no more,” Palin said.

When Gibson noted she had requested money to study the mating habits of
crabs and harbor-seal genetic research - the kind of small-bore projects
that draw McCain’s ire - Palin said the specific requests had come through
universities and other public entities and weren’t worked out by lobbyists
behind closed doors.

On the Bridge to Nowhere, Palin said she had supported a link from the
mainland to the airport but not necessarily the costly bridge project.

“We killed the Bridge to Nowhere,” Palin said flatly, despite evidence she
had supported the project in its early stages.

On social issues, Palin reiterated her opposition to abortion rights -
parting with McCain, who supports legal abortion in cases of rape or incest.
Palin opposes those exceptions. Like McCain, she supports overturning the
Roe vs. Wade guarantee of abortion rights.

However, she came down against a constitutional ban on abortion, which many
social conservatives want. She said of abortion, “I think the states should
be able to decide that issue,” a position incompatible with a constitutional
ban. In that respect, her position is the same as McCain’s.

Palin refused to say whether she believed homosexuality was an orientation
or a choice. “I’m not one to judge,” Palin said.

Palin’s comments came after McCain sat for a feisty grilling on ABC’s “The
View,” where he claimed erroneously that his running mate hadn’t sought
money for federal pet projects.

“Not as governor she didn’t,” McCain said, ignoring the record.

Palin’s entry in the race has drawn support from many white women, and the
McCain campaign hopes in particular that she can pull Clinton’s supporters
away from Obama. It was in that spirit that she heaped praise on Obama’s
defeated rival in the face of her earlier criticisms.

“What determination, and grit, and even grace through some tough shots that
were fired her way - she handled those well,” Palin said.

In March, Palin was asked about coverage of Clinton at a Newsweek forum, and
said: “Fair or unfair, I think she does herself a disservice to even mention
it, really. I mean, you gotta plow through that. You have to know what
you’re getting into … when I hear a statement like that coming from a
woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess
criticism, or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, ‘That
doesn’t do us any good - women in politics.”

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the man Obama picked for his ticket, defended
Clinton this week when a voter told him it was best that he was chosen over
the New York senator. Biden said Clinton “might’ve been a better pick than
me.”

In Alaska, meanwhile, the investigator looking into whether Palin abused her
power as governor in trying to fire her former brother-in-law asked state
lawmakers for the power to subpoena Palin’s husband, Todd, a dozen others
and the phone records of a top aide. The state House and Senate judiciary
committees were expected to grant the request.

Palin told ABC she welcomed the investigation. “There’s nothing to hide in
this,” she said.

Palin was in Alaska on Friday and scheduled to attend a campaign rally in
Nevada on Saturday while McCain took the day off, a reflection of her
growing status as the GOP ticket’s celebrity draw.

On “The View,” McCain said that Palin had “ignited a spark” among voters but
acknowledged they parted ways on certain issues. The Arizona has said human
behavior is largely responsible for climate change and opposes drilling for
oil in a federally protected refuge, for example.

McCain appeared to back off a bit from his claim that Palin was the best
vice presidential pick in U.S. history when he joked, “We politicians are
never given to exaggeration or hyperbole.”

The GOP hopeful also stood by two debunked campaign commercials - one which
said Obama favored comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students and
another that suggested Obama had called Palin a pig. Both are factually
inaccurate.

Obama, as an Illinois state senator, voted for legislation that would teach
age-appropriate sex education to kindergartners, including information on
rejecting advances by sexual predators. And while Obama told a campaign
rally this week that McCain’s policies were like “putting lipstick on a
pig,” he never used the phrase in connection with Palin.

“Those ads aren’t true. They’re lies,” said “View” co-host Joy Behar.

“They’re not lies,” McCain said, insisting that Obama “chooses his words
very carefully” and should never had made the lipstick remark.

___

Associated Press writer Garance Burke in Wasilla, Alaska, contributed to
this report.

By BETH FOUHY , Associated Press

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Democrats have a good reason to worry about Sarah Palin: she seems to attract the women voters who might have voted for Hillary Clinton. For many voters, Palin outshines McCain, and he doesn’t mind at all.

At the rally in Lancaster County, PA., the chants “Sarah, Sarah” were much louder than “we want McCain.” Women were also wearing buttons and placards with “Hot Chicks Vote Republican,” and “Guns, God, Lipstick.”

“She’s kind of overshadowing McCain at the moment,” said Leah Herrold, 35, a registered Republican and a nurse. “But she’s overshadowing Obama, too. She’s overshadowing everyone at the moment.”

And that is exactly what McCain strategists were counting on: the effect of surprise and the consequential cause célèbre that the media would amplify.

Palin recycled some of the convention speech but reiterated her favorite line when she told Pennsylvanians that Obama spoke one way when he was in Pennsylvania but was more than condescending in San Francisco when he labeled “some white working-class voters [as] ‘cling[ing] to guns or religion.’”

Palin described McCain as “wherever he goes, John McCain is the same man.”

It appears that voters are attracted to her simply because she is a working mother just like the majority of women voters and they feel she can relate to their problems because she went through similar ones herself. They may not go along with her politics, and do not really care “her lack of experience” – after all Obama also doesn’t have a lot -, but they are willing to overcome these facts for the simple sake of finally having a woman in the White House who will fight for women’s issues.

PALIN IS THE ANSWER TO CLINTON’S LOYALISTS
By Erika Bolstad (McClatchy Newspapers 9/9/08)
Abstract by Johana Nadler
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Because difficulties are bound to arise between these two head strong personalities, Robert B. Barnett, a Washington renowned lawyer is working to ease a merger between Obama and Clinton. Needless to say, the hardest issue of all is Bill Clinton, who is still very bitter about the outcome.

The two basic issues of this joint venture is for Obama to help pay back some of Clinton’s campaign debt, in the amount of $12 million owed to outside suppliers, plus $10 million of her own money she put in the campaign, and for Clinton to encourage her loyalists to donate to Obama’s general election.

Obama said yesterday that he will not send any e-mail requesting his regular donors (those who can only afford less than $200) to send money to Clinton. “Their budgets are tighter,” he said. “They know that I’m going to be working with Senator Clinton, and if they want to make contributions, there’s nothing wrong with their doing so, and I encourage them.” However, Obama has asked his big-dollar fund-raisers to help Clinton pay off her debt. And Clinton asked 200 of her most generous donors to donate to Obama when they both appear tonight at a closed session.

The other issue to be discussed is what role Hillary Clinton will be playing at the August convention. No matter what is being negotiated behind closed doors between Obama and Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman says that “Hillary is 100 percent behind making sure that Barack gets elected president. We’re instructing everybody, ‘Let’s get on board, let’s win this election.’ ”

CLINTON AND OBAMA WORKING TOGETHER
By Adam Nagourney, Jeff Zeleny and Michael Powell (NY Times 6/26/08)
Abstract by Johana Nadler
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