Filed under: BlackSpin , Elections , News

Its 45 minutes past midnight on our nation's most important political evening in several generations and President-elect Obama has made history.

Here, in no particular order, are five reasons to hail him:

1) The Supreme Court will be safe. President Obama and a Democratic majority in the Senate should ensure the rightward slide of the court will end. The liberal lions on the High Court, Stevens and Bader-Ginsberg, have served well and have earned a rest. Let us send Scalia and Thomas to a permanent place in the courts minority decisions.

2) Palin will be a gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. She cost the Republicans this election. The Alaska governor took all of three weeks to show she was totally out of her element on the national stage. I have space limits on this blog so I can't recall all her gaffes on the campaign trail. I welcome you sending in your favorites flubs. But here is the best part-she will divide the Republican party for the next few election cycles. Her folksy charm will grab some conservative voters. Her lack of understanding basic politics will repel others. My prediction is she with the journalism degree will "Go Hollywood" and host a TV show or some other fluff for big dollars. Then she will overreach again in politics, as she did with the vice presidential run, and will again get embarassed.

3) The triumph of reason wins. Obama simply was the best candidate. Every word that left his mouth on the campaign trail made sense. He never looked troubled or flustered. Its nice to see that logic and common sense can actually win out. -I forgot that could happen in light of the last two presidential elections.

4) President Bush goes to sleep knowing he killed his party. For the president the sweet victory of a stolen election 8 years ago turned into bitter fruit in 2008. Why? Because the Texas governor shouldn't have been given the presidency by the Supreme Court. He didn't win it. Couldn't defend it and ultimately showed he wasn't ready for the job. He dragged down his party and showed NO leadership over the past 2 years.

5) People like me who said America was too racist to elect a black man president were proved wrong. I'm not going to get all teary eyed about his win. And I don't want to hear that his victory means that race no longer matters in America or that programs to correct discrimination such as affirmative action are no longer justified. But this isn't the time for looking at past sins. White America and Black America and all the other Americas came together to put the best candidate in the White House.

Congratulations!


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Paul Shepard blogs the Democrat side of the election for BlackVoices. He has been a journalist for 16 years; on the national urban/minority affairs beat for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and for The AP in Washington, DC

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"The View" co-host campaigns for the Alaska governor at a Florida rally.

Filed under: BlackSpin , Elections , John McCain , News

Maybe this is Sarah Palin overkill, but since Republican presidential candidate John McCain wants the evil liberal media to stick to the issues rather than the fact that his poorly vetted "abstinence-only" vice presidential candidate has a teenaged daughter whose dude knocked her up, then so be it.

We know now that he does not advocate a free press, the hallmark of any free republic.

Now I agree that Palin's daughter, Bristol, has a right to privacy. In fact, I feel that it's her life and if she wants to drop puppies all over the Arctic wilderness, it's her business and it has nothing to do with the presidential campaign. There are a lot of things about the Alaska governor's life that makes her seem to me like the average American schlepp. Good for her.

But what about where she stands on issues that are important? After all, if a President McCain suddenly croaks, then it will be up to this woman to lead the Free World.

Her positions will tell us much about her capabilities. ...
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Before Sarah Palin was a controversial Republican veep pick, she has served for the last year as Governor of America's Last Frontier. While there, she proved that she's your typical Evangelical politician. I'm not sure if she was influenced by nut jobs like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but she certainly shares their perspectives.

Since I'm the media that John McCain says is hell-bent on skewing the opinions of the American public by holding his campaign to scrutiny, I'll present Palin's positions as reported by Issues2000.org .

Like I said before, she's an advocate of "abstinence-only" education, a really stupid proposition that throws away teaching adolescents anything about human sexual biology at the exact time it is happening within their own bodies. She has also said she is against abortion, even in cases of rape, which aligns her with other conservatives who feel that a woman's body should be government property.

-- Supports teaching intelligent design in public schools, and would actually have teachers instruct students in creationism alongside evolution. So I guess her vision of a balanced education on humanity's origins and Christianity would be to show your kid A Flintstone Christmas .

-- Believes global warming affects Alaska, but is not man-made. Then what the hell is it? Oh, crap...my bad,
it's the product of intelligent design.
-- Eager to unlock and drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, although there is no proof that it would make even a dent in gas prices . But there is lots of proof that it could harm natural resources in Alaska.

-- Has no stance on foreign policy or immigration, which is no surprise since she's only been out of the country once.

-- Supported Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" debacle, which would have cost taxpayers $320 million, before she bailed on it and funds were diverted toward hurricane-stricken Louisiana. Love that fiscal sense.

-- Lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and supports the 'right to bear arms.' I don't have to tell you how much I hate guns and abhor the NRA. That's enough for me to diss her right there.

-- As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, cut property taxes but increased sales tax. I guess she felt even if death isn't certain, taxes should be. Have you seen the Wasilla city hall? It has a drive-thru window !

-- Opposes gay marriage, but she did veto a bill denying benefits to gays as unconstitutional. Ok, so she gets one rainbow for that one.

-- As evidence she needs to take a history brush-up course she said when asked about the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance: "If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me"...Well, the phrase wasn't added to the pledge until 1954. Our nation's founders, who were serious about keeping the Republic secular and inclusive, were long dead by then.

-- And let's not forget that little controversy about an alleged abuse of power when she fired the state's public safety commissioner for not firing her brother-in-law . Or the doozy in the national tabloids about an affair!


So that's just a short list of things that show me, and should show you, that she is really not qualified to serve as president should something unfortunate befall a sitting Commander-in-Chief. I mean, she's cute and all. But then again, so is Raven-Symone.

Lastly, here's the thing that I lose sleep over and so should you: her speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday reminded me of the popular girl campaigning for senior class president in Napoleon Dynamite . It would be pretty dumb for America to put someone like that in a position to possibly become president.

Then again, we were dumb enough to elect George W. Bush to a second term.

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Without mentioning Democrat Barack Obama’s name and rarely losing a smile, the Alaska governor delivered one riposte after another.

Alaska governor was one of six VP finalists who filled out a probing 70-question form. See also: Experience trap?

Filed under: BlackSpin , Elections

By Friday morning, a silly round of "will he, won't he" had snatched news media attention away from Presidential candidate Barack Obama's historic and rousing acceptance speech and the guessing game of who McCain would or would not pick to be his running mate was in full swing.

McCain answered with a choice right out of left field; really left, as in Alaska and from the farthest right of the Republican social conservative continuum. McCain selected Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Lifetime NRA member, staunchly in favor of reversing Roe v. Wade and a supporter of teaching Creationsim in school, McCain's choice of this former beauty queen , at least initially, appears to have motivated the Evangelical Christian base so crucial to Republican success in the past two elections.Here's more about the reaction to Gov. Sarah Palin from 'The Baltimore Sun' :

Watching the speech from the site of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., McCain delegate Carmen Amedori, a former lawmaker from Carroll County, said she was in tears.

"It's going to really boost the ticket and the energy of the base, wherever it was lacking, because it is a first for the Republicans, and a good pick," Amedori said. "We've gone out of the realm of the manly look of the Republican Party. We have a pretty face on the Republican Party, and not just a pretty face, but a woman who is accomplished in many ways."

Palin was elected Alaska governor two years ago, with 48 percent of the 238,307 votes cast - fewer than the 282,537 votes cast in Baltimore County alone in the Maryland gubernatorial race that year.

Her selection by McCain turned the heads of some prominent Republicans after weeks of chatter had focused on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

During a taping of a television show at the Tribune Broadcasting studio in Washington, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. declined to give a full-throated backing of her candidacy, saying on air that he didn't know much about her.

Afterward, speaking with acquaintances, he said: "I gotta go digest this choice."

Former Governor Ehrlich, a lot of other people are right there with you.

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Alaska governor may attract disaffected Hillary Rodham Clinton voters while still playing well with the GOP's religious base. See also: Scenes ; Stevens endorses