a history of ms palin

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"Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said McCain is 'sadly mistaken' if he thinks Clinton supporters would back him only because he put a woman on the ticket.
'I know Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton,' Wasserman Schultz said on MSNBC.
'Women in this country don't want a candidate on the ballot just because of the parts she has,' the Democrat added. 'They want a woman candidate running for president or vice president because they support equal work for equal pay, they support a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, they support expanding access to children's healthcare, they want to make sure that we improve the quality of public education."
THEHILL.COM

"Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.
Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.
The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No….
What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.
Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.
Finally, as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.' We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN

"Ellen Malcolm, president of Emily's List, said in a statement: McCain clearly sees the power of women voters in this election but has just as clearly failed to support any of the issues that they care about. His choice for vice president only reinforces that failure."
NEW YORK TIMES

"If John McCain thought that choosing Sarah Palin would attract Hillary Clinton voters, he is badly mistaken.
    The only similarity between her and Hillary Clinton is that they are both women.  On the issues, they could not be further apart.
    Sen. McCain had so many other options if he wanted to put a woman on his ticket, such as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe – they would have been an appropriate choice compared to this dangerous choice.
    In addition, Sarah Palin is under investigation by the Alaska state legislature, which makes this more incomprehensible."
    BARBARA BOXER, LA TIMES, FOR THE FULL ARTICLE GO TO:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/barbara-boxer-o.html

"The pick of Palin is dripping with transparent condescension, the notion that the enthusiasm behind Hillary was simply the result of her being a woman, that it had nothing to do with what she actually stood for, and in that sense it's equally sexist. Palin is essentially a hard-right ideologue, and therefore
 nothing like Hillary as far as substance is concerned. It's not very different from running Alan Keyes against Barack Obama in 2004. The conservative media reaction has already engaged in paternalistic language, with FOX News reporting on television that "McCain broke the glass ceiling," implying in
fact, that the pick had nothing to do with Palin or her qualifications, but merely her gender."
THE AMERICAN PROSPECT,  FOR THE FULL ARTICLE GO TO: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=08&year=2008&base_name=the_party_of_political_correct

"Certainly the choice of Palin puts to rest any argument about inexperience on the Democratic team and while Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling." Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
WASHINGTON TIMES

"Today, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain announced he has chosen first term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his choice to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Although only holding an executive, statewide office for less than two years, Gov. Palin has already shown that she is a fierce opponent of equality.
'America may not know much about Sarah Palin, but based on what our community has seen of her, we know enough,' said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. 'Sarah Palin not only supported the 1998 Alaska constitutional amendment banning marriage equality but, in her less than two years as Governor, even expressed the extreme position of supporting stripping away domestic partner benefits for state workers. When you can't even support giving our community the rights to health insurance and pension benefits, it's a frightening window into where she stands on equality.'
When asked about the right-wing's reaction to the choice of Gov Palin, the New York Times quoted Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition as saying, 'They're beyond ecstatic'…
THE HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION

"This is why people don't like politics. And this is why people so deeply distrust politicians.
For months, the Republican party and its presidential nominee, John McCain, have been absolutely hammering Democratic nominee Barack Obama as inexperienced, and unready to be president.
The theme at their counter-convention tent in Denver last week, where the Democrats nominated Obama, was "A Mile High, an Inch Deep," a clever but nasty allusion to the idea that Obama's scant government experience is not sufficient to be commander in chief.
But now comes Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential choice.
Sarah Palin?
For 20 months, she has been governor of a state whose population is smaller than the City of Detroit's. Prior to that, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town whose population is about 8,500 — about two-thirds the size of Berkley, Mich. Before that, she was on the city council in Wasilla for four years.
That's it.
On what planet is this pick not an example of a stunning — and galling — hypocrisy? By McCain's own terms, Palin is an indefensible choice.
…On principle, this pick is a slap in voters' faces. It either assumes their stupidity, or exposes a disturbing lack of integrity on McCain's part. Maybe both."
FREEPRESS.COM

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency," Adrianne Marsh, a spokeswoman for Democrat Barack Obama."
WASHINGTON TIMES

"Highlights of Governor Palin's Anti-Equality Record:

Prior to being elected governor, Palin supported the 1998 constitutional amendment barring marriage for same-sex couples and has said she would support a ballot measure overturning a state supreme court decision mandating benefits for domestic partners of state employees. She is close to "traditional values" groups, like Family Research Council, because she is strongly anti-choice Marriage and Relationship Recognition.
Palin told the Anchorage Daily News that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment on marriage.
In addition, she told the Daily News that she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to the domestic partners of public employees, which were ordered by an October 2005 decision of the Alaska Supreme Court, because, she said "honoring the family structure is that important."
While she followed the Court's decision and he also signed legislation –her first legislative act as Governor of Alaska—to put the issue on the April 2007 ballot for a nonbinding advisory vote. This was the only issue on the ballot and that election cost the state taxpayers $1.2 million. This measure passed, but the legislature did not follow the public's advice and it chose not to take any further action to overturn the court's decision. · She did, however, veto legislation passed by the state legislature in 2006 that would have prohibited providing DP benefits to state workers, in defiance of the Alaska Supreme Court's ruling. She did this after the Supreme Court had already ruled and the Attorney General (Republican) advised her that the legislation was unconstitutional. Palin went on to state that, as a matter of policy, she was in favor of the bill. She will be honored alongside anti-gay Representative Michelle Bachman (R-MN) at an event at the 2008 Republican Convention, the "Life of the Party," sponsored in part by long-time opponent of GLBT rights, Phyllis Schlafly."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AS RELATED BY THE HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION

"Back when Barack Obama was considering Kathleen Sebelius as his Vice President, many irate Hillary Clinton supporters cried foul. They saw Sebelius as a second-rate version of their candidate, and hinted that such a move would be a crass, calculated attempt to woo disaffected women back into the big tent.
Well, considering that Sarah Palin, John McCain's apparent choice for VP, has far less experience than either Obama or Sebelius, and much, much less than Clinton, one wonders whether selecting a woman with zero foreign policy experience will help lure the gender toward the would-be commander-in-chief.
AOL NEWS

"On his 72nd birthday, is this really the one-heartbeat-away he wants to put in the White House?"  Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
WASHINGTON TIMES